POSTSCRIPT.
ALL this with indignation have I hurl'd,
At the pretending part of the proud world,
Who, fwoln with felfifh vanity, devife
Falfe freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lyes,
Over their fellow-flaves to tyrannize.
But if in court fo juft a man there be,
(In court a juft man, yet unknown to me)
Who does his needful flattery direct,
Not to opprefs and ruin, but protect;
Since flattery, which way foever laid,
Is ftill a tax on that unhappy trade;
If fo upright a ftatefman you can find,
Whofe paffions bend to his unbias'd mind;
Who does his arts and policies apply,
To raife his country, not his family.
Is there a mortal who on God relies?
Whofe life his faith and doctrine juftifies?
Not one blown up with vain afpiring pride,
Who, for reproof of fins, does man deride:
Whofe envious heart with faucy eloquence,
Dares chide at kings, and rail at men of fenfe:
Who in his talking vents more peevish lyes,
More bitter railings, fcandals, calumnies,
Than at a golfiping are thrown about,
When the good wives drink free, and then fall out.
None of the fenfual tribe, whofe talents lic
In avarice, pride, in floth, and gluttony;
Who hunt preferment, but abhor good lives,
Whofe luft exalted to that height arrives,
They act adultery with their own wives;
And, ere a fcore of years completed be,
Can from the lofty ftage of honour fee,
Half a large parifh their own progeny.
Nor doating
who would be ador'd,
For domineering at the council board,
A greater fop, in bufincfs at fourfcore,
Fonder of ferious toys, affected more,
Than the gay glittering fool at twenty proves,
With all his noife, his tawdry cloaths, and loves.
But a meck humble man of modeft fenfe,
Who, preaching peace, does practise continence;
Whofe pious life's a proof he does believe
Myfterious truths, which no man can conceive.
If upon earth there dwell fach godlike men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them;
Adore thofe fhrines of virtue, homage pay,
And, with the thinking world, their laws obey,
if fuch there are, yet grant me this at leaft,
Man differs more from man, than man from
With tales like thefe I will fuch heat infpire,
As to important mifchief fhall incline;
I'll make him long fome ancient church to fire,
And fear no lewdnefs they're call'd to by wine.
XI.
Thus ftatefman-like I'll faucily impose,
And, fafe from danger, valiantly advife; Shelter'd in impotence urge you to blows, And, being good for nothing else, be wife.
Devouring Time 1wallows us whole,
Impartial Death confounds body and foul.
For hell, and the foul fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery gaols,
Devis'd by rogues, dreaded by fools,
With his grim grifly dog that keeps the door,
Are fenfelefs ftorics, idle tales,
Dreams, whimfies, and no more.
Then a young daughter loft, yet balfam found
To ftanch that new and freshly-bleeding wound;
And, after this, with fixt and steady eyes
Beheld your noble Gloucefter's obfequies.
And then fuftain'd the royal Princess' fall;
You only can lament her funeral.
But you will hence remove, and leave behind
Our fad complaints loft in the empty wind;
Those winds that bid you ftay, and loudly roar
Destruction, and drive back to the firm fhore;
Shipwreck to fafety, and the envy fly
Of fharing in this fcene of tragedy:
While ficknefs, from whose rage you post away,
Relents, and only now contrives your stay;
The lately fatal and infectious ill
Courts the fair princefs, and forgets to kill:
In vain on fevers curfes we difpenfe,
And vent our paffion's angry eloquence:
In vain we blaft the minifters of Fate,
And the forlorn physicians imprecate;
VIRTUE's triumphant shrine! who doft en- Say they to death new poifons add and fire,
At once three kingdoms in a pilgrimage:
Which in extatic duty ftrive to come
Qut of themselves, as well as from their home;
Whilft England grows one camp, and London is
Itfelf the nation, not metropolis,
And loyal Kent renews her arts again, Fencing her ways with moving groves of men; Forgive this diftant homage, which does meet Your bleft approach on fedentary feet; And though my youth, not patient yet to bear The weight of arms, denies me to appear In steel before you; yet, great Sir, approve My manly wishes, and more vigorous love; In whom a cold refpect were treason to A father's athes, greater than to you; Whofe one ambition 't is for to be known, By daring loyalty, your Wilmot's fon. Wadh. Coll.
