I neither strut with ev'ry fav’ring breath, 300 : “ But why all this of Av'rice? I have none.” Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov’d, and eat, and drank your Walk fober off; before a sprightlier age Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage: Leave fuch to trifle with more grace and ease, 326 Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please. Notes. Imitator is only for removing the false terrors from the world of spirits, such as the diablerie of witchcraft and purgatory fil: Quid vetat et nofmet Lucili fcripta legentes Hor. SAT I R E II. SR IR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate Perfectly all this town; yet there's one ftate In all ill things so excellently best; That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the rest. Though Poetry, indeed, be such a fin, As, I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in : Though like the pestilence, and old-fashion'd love, Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove Never, till it be ftarv'd out ; yet their state Is s poor, disarm’d, like Papists, not worth hate. One (like a wretch, which at barre judg’d as dead, Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read, And saves his life) gives Idiot Actors means, (Starving himself) to live by's labour'd scenes. As in some Organs, Puppits dance above And bellows pant bellow, which them do move. One would move love by rythmes; but witchcraft's charms Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms"; SA TIRE II. YE ES; thank my stars! as early as I knew This Town, I had the sense to hate it too: 5 As who knows Sapho, smiles at other whores. I grant that Poetry's a crying fin; It brought (no doubt) th’ Excise and Army in: Catch'd like the Plague, or Love, the Lord knows how, But that the cure is starving, all allow. 10 Yet like the Papist's, is the Poet's state, Poor and disarm’d, and hardly worth your hate! Here a lean Bard, whose wit could never give Himself a dinner, makes an Actor live: The Thief condemn'd, in law already dead, IS So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read. Thus as the pipes of some carvid Organ move, The gilded puppets dance and mount above. Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow: Th' inspiring bellows lie and pant below. 20 Onc fings the Fair; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love: * O |