IQO

No Commentator can more sily pass
O’er a learn'd, unintelligible place;
Or, in quotation, shrewd Divines leave out
Those words, that would against them clear the doubt.

So Luther thought the Pater-nofter long,
When doom'd to say his beads and Even song; 105
But having cast his cowle, and left those laws,
Adds to Christ's pray’r, the Pow'r and Glory clause.

The lands are bought; but where are to be found Those ancient woods, that shaded all the ground? We see no new-built palaces aspire, No kitchens emulate the veftal fire. Where are those troops of Poor, that throng'd of yore The good old landlord's hospitable door? Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes

IIG Some beasts were kill'd, tho' not whole hecatombs ; That both extremes were banish'd from their walls, Carthufian fafts, and fulsome Bacchanals; And all mankind might that juft Mean observe, In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve. These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow; But oh! these works are not in fashion now: Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare, Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence ; Let no Court Sycophant pervert my sense, 125 Norfly Informer watch these words to draw Within the reach of Treason, or the Law.

120

S A TIRE IV.
ELL; I may now receive, and die. My fin

;

Indeed is great, but yet I have been in A Purgatory, such as fear'd hell is

A recreation, and scant map of this.

My mind, neither with pride's itch, nor hath been Poyron'd with love to see or to be seen, I had no suit there, nor new suit to show, Yet went to Court; but as Glare which did go To Mass in jeft, catch’d, was fain to disburse Two hundred markes, which is the Statutes curfe,

Notes.
VER. 1. Well, if it be etc.] Donne says,

Well; I may now receive and die. which is very indecent language on so ludicrous an occaHon.

VER. 3. I die in charity with fool and knave,] We vezily think he did. But of the immediate cause of his doparture hence there is some small difference between his Friends and Enemies. His family suggests that a general decay of nature, which had been long coming on, ended with a Droply in the breaft, enough to have killed-Hercules. The Gentlemen of the Dunciad maintain, that ke

IV.

!

S. A TIRE

ELL, if it be my time to quit the ftage,
WA

Adieu to all the follies of the age !
I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my Purgatory here betimes,

5
And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.
The Poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and Aames,
To this were trifles, toys and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fir'd,
Nor the vain itch t'admire, or be admir'd; 10
I hop'd for no commission from his Grace;
I bought no benefice, I begg’d no place;
Had no new verses, nor new suit to fhow;
Yet went to Court !--the Dev'l would have it fo.
But, as the Fool that in reforming days

15 Wou'd to Mass in jest (as story says)

Notes. fell by the keen pen of our redoubtable Laureat. We ourselves Thould be inclined to this latter opinion, for the fake of ornamenting his ftory; for it would be a fine thing for his Historian to be able to say, that he died, like his immortal namesake, Alexander the Great, by a drug of lo deadly cold a nature, that, as Plutarch and other grave writers tell us, it could be contained in nothing but the Scull of an Ass. SCRIBL.

VER. 7. The Poet's hell] He has here with great prudence corrected the licentious expression of his Original,

Before he scap'd; fo it pleas'd my destiny
(Guilty of my sin of going) to think me
As prone to all.ill, and of good as forget-
full, as proud, luftfull, and as much in debt,
As vain, as witless, and as false, as they
Which dwell in Court, for once going that way.

Therefore I suffer'd this; towards me did run
A thing more strange, than on Nile's flime the Sun
E’er bred, or all which into Noah's Ark came:
A thing which would have pos'd Adam to name:
Stranger than seven Antiquaries studies,
Than Africk Monsters, Guianaes rarities,
Stranger than strangers a: one who, for a Dane,
In the Danes Massacre had sure been sain,
If he had liv'd then; and without help dies,
When next the Prentices 'gainst strangers rise ;
One whom the watch at noon lets scarce go by;
One, to whom the examining Justice sure would cry,
Sir, by your Priesthood tell me what you are?
His cloaths were strange, tho' coarse, and black,

though bare, Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been Velvet, but 'twas now (fo much ground was feen) Become Tufftaffaty; and our children shall See it plain rafh a while, then nought at all.

Notes. a This is ill expressed, for it only means, he would be re stared at chan Strangers are.

}

Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,
Since 'twas no form’d design of serving God;
So was I punish’d, as if full as proud
As prone to ill, as negligent of good,

20
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,
As vain, as idle, and as false, as they
Who live at Court, for going once that way!
Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold! there came
A thing which Adam had been pos'd to name; 25
Noah had refus'd it lodging in his Ark,
Where all the Race of Reptiles might embark:
A verier monster, than on Africk's shore
The sun e'er got, or flimy Nilus bore,
Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain,
Nay, all that lying Travellers can feign.

31
The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,
At night, wou'd swear him dropt out of the Moon.
One whom the mob, when next we find or make
A popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take,

35
And the wise Justice starting from his chair
Cry, By your Priesthood tell me what you are?

Such was the wight: Th’ apparel on his back
Tho' coarse, was rev'rend, and tho' bare, was black:
The suit, if by the fashion one might guess, 40
Was velvet in the youth of good Queen Bess,
But mere tuff-taffety what now remain’d;
So Time, that changes all things, had ordain'd!