Murder fecurely for reward and hire;
Arts bafilifks, that kill whome'er they fee,
And truly write bills of mortality,
Who, left the bleeding corpfe fhould them betray,
First drain those vital fpeaking ftreams away.
And will you, by your flight, take part with
Become yourself a third and new disease?
If they have caus'd our lofs, then fo have you,
Who take yourself and the fair princess too :
For we, depriv'd, an equal damage have
When France doth ravish hence, as when the
But that your choice th' unkindness doth improve, And dereliction adds to your remove.
ROCHESTER, of Wadham College.
got, "That 't is ftill better to be pleas'd than not ;" And therefore never their own torment plot. While the malicious Critics ftill agree
To loath each play they come and pay to fee. The first know 'tis a meaner part of sense To find a fault, than taite an excellence :
RESPITE, great queen, your juft and hafty Therefore they praife, and strive to like, while
There's no infection lodges in our tears.
Though our unhappy air be arm'd with death,
Yet fighs have an untainted guiltless breath.
Oh! ftay a while, and teach your equal skill
To understand, and to support our ill.
You that in mighty wrongs an age have spent,
And seem to have out-liv'd ev'n banishment:
Whom traiterous mifchief fought its earliest prey,
When to moft facred blood it made its way;
And did thereby its black design impart,
To take his head, that wounded firft his heart:
You that unmov'd great Charles's ruin stood,
When three great nations funk beneath the load;
Are dully vain of being hard to please.
Poets and women have an equal right
To hate the dull, who, dead to all delight,
Feel pain alone, and have no joy but spight.
'Twas impotence did firft this vice begin;
Fools cenfure wit, as old men rail at fin:
Who envy pleasure which they cannot taste,
And, good for nothing, would be wife at last.
Since therefore to the women it appears,
That all the enemies of wit are theirs,
Our poet the dull herd no longer fears.
Whate'er his fate may prove, 'twill be his pride
To stand or fall with beauty on his fide.
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TELL, Sir, 't is granted; I faid Dryden's
rhymes
Were ftolen, unequal, nay dull many times:
What foolish patron is there found of his,
So blindly partial to deny me this?
But that his plays, embroider'd up and down
With wit and learning, juftly pleas'd the town,
In the fame paper I as freely own.
Yet, having this allow'd, the heavy mass
That stuffs up his loofe volumes, must not pafs;
For by that rule I might as well admit
Crown's tedious fcenes for poetry and wit.
"Tis therefore not enough, when your falfe fenfe,
Hits the falfe judgment of an audience
Of clapping fools affembling, a vast croud,
Till the throng'd playhouse crack'd with the dull
load;
Though ev'n that talent merits, in fome fort,
That can divert the rabble and the court,
Which blundering Settle never could obtain,
And puzzling Otway labours at in vain :
But within due proportion circumfcribe
Whate'er you write, that with a flowing tide
The ftyle may rife, yet in its rife forbear
With ufclefs words t' opprefs the weary'd ear.
Here be your language lofty, there more light,
Your rhetoric with your poetry unite.
For elegance fake, fometimes allay the force
Of epithets, 'twill foften the difcourie :
A jeft in fcorn points out and hits the thing
More home, than the remoteft fatire's fting.
Shakespeare and Jonfon did in this excel,
And might herein be imitated well,
Whom refin'd Etherege copies not at all,
But is himself a fheer original,
Not that flow dredge in fwift Pindaric trains,
Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains,
And rides a jaded Mufe, whipt, with loofe
When Lee makes temperate Scipio fret and rave,
And Hannibal a whining amorous flave,
I laugh, and wifh the hot-brain'd fuftian fool
In Bufby's hands, to be well lafh'd at school.
