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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:
Wouldn't 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' 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

So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes,
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 bless'd:
Prodigious! how the things protest! protest!
Peace, fools, or Gonson will for papist seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!

Nature made every fop to plague his brother,
Just as one beauty mortifies another.

But here's the captain that will plague thern both,
Whose air cries, Arm! whose very look's an oath :
The captain's honest, sirs, and that's enough,
Though his soul's bullet and his body buff.
He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
Like battering rams, beats open every door;
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hangdogs in old tapestry,

Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
As yet a strange ambition to look worse:
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude by awe,
Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from jails to execution go;
For hung with deadly sins I see the wall,
And lined with giants deadlier than them all:
Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss
For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.
Scared at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly,
And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.

Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine;
Charge them with heaven's artillery, bold divine!
From such alone the great rebukes endure,
Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure;
"Tis mine to wash a few light stains; but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears.
Howe'er, what's now Apocrapha, my wit,
In time to come may pass for Holy Writ.

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,

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,

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But here comes Glorious that will plague 'em 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 ;
Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.

Tired, now, I leave this place, and but pleased so As men from goals to execution go,

Go, through the great chamber (why is it hung
With these seven deadly sins?) being among
Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw
Charing-cross, for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth, but queens man, and fine
Living; barrels of beef, flaggons of wine.
I shook like a spied spy-Preachers which are
Seas of wit and art, you can, then dare,
Drown the sins of this place, but as for me
Which am but a scant brook, enough shall be
To wash the stains away: although I yet
(With Maccabees' modesty) the known merit
Of
my
work lessen, yet some wise men shall,
I hope, esteem my writs Canonical.

187

EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES,

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.

DIALOGUE I.

Fr. Nor twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,
And when it comes the court sees nothing in't.
You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
And are besides, too moral for a wit.

Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel-
Why now, this moment, don't I
see you steal?

'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said, Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;
And taught his Romans in much better metre,
To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.
But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes, he lash'd no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown,
Blunt could do business, Higgins knew the town;
In Sappho touch the fatlings of the sex,
In reverend bishops note some small neglects,
And own the Spaniards did a waggish thing,
Who cropp'd our ears, and sent, them to the king.
His sly, polite insiuuating style

Could please at court, and make Augustus smile:
An artful manager, that crept between

His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.
But faith
your very friends will soon be sore;
Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more--

Vor. II.

2 B

And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought
The great man never offer'd you a groat.
Go see Sir Robert-

P. See Sir Robert!-hum-
And never laugh-for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in bis happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power;
Seen him, uncumber'd with a venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,

He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs no doubt:
The only difference is I dare laugh out.

F. Why, yes: with Scripture still you may be free; A horse-laugh, if you please at honesty ;

A joke on Jekyll, or some odd old Whig?
Who never changed his principle, or wig;
A patriot is a fool in every age,

Whom all lord chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts! they keep their fashion still,
And wear their strange old virtue as they will.

If any ask you,' Who's the man so near
His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear ?.
Why answer, Lyttleton: and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage:
But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not, honest Fleury,
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.

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