S A T I R E II. SIR;

IR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate

Perfectly all this town; yet there's one state In all ill things, so excellently best, That hate towards them, breeds pitytowards 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 starv'd out; yet their state

Is 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 faves 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 below, which them do move.

SAT I R E II.

YES

ES; thank

my stars! as early as I knew This Town, I had the sense to hate it too: Yet here, as ev’n in Hell, there must be still One Giant-Vice, so excellently ill, That all beside, one pities, not abhors; 5 As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

I grant that Poetry's a crying sin; 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. IO 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,

15 So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read. Thus as the pipes of some carv'd 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

One would move love by rythmes; but witchcraft's

charms
Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms;
Rams, and flings now are filly battery,
Pistolets are the best artillery,
And they who write to Lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'scuse for writing, and for writing ill.

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Others wits fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spue,
As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis true,

,
For if one eat my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, the excrement's his own.
But these do me no harm, nor they which use,

to out-usure Jews,
T'outdrink the sea, t’out-swear the Letanie,
Who with sins all kinds as familiar be
As Confessors, and for whose sinful fake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;

One sings the Fair; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love: In love's, in nature's spite, the fiege they hold, And scorn the flesh, the dev'l, and all but gold.

These write to Lords, some mean reward to get, As needy beggars sing at doors for meat. 26 Those write because all write, and so have still Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others wit:

30 'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before, His rank digestion makes it wit no more: Sense, past thro' him, no longer is the same ; For food digested takes another name.

I pass o’er all those Confessors and Martyrs, 35 Who live like S---tt---n, or who die like Chartres, Out-cant old Efdras, or out-drink his heir, Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-fwear ; Wicked as Pages, who in early years Act fins which Prisca's Confessor scarce hears.

40 Ev’n those I pardon, for whose sinful fake Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;

NOTES. invocations in the Letanie, called them the taking God's Name in vain, which is the Scripture periphrafis for swearing, VOL. IV.

S

a

Whose strange fins Canonists could hardly tell
In which Commandment's large receit they dwell..

But these punish themselves. The infolence
Of Cofcus, only, breeds my just offence,
Whom time (which rots all, and makes botches pox,
And plodding on, must make a calf an ox)
Hath made a Lawyer; which (alas) of late ;
But scarce a Poet: jollier of this state,
Than are new-benefic'd Ministers, he throws
Like nets or lime-twigs wherefoe'er he goes
His title of Barrister on ev'ry wench,
And wooes in language of the Pleas and Bench.**

Words, words which would tear The tender labyrinth of a Maid's soft ear: More, more than ten Sclavonians scolding, more Than when winds in our ruin'd Abbyes roar.

NOT E s. Ver. 44. In what Commandment's large contents they dwell.] The Original is more humourous,

In which Commandment's large recoit they dwell. As if the Ten Commandments were fo wide, as to stand ready to receive every thing within them, that either the Law of Na