Of all our modern wits, none feem to me
Once to have touch'd upon true comedy,
But hafty Shadw. II, and flow Wycherley.
Shadwell's unfinish'd works do yet impart
Great proofs of force of nature, none of art;
With just bold ftrokes he dashes here and there,
Showing great maftery with little care,
Scorning to varnish his good touches o'er,
To make the fools and women praise them more.
But Wycherley earns hard whate'er he gains,
He wants no judgment, and he fpares no pains:
He frequently excels, and, at the leaft,
Makes fewer faults than any of the reft.
Waller, by Nature for the Bays defign'd,
With force and fire, and fancy unconfia'd,
In panegyric does excel mankind.
He beft can turn, enforce, and foften things,
To praife great conquerors, and flatter kings.
For pointed fatire I would Buckhurst choofe,
The belt good man, with the worst-natur'd Mufe.Y
For fongs and verfes mannerly obscene,
That can ftir Nature up by fprings unfeen,
| And, without forcing blushes, warm the queen ;)
Sedley has that prevailing gentle art,
That can with a refiillefs power impart
The leolett wishes to the chafteft heart,
Raife fuch a conflict, kindle fuch a fire,
Betwixt declining virtue and defire,
Till the poor vanquifh'd maid diffolves away,
In dreams all night, in fighs and tears all day.
Dryden in vain try'd this nice way of wit;
For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit
To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob,
And thus he got the name of Poet Squab.
But, to be jut, 't will to his praise be found,
His excellencies more than faults abound:
Nor dare I from his facred temples tear
The laurel, which he beft deferves to wear.
But does not Dryden find even Jonfon dul!?
Beaumont and Fletcher uncorrect, and full
Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakespeare &
Avle
Stiff and affected? To his own the while
Allowing all the juftice that his pride
So arrogantly had to these deny'd?
And may not I have leave impartially
To fearch and cenfure Dryden's works, and try
If thofe grofs faults his choice pen doth commit
Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit?
Or if his lumpith fancy does refufe
Spirit and grace to his loofe fattern Mufe?
Five hundred verf.s every morning writ,
Prove him no more a poet than a wit:
Such fcribbling authors have been feen before; }
Mustapha, the island Princefs, forty more,
Were things perhaps compos'd in half an hour.
To write what may fecurely ftand the teft
Of being well read over thrice at leaf;
Compare each phrafe, examine every line,
Weigh every word, and every thought refine;
Scorn all applaufe the vile rout can bestow,
And be content to pleafe thofe few who know.
Canft thou be fuch a vain miitaken thing,
To wish thy works might make a play-houfe rig
With the unthinking laughter and poor praile
Of fops and ladics, factious for thy plays?
Then fend a cunning friend to learn thy doom
From the fhrewd judges in the drawing-room.
I've no ambition on that idle fcore,
But fay with Betty Morice heretofore,
When a court lady call'd her Buckhurst's whore;
I please one man of wit, am proud on't too,
Let all the cexcombs dance to bed to you.
Should I be troubled when the Purblind Knight,)
Who fquints more in his judgment than his fight,
Picks filly faults, and cenfures what I write?
The fame probably who is celebrated by Lord Buckhurst (or Dorfer) in his Poems. Sec Ge Mag. 1780, p. 218.
Or when the poor-fed poets of the town
For fcabs and coach-room cry my verses down?
I loath the rabble; 'tis enough for me
If Sedley, Shadwell, Shephard, Wycherley,
Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
And fome few more, whom I omit to name,
Approve my fenfe. I count their cenfure fame.
Sir Car Scrope, who thought himself reflected on at the latter end of the preceding Poem, published a Poem "In Defence of Satire," which occafioned the following Reply.
TO SIR CAR SCROPE.
