But slides between them both into the best, Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest:
And though the climate, vex'd with various winds, Works, through our yielding bodies, on our minds, The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds, To recommend the calmness that succeeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts, O crooked soul, and serpentine in arts! Whose blandishments a loyal land have whor'd, And broke the bonds she plighted to her lord; What curses on thy blasted name will fall! Which age to age their legacy shall call; For all must curse the woes that must descend on all.
Religion thou hast none; thy Mercury
Has past through every sect, or theirs through thee: But what thou giv'st, that venom still remains, And the pox'd nation feels thee in their brains. What else inspires the tongues, and swells the breasts Of all thy bellowing renegado priests,
That preach up thee for God; dispense thy laws; And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause; Fresh fumes of madness raise, and toil and sweat To make the formidable cripple great?
Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless pow'r Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour, Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be; Thy god and theirs will never long agree. For thine (if thou hast any) must be one That lets the world and human-kind alone; A jolly god, that passes hours too well To promise heav'n, or threaten us with hell: That unconcern'd can at rebellion sit, And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant theirs; the heav'n their priesthood paints A conventicle of gloomy sullen saints;
A heav'n, like bedlam, slovenly and sad, Foredoom'd for souls with false religion mad. Without a vision poets can foreshow
What all but fools, by common sense, may know: If true succession from our isle should fail, And crowds profane with impious arms prevail; Not thou, nor those thy factious arts engage, Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage, With which thou flatter'st thy decrepit age. The swelling poison of the several sects, Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects, Shall burst its bag: and, fighting out their way, The various venoms on each other prey. The Presbyter, puft up with spiritual pride, Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride, His brethren damn, the civil power defy, And parcel out republic-prelacy:
But short shall be his reign; his rigid yoke And tyrant power will puny sects provoke; And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train, Will croak to Heav'n for help from this devouring
The cut-throat Sword and clamorous Gown shall jar, In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war:
Chiefs shall be grudg'd the part which they pre
Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend About their impious merit shall contend. The surly Commons shall respect deny, And justle Peerage out with property. Their General either shall his trust betray, And force the crowd to arbitrary sway;
Or they suspecting his ambitious aim,
In hate of kings, shall cast anew the frame, And thrust out Collatine that bore their name. Thus inborn broils the factions would engage, Or wars of exil'd heirs, or foreign rage, Till halting Vengeance overtook our age: And our wild labours, wearied into rest, Reclin❜d us on a rightful monarch's breast.
-Pudet hac opprobria vobis
Et dici potnisse, et non potuisse refelli.
ALL human things are subject to decay, And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecnoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire, and had govern❜d long; In prose and verse was own'd, without dispute, Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute. This aged prince, now flourishing in peace, And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with business, did at length debate To settle the succession of the state; And, pondering which of all his sons was fit To reign, and wage immortal war with Wit, Cried 'Tis resolv'd; for Nature pleads that he Should only rule who most resembles me. Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dulness from his tender years; Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity: The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through, and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day. Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye, And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty;
Thoughtless as monarch-oaks that shade the plain, And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign. Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee, Thon last great prophet of Tautology. Ev'n I, a dunce of more renown than they, Was sent before but to prepare thy way; And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came To teach the nations in thy greater name. My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung, When to King John of Portugal 1 sung, Was but the prelude to that glorious day, When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way, With well-tim'd oars before the royal barge, Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge; And big with hymn, commander of an host, The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost. Methinks I see the new Arion sail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. At thy well-sharpen'd thumb from shore to shore The Trebles squeak for fear, the Basses roar : Echoes from Pissing Alley Shadwell call, And Shadwell they resound from Aston Hall. About thy boat the little fishes throng, As at the morning toast that floats along. Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand. St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time, Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme; Though they in number as in sense excel; So just, so like tautology, they fell, That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore The lute and sword which he in triumph bore, And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.'
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