'Tis ten a clock and past; all whom the mues, Baloun, or tennis, diet, or the stews

Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready, that day, in flocks are found
In the Presence, and I (God pardon me)

As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
Their fields they sold to buy them. For a king
Those hose are, cry the flatterers; and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell.

Wants reach all states: me seems they do as well
At stage, as courts; all are players. Whoe'er looks
(For themselves dare not go) o'er Cheapside books
Shall find their wardrobes' inventory. Now
The ladies come. As pirates (which do know
That there came weak ships fraught with Cut-

chanel)

The men board them; and praise (as they think)

well,

Their beauties; they the men's wits; both are

bought.

Why good wits ne'er wear scarlet gowns, I thought

NOTES.

Ver. 213. At Fig's, at White's,] White's was a noted gaminghouse: Fig's, a prize-fighter's academy, where the young nobility received instruction in those days: it was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate.

Pope.

Ver. 218. "That's velvet] Much superior to the original in brevity and elegance: the next line is a stricture on the act for licensing plays, which about this time occasioned great debates in the House of Lords, and a very spirited and remarkable speech of Lord Chesterfield in behalf of play-writers: "Wit,” said he, "my Lords, is the property of those who have it; and very often

See! where the British youth, engaged no more
At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a whore,
Pay their last duty to the court, and come
All fresh and fragrant to the drawing-room; 215
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,

As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.
"That's velvet for a king?" the flatterer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be king Lear's.
Our Court may justly to our stage give rules, 220
That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools.
And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes?
For these are actors too, as well as those :
Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest,
And all is splendid poverty at best.

225

Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell, Like frigates fraught with spice and cochine'l, Sail in the ladies: how each pirate eyes

So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!

NOTES.

the only property they have. Thank Heaven, my Lords, we are otherwise provided for." The first play that was prohibited by this act, was Gustavus Vasa, by Brooke; the next was the Edward and Eleonora of Thomson.

Warton.

Ver. 220. our stage give rules,] Alluding to the authority of the Lord Chamberlain. Warburton.

Ver. 227. Like frigates fraught] Here is a very close resemblance to the picture of Dulilah, in Samson Agonistes:

This cause, These men, men's wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all red which scarlets dye.
He call'd her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net:
She fears her drugs ill-lay'd, her hair loose set.
Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe, himself at door refine,
As if the Presence were a Mosque and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confess not only mortal

Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate:
And then by Durer's rules survey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waste to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes, and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety

As a young preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady which owes
Him not so much as good-will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests,

NOTES.

Ver. 240. by Durer's rules,] The best painter Germany ever produced; he was patronized and beloved by Maximilian I. and by Charles V., and, what was of more consequence to an artist, by Raphael himself, who sent him several designs, and his own portrait. He formed himself on no other painter, had a manner of his own, which indeed was hard; he wanted grace, and had not studied the antique, and copied only common nature and the forms before him. He attended not to costume. His Madonnas were dressed like German ladies, and his Jews had beards and mustachios. See a most judicious criticism on the works and talents

of

Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim,

230

He boarding her, she striking sail to him:
"Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to
hit!"

And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!"
Such wits and beauties are not praised for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought. 235
'Twould burst even Heraclitus with the spleen,
To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin:
The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The Mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pagod.
See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, 240
Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;
But oh! what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole;.
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey-tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,

245

They march to prate their hour before the fair.
So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes,250
With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.

Let but the Ladies smile, and they are blest:
Prodigious! how the things protest, protest: 255

of Albert Durer, by a living painter of great genius and learning, Mr. Fuseli, in the third volume of that entertaining publication, intitled, Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, p. 234. - Warton.

So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten cardinals into the Inquisition;

And whispers by Jesu so oft, that a
Pursuevant would have ravish'd him away
For saying our Lady's Psalter. But 'tis fit
That they each other plague, they merit it.
But here comes Glorious that will plague them
both,

Who in the other extreme only doth

Call a rough carelessness, good fashion :

Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him; he rushes in, as if Arm, arm,

He meant to cry; and though his face be as ill
As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe;
Just like a licens'd fool, commands like law.

Tyr'd, now I leave this place, and but pleas'd so As men from gaols to execution go,

Go through the great chamber (why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?) being among

NOTES.

Ver. 256. or Gonson] Sir John Gonson, the famous police magistrate, was as celebrated in his day, in the annals of justice, as one of his successors in office, Sir John Fielding, has been since. His portrait is introduced in Hogarth's Harlot's Progress.

Bowles.

Ver. 262. The Captain's honest,] Much resembling Noll Bluff, in Congreve's Old Bachelor, who was copied from Thraso, and also from Ben Jonson. Warton.

Ver. 273. As men from jails] A line so smooth that our author thought proper to adopt it from the original. There are many such, as I have before observed, which shew, that if Donne had

taken