Orack and torture thy unmeaning brain,
In thee was most impertinent and vain.
When in thy perfon we more clearly fee
That fatire's of divine authority,
For God made one on man when he made thee;
To fhew there were fome men, as there are apes,
Fram'd for meer fport, who differ but in fhapes:
In thee are all thefe contradictions join'd,
That make an afs prodigious and refin'd.
A lump deform'd and shapelefs wert thou born,
Begot in Love's defpight and Nature's fcorn;
And art grown up the moit ungrateful wight,
Harfh to the ear, and hideous to the fight;
Yet Love's thy bufinefs, Beauty thy delight.
Curfe on that filly hour that first infpir'd
Thy madness, to pretend to be admir'd;
To paint thy grilly face, to dance, to dress,
And all thofe aukward follies that exprefs
Thy loathfome love, and filthy daintinels.
Who needs wilt be an ugly Beau-Garçon,
Spit at, and fhunn'd by every girl in town;
Where dreadfully Love's feare-crow thou art
plac'd,
To fright the tender flock that long to taste :
While every coming maid, when you appear,
Starts back for fhame, and ftraight turns chafte
For none fo poor or prostitute have prov'd,
Where you made love, t' endure to be belov'd.
Twere labour loft, or elfe i would advife;
But thy half-wit will ne'er let thee be wife,
Half witty, and half mad, and fearce half brave,
Half honeft (which is very much a knave)
Made up of all thefe halves, thou canst not pass
For any thing entirely, but an Afs,
Now to machines and a dull mask you run;
We find that wit's the monfter you would fhun,
And by my troth 'tis most discreetly done.
For fince with vice and folly wit is fed,
Through mercy 'tis moft of you are not dead,
Players turn puppets now at your defire,
In their mouth's nonfenfe, in their tail's a wire,
They fly through crouds of clouts and showers
A kind of lofing Loadum is their game,
Where the worit writer has the greatest fame.
To get vile plays like theirs fhall be our care;
But of fuch aukward actors we despair.
Falle taught at first-
Like bowls ill-biafs'd, ftill the more they run,
They're further off than when they first begun.
In comedy their unweigh'd action mark,
There's one is fuch a dear familiar fpark,
He yawns as if he were but half awake,
And fribbling for free-fpeaking does mistake;
Falfe accent and negle&ful action too:
They have both fo nigh good, yet neither true,
That both together, like an ape's mock-face,
By near refembling man, do man disgrace.
Thorough-pac'd ill actors may, perhaps, be cur'd;
Half players, like half wits, can't be endur'd.
Yet thefe are they, who durft expofe the age
Of the great wonder of the English ftage;
Whom Nature feem'd to form for your delight,
And bid him fpeak, as she bid Shakespeare write.
Thofe blades indeed are cripples in their art,
Mimic his foot, but not his fpeaking part.
Let them the Traitor or Volpone try,
Could they-
Rage like Cethegus, or like Caffius die,
They ne'er had fent to Paris for fuch fancies,
As monsters heads and Merry-Andrew's dances.
Wither'd, perhaps, not perifh'd, we appear;
But they are blighted, and ne'er came to bear.
Th' old poets drefs'd your mistress Wit before;
Thefe draw you on with an old painted whore,
And fell, like bawds, patch'd plays for maidst
Yet they may fcorn our house and ctors too,
Since they have fwell'd fo high to hector you.
They cry, Pox o' thefe Covent-Garden men,
Damn them, not one of them but keeps out ten.
Were they once gone, we for those thundering
blades
Should have an audience of fubftantial trades,
Who love our muzzled boys and tearing fellows,
My Lord, great Neptune, and great nephew
olus.
O how the merry citizen's in love
Pfyche, the goddess of each field and grove.
He cries, l' faith, methinks 'tis well enough;
But you roar out and cry, "Tis all damn'd ftuff!
So to their house the graver fops repair,
While men of wit find one another here.
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