Wants reach all states: they beg but better dress'd, And all is splendid poverty at best.

Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell, Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal, Sail in the ladies : how each pirate eyes So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize! Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim, He boarding her, she striking sail to him : “Dear countess! you have charms all hearts to hit ?" And 'Sweet sir Fopling! you have so much wit!' Such wits and beauties are not praised for nought, For both the beauty and the wit are bought. "Twould burst e'en Heraclitus with the spleen, To see those antice, Fopling and Courtin : The presence seems, with things so richly odd, The mosque of Mahound, or some queer pagod. See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools !

Shall find their wardrobes inventory. Now
The ladies come.

As pirates (which do know
That there came weak ships fraught with cutchanel)
The men board them: and praise (as they think)

well, Their beauties; they the men's wits : both are

bought. Why good wits ne'er wear scarlet gowns, I thought This cause, these men, mens wits for speeches 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 : Wouldn't Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine From hat to shoe, himself at door refine, As if the presence were a mosque; and lift His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift, Making them confess not only mortal Great stains and holes in them, but venial Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate ; And then by Durer's rules survey the state Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries Or his neck to his leg, and waste to thighs.

Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw,
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw:
But, oh! what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole :
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey-tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
I'hey march, to prate their hour before the fair.
So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes,
With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.
Let but the ladies smile, and they are bless'd :
Prodigious ! how the things protest! protest !
Peace, fools, or Gonson will for papist seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!

Nature made every fop to plague his brother,
Just as one beauty mortifies another.
But here's the captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries, Arm! whose very look 's an oath :
The captain 's honest, sirs, and that 's enough,
Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
So in immaculate clothes and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such 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 arrests, And unto her protests, protests, protests, So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown Ten cardinals into the Inquisition : And whispers by Jesu so oft, that a Pursuevant would have ravish'd him away For saying our lady's Psalter. But 'tis fit That they each other plague, they merit it. But here comes Glorious that will plague 'em both : Who in the other extreme only doth Call a rough carelessness good fashion : Whose cloak his spury tear, or whom he spits on, He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm To hiin; he rushes in, as if Arm, arm,

He spits fore-right ; his haughty chest before,
Like battering rams,

beats open every door:
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hangdogs in old tapestry,
Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
Has yet a strange ambition to look worse :
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,
Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.

Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so As men from jails to execution go; For hung with deadly sins I see the wall, And lined with giants deadlier than them all: Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross. Scared at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly, And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy. Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine

i Charge them with heaven's artillery, bold divine ! From such alone the great rebukes endure, Whose satire 's sacred, and whose rage secure; He meant to cry: and though his face be as ill As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe; Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.

Tired, now, I leave this place, and but pleased As men from gaols to execution go, Go, through the great chamber (why is it hung With these seven deadly sins ?) being among Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw Charing-cross, for a bar, men that do know No token of worth, but queens man, and fine Living : barrels of beef, flaggons of wine, I shook like a spied spy- Preachers which are Seas of wit and art, you can, then dare, Drown the sins of this place; but as for me Which am but a scant brook, enough shall be To wash the stains away: although I yet (With Maccabees' modesty) the own merit Of my work lessen, yet some wise men shall, I hope, esteem my writs Canonical.

"Tis mine to wash a few light stains; but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears.
Howe'er, what's now Apocrypha, my wit,
In time to come may pass for Holy Writ.

EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.

DIALOGUE I. Fr. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print, And when it comes the court sees nothing in't. You grow correct, that once with rapture writ, And are, besides, too moral for a wit. Decay of parts, alas! we all must feelWhy now, this moment, don't I see you steal ? 'Tis all from Horace: Horace long before ye Said, “Tories call’d him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;' And taught his Romans in much better metre, ‘To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.'

But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice; Bubo observes, he lash'd no sort of vice Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, Higgins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the sex, In reverend bishops note some small neglects, And own the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropp'd our ears, and sent them to the king. His sly, polite, insinuating style Could please at court, and make Augustus smile : An artful manager, that crept between His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen. But 'faith your very friends will soon be sore ; Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more-

And where's the glory ? 'twill be only thought
The great man never offer'd you a groai,
Go see Sir Robert-

P. See Sir Robert !-hum-
And never laugh--for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power;
Seen him, uncumber'd with a venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
Ile does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I langh he laughs, no doubt ;
The only difference is, I dare laugh out.

F. Why yes : with Scripture still you may be free;
A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty ;
A joke on Jekyll, or some odd old Whig,
Who never changed his principle, or wig;
A patriot is a fool in every age,
Whom all lord chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts: they keep their fashion still;
And wear their strange old virtue as they will.

If any ask you, 'Who's the man so near
His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?
Why answer, Lyttleton; and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage :
But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleury,
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.

Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mond not those.
Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To vice and folly to confine the jest,
Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest;
Did not the sneer of more inpa
At sense and virtue balance all again.
Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.

men