Unfight, unfeen, espouse a fide At random, like a prince's bride, To damn their fouls, and swear and lye for, A godly man, that has ferv'd out his time 25 In holiness, may fet up any crime; As scholars, when they've taken their degrees, Why should not piety be made, And in a congregation pray, No less than Chancery, for pay? All writers, though of different fancies, Do make all people in romances, That are diftrefs'd and difcontent, Make fongs, and fing t' an inftrument, But only want and discontent. 30 35 40 In foreign universities, When a king's born, or weds, or dies, And all apply to poetry: Some write in Hebrew, fome in Greek, And fome, more wise, in Arabic, And feem more learnedish than those As well as ftanding and degrees, He ftill writes better than the rest, What makes all fubjects discontent That neither th' other can abide, 65 79 But too much reason on each fide No court allows thofe partial interlopers Of Law and Equity, two fingle paupers, T'encounter hand to hand, and trounce Each other gratis in a fuit at once: For one at one time, and upon free coft, is Enough to play the knave and fool with justice; And, when the one fide bringeth custom in, And th' other lays out half the reckoning, The devil himself will rather chufe to play At paltry small game than fit out, they say; But when at all there's nothing to be got, The old wife Law and Justice, will not trot. All fmatterers are more brifk and pert 75 80 85 As he that makes his mark is understood To fcribble what he does not understand, All the inventions that the world contains, 95 Were not by reason first found out, nor brains; But pass for theirs who had the luck to light Upon them by mistake or overfight. COOPERS HIL L. BY SIR JOHN DENHAM.* SURE there are poets which did never dream Those made not poets, but the poets thofe : And, as courts make not kings, but kings the court, So where the Mufes and their train resort, 6 10 Parnaffus ftands; if I can be to thee * Born 1615; died 1688. + Mr. Waller. 16 Now fhalt thou ftand, though fword, or time, or fire, And like a mist beneath a hill doth rife ; 25 Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd, No other in effect than what it seems: 30 Where, with like hafte, though feveral ways, they run, As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein Thence reconveys, there to be loft again. To be at once fecure, and innocent. 35 Windfor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells, 45 |