For Sense sits silent, and condemns for weaker
The finer, nay, sometimes, the wittiest speaker.
But 'tis prodigious, so much eloquence
Should be acquired by such little sense;
For words and wit did anciently agree,
And Tully was no fool, though this man be:
At bar abusive, on the bench unable,
Knave on the woolsack, fop at council-table.
These are the grievances of such foals as would
Be rather wise than honest, great than good.

Some other kind of wits must be made known,
Whose harmless errors hurt themselves alone;
Excess of luxury they think can please,
And laziness call loving of their ease:
To live dissolv'd in pleasures still they feign,
Though their whole life's but intermitting pain:
So much of surfeits, headachs, claps, are seen,
We scarce perceive the little time between :
Well-meaning men, who make this gross mistake,
And pleasure lose, only for pleasure's sake.
Each pleasure has its price, and when we pay
Too much of pain, we squander life away.

Thus Dorset, purring like a thoughtful cat, Married, but wiser puss ne'er thought of that: And first he worried her with railing rhyme, Like Pembroke's mastives, at his kindest time; Then for one night sold all his slavish life, A teeming widow, but a barren wife. Swell'd by contact of such a fulsome toad, He lugg'd about the matrimonial load, Till Fortune, blindly kind, as well as he, Has ill-restor'd him to his liberty; Which he would use in his old sneaking way, Drinking all night, and dọzing all the day;

Dull as Ned Howard, whom his brisker times
Had fam'd for dulness in malicious rhymes.

Mulgrave had much ado to 'scape the snare,
Though learn'd in all those arts that cheat the fair
For after all his vulgar marriage mocks,
With beauty dazzled, Numps was in the stocks;
Deluded parents dried their weeping eyes,
To see him catch his tartar for his prize;

The' impatient Town waited the wish'd-for change,
And cuckolds smil'd in hopes of sweet revenge;
Till Petworth plot made us with sorrow see,
As his estate, his person, too, was free:

Him no soft thoughts, no gratitude, could move;
To gold he fled from beauty and from love;
Yet failing there, he keeps his freedom still,
Forc'd to live happily against his will.

"Tis not his fault if too much wealth and power
Break not his boasted quiet every hour.
And little Sid 3. for simile renown'd,

Pleasure has always sought, but never found:
Though all his thoughts on wine and women fall,
His are so bad, sure he ne'er thinks at all.
The flesh he lives upon is rank and strong;
His meat and mistresses are kept too long:
But sure we all mistake this pious man,
Who mortifies his person all he can;
What we uncharitably take for sin,
Are only rules of this odd Capuchin;
For never hermit, under grave pretence,
Has liv'd more contrary to common sense;
And 'tis a miracle we may suppose,
No nastiness offends his skilful nose;

Sidney Godolphin probably.

Which from all stink can, with peculiar art,
Extract perfume and essence from a f-t:
Expecting supper is his great delight;

He toils all day but to be drunk at night;
Then o'er his cups this night-bird chirping sits,
Till he takes Hewet and Jack Hall 5 for wits.
Rochester I despise for want of wit,

Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet;
For while he mischief means to all mankind,
Himself alone the ill effects does find:
And so, like witches, justly suffers shame,
Whose harmless malice is so much the same.
False are his words, affected is his wit;
So often he does aim, so seldom hit;
To every face he cringes while he speaks,
But when the back is turn'd, the head he breaks:
Mean in each action, lew'd in every limb,
Manners themselves are mischievous in him:
A proof that Chance alone makes every creature,
A very Killigrew, without good nature.

For what a Bessus has he always liv'd,

And his own kickings notably contriv'd?
For, there's the folly that's still mix'd with fear,
Cowards more blows than any hero bear;
Of fighting sparks some may their pleasures say,
But 'tis a bolder thing to run away:

The world may well forgive him all his ill,
For every fault does prove his penance still:
Falsely he falls into some dangerous noose,
And then as meanly labours to get loose.

4 Probably Sir George, who was called beau Hewet. See Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 174.

Perhaps Jacob Hall, the famons rope-dancer. Granger.

See

A life so infamous is better quitting,
Spent in base injury and low submitting.
I'd like to have left out his poetry,
Forgot by all almost as well as me.
Sometimes he has some humour, never wit,
And if it rarely, very rarely, hit,

'Tis under so much nasty rubbish laid,
To find it out's the cinder-woman's trade,
Who for the wretched remnants of a fire,
Must toil all day in ashes and in mire.
So lewdly dull his idle works appear,

The wretched texts deserve no comments here;
Where one poor thought sometimes, left all alone,
For a whole page of dulness must atone.

How vain a thing is Man, and how unwise! E'en he, who would himself the most despise! I, who so wise and humble seem to be, Now my own vanity and pride can't see. While the world's nonsense is so sharply shown, We pull down others but to raise our own: That we may angels seem, we paint them elves, And are but satires to set up ourselves. I, who have all this while been tinding fault, E'en with my master, who first satire taught, And did by that describe the task so hard, It seems stupendous, and above reward, Now labour, with unequal force, to climb That lofty hill unreach'd by former time; 'Tis just that I should to the bottom fall, Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

RELIGIO LAICI;

OR,

A LAYMAN'S FAITH.

AN EPISTLE.

1682.

THE PREFACE.

A POEM with so bold a title, and a name prefixed, from which the handling of so serious a subject would not be expected, may reasonably oblige the Author to say somewhat in defence both of himself and of his undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected to me, that being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that, perhaps, laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things. But in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this; I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark; but wait on it, with the reverence