There fober thought purfu'd th' amufing theme,
Till Fancy colour'd it, and form'd a Dream.
A Vision hermits can to Hell transport,
And forc'd ev'n me to fee the damn'd at Court.
Not Dante dreaming all th' infernal state,
Beheld such scenes of envy, fin, and hate..
Base Fear becomes the guilty, not the free;
Suits Tyrants, Plunderers, but suits not me :
Shall I, the Terror of this finful town,
Care, if a liv'ry'd Lord or smile or frown?
Who cannot flatter, and deteft who can,
Tremble before a noble Serving-man?
O my fair mistress, Truth! fhall I quit thee
For huffing, braggart, puft Nobility?
Thou, who fince yesterday haft roll❜d o'er all
The bufy, idle blockheads of the ball,
Haft thou, oh Sun beheld an emptier fort,
Than fuch as fwell this bladder of a court?
Now pox on those who fhew a Court in wax!
It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs:
Such painted puppets! fuch a varnish'd race
Of hollow gew-gaws, only drefs and face!
VER. 188. There fober thought] These two lines are remarkable for the delicacy and propriety of the expreffion.
VER. 194. Bafe Fear] These four admirable lines become the high office he had affumed, and so nobly fuftained.
Taft have in them, ours are; and natural
Some of the ftocks are; their fruits baftard all.
'Tis ten a Clock and past; all whom the mues, Baloun, or tennis, diet, or the ftews
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready, that day, in flocks are found
In the Prefence, and I (God pardon me)
As fresh and sweet their Apparels be, as be
Their fields they fold to buy them. For a king
Thofe hofe are, cry the flatterers: and bring
Them next week to the theatre to fell.
Wants reach all ftates: me feems, they do as well
At ftage, as courts; all are players. Whoe'er looks,
(For themselves dare not go) o'er Cheapfide books,
Shall find their wardrobes inventory. Now
The Ladies come. As pirates (which do know
That there came weak fhips fraught with Cutchanel)
The men board them; and praise (as they think) well,
VER. 206. Court in wax!] A famous fhow of the Court of France, in Wax-work.
VER. 213. At Fig's, at White's,] White's was a noted
Such waxen noses, ftately ftaring things-
No wonder fome folks bow, and think them Kings.
See! where the British youth, engag'd no more
At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a whore,
Pay their laft duty to the Court, and come
All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing-room;
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,
As the fair fields they fold to look fo fine.
"That's velvet for a King!" the flatt'rer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
Our Court may juftly to our ftage give rules,
That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools.
And why not players ftrut in courtiers cloaths?
For these are actors too, as well as those :
Wants reach all states; they beg but better dreft,
And all is fplendid poverty at best.
Painted for fight, and effenc'd for the smell,
Like frigates fraught with spice and cochine'l,
Sail in the Ladies: how each pyrate eyes
So weak a veffel, and fo rich a prize!
Top-gallant he, and fhe in all her trim,
He boarding her, fhe ftriking fail to him:
NOTES.
gaming-house: Fig's, a Prize fighter's Academy, where the young Nobility receiv'd inftruction in those days: It was also cuftomary for the nobility and gentry to vifit the condemned criminals in Newgate. P.
VER. 220. our ftage give rules,] Alluding to the Chamberlain's Authority.
Their beauties; they the mens wits; both are bought.
Why good wits ne'er wear scarlet gowns 4, I thought
This cause, These men, mens wits for fpeeches buy,
And women buy all red which scarlets dye.
He call'd her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net:
She fears her drugs ill lay'd, her hair loose set *,
Would not Heraclitus laugh to fee Macrine
From hat to fhoe, himself at door refine,
As if the Prefence were a Mofch: and lift
His fkirts and hofe, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confess not only mortal
Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and duft, wherewith they fornicate:
And then by Durer's rules furvey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and wafte to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes, and Symmetry
Perfect as Circles f, with fuch nicety
As a young Preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady which owes
Him not so much as good will, he arrefts,
And unto her protefts, protests, protests,
di. e. Arrive to worship and magiftracy. The reafon he gives is, that those who have wit are forced to fell their ftock, instead of trading with it. This thought, tho' not amifs, our Poet has not paraphrafed. It is obfcurely expreffed, and poffibly it efcaped him.
"Dear Countefs! you have charms all hearts to hit!"
And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit !''
Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
'Twou'd burft ev'n Heraclitus with the spleen,
To see those anticks, Fopling and Courtin:
The Prefence feems, with things fo richly odd,
The Mofque of Mahound, or fome queer Pa-god.
See them furvey their limbs by Durer's rules,
Of all beau-kind the beft proportion'd fools!
Adjust their cloaths, and to confeffion draw
Those venial fins, an atom, or a ftraw;
But oh! what terrors must distract the foul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole;
Or fhould one pound of powder lefs befpread
Those monkey tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the Fair.
So first to preach a white-glov'd Chaplain goes,
With band of Lilly, and with cheek of Rose,
i.e. Confcious that both her complexion and her hair are borrowed, she fufpects that, when, in the common cant of flatterers, he calls her beauty lime-twigs, and her hair a net to catch lovers, he means to infinuate that her colours are coarsely laid on, and her borrowed hair loosely
f Because all the lines drawn from the centre to the circumference are equal.
VER. 240. Durer's rules,] Albert Durer.
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