Quid vetat et nofmet Lucili fcripta legentes
Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit
Verficulos natura magis factos, et euntes
Molius?

HOR.

S A T I R

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 pity towards the rest. Though Poetry, indeed, be such a sin, 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 saves 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 bellow, which them do move. One would move love by rythmes; but witchcraft's

charms Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms ;

S AT IR E II.

Y y

10

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, fo excellently ill,
That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sapho, 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.
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, IS
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.

One fings the Fair ; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:

* O

20

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 fingers 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 karm, nor they which use,

to out-usure Jews,
T'out-drink the sea, t'out-swear the Letanie,
Who with fins all kinds as familiar be
As Confeffors, and for whole finful fake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Whose strange sins Canonists could hardly tell
In which Commandment's large receit they dwell.

Notes. VER. 44. In what Commandment's large contents they drvell.] The Original is more humourous,

In vwhat Corrmandment's large recent they dwell. As if the Ten Commandments were so wide, as to stand ready

In love's, in nature's spite, the siege 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 fo 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
Adt sins which Prisca's Confeffor scarce hears.

40
Ev’n those I pardon, for whose sinful fake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Of whose strange crimes no Canonist can tell
In what Commandment's large contents they dwell.

Notes.

to receive every thing within thein, that either the Law Of Nature or che Gospel commands. A just ridicule on those practical Commentators, as they are called, who include all moral and religious Duties within them.

i