}

Thus hearten'd well, and filefh'd upon his prey,
The youth may prove a man another day.
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;
But hopp'd about, and fhort excurfions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid,
And each was guilty of fome flighted maid.
Shakspeare's own Muse her Pericles first bore;
The prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor:
Tis miracle to fee a firft good play;
All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas-day.

A flender poet must have time to grow,
And spread and burnish as his brothers do.
Who still looks lean, fure with some pox is curst :
But no man can be Falstaff-fat at first.
Then damn not, but indulge his rude essays,
Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise,
That he may get more bulk before he dies:
He's not yet fed enough for facrifice.

Perhaps, if now your grace you will not grudge,
He may grow up to write, and you to judge.

As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I'll now affume my native fhape again.
I'm weary to be fo unkindly us'd,
And would not be a god to be refus'd.
State grows uneafy when it hinders love;
A glorious burden, which the wife remove.
Now as a nymph I need not sue, nor try
The force of any lightning but the eye.
Beauty and youth more than a God command;
No Jove could e'er the force of these withstand.
"Tis here that fovereign power admits dispute;
Beauty fometimes is juftly abfolute.
Our fullen Catos, whatfoe'er they say,
Ev'n while they frown and dictate laws, obey.
You, mighty fir, our bonds more easy make,
And gracefully, what all must fuffer, take:
Above thofe forms the grave affect to wear;
For 'tis not to be wife to be fevere.

Most modern wits fuch monftrous fools have

fhewD,

They feem not of heaven's making, but their own. Thofe naufeous harlequins in farce may pass; But there goes more to a substantial afs: Something of man must be expos'd to view, That, gallants, they may more resemble you. Sir Fopling is a fool fo nicely writ, The ladies would mistake him for a wit; And, when he fings, talks loud, and cocks would cry, vow, methinks, he's pretty company: So brifk, fo gay, fo travel'd, fo refin'd, As he took pains to graff upon his kind. True fops help nature's work, and go to school, To file and finish God Almighty's fool. Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call; He's knight o' th' fhire, and represents you all. From each he meets he culls whate'er he can; Legion's his name, a people in a man.

His bulky folly gathers as it goes,

And, rolling o'er you, like a fnow-ball grows.
His various modes from various fathers follow;
One taught the tofs, and one the new French
wallow.

His fword-knot this, his cravat that defign'd;
And this, the yard-long snake he twirls behind.
From one the facred periwig he gain'd,
Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat pro-
phan’d.

Another's diving bow he did adore,
Which with a fhog cafts all the hair before,
Till he with full decorum brings it back,
And rifes with a water-spaniel shake.
As for his fongs, the ladies dear delight,
These fure he took from most of you who write.
Yet every man is safe from what he fear'd;

For no one fool is hunted from the herd.

She first did wit's prerogative remove,
And made a fool prefume to prate of love.
Let honour and preferment go for gold;
But glorious beauty is not to be fold:
Or, if it be, 'tis at a rate fo high,
That nothing but adoring it fhould buy.

Yet the rich cullies may their boafting fpare; They purchase but fophifticated ware. 'Tis prodigality that buys deceit,

Where both the giver and the taker cheat, Men but refine on the old half-crown way; | And women fight, like Swiffers, for their pay.

TH' unhappy man, who once has trail'd a peņ,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, waftes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
What praise foe'er the poetry deserve,
Yet every fool can bid the poet ftarve.
That fumbling letcher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks hinfelf or whore is meant:
Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms:
Were there no fear of Antichrift or France,
In the bleft time poor poets live by chance.
Either you come not here, or, as you grace
Some old acquaintance, drop into the place,
Carelefs and qualmifh with a yawning face:
You fleep o'er wit, and by my troth you may;
Moft of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of fome prodigious take,
The bell that toll'd alone, or Irish whale.
News is your food, and you enough provide,
Both for yourselves, and all the world befide.

}

One theatre there is of vaft refort,
Which whilome of Requests was called the Court;
But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight,
And full of hum and buz from noon till night.
Up ftairs and down you run, as for a race,
And each man wears three nations in his face.
So big you look, though claret you retrench,
That, arm'd with bottled ale, you huff the French.
But all your entertainment still is fed
By villains in your own dull island bred.
Would you return to us, we dare engage
To fhew you better rogues upon the stage.
You know no poison but plain ratsbane here;
Death's more refin'd, and better bred elsewhere.
They have a civil way in Italy

By fmelling a perfume to make you die;

A trick would make you lay your snuff-box by. Murder's a trade, fo known and practis'd there, That 'tis infallible as is the chair.

But, mark their feast, you shall behold fuch pranks; The pope fays grace, but 'tis the devil gives thanks.

THESPIS, the first profeffor of our art,
At country wakes, fung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trefpafs,
Dicitur & plauftris vexiffe Poemata Thefpis.

But fchylus, fays Horace in fome page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of teffing poets in a tennis-court.

But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting fome new reformation:
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Presbyter fhall here erect his throne,
Knock out a tub with preaching once a day,
And every prayer be longer than a play.
Then all your heathen wits fhall go to pot,
For difbelieving of a Popish-plot;
Your poets fhall be us'd like infidels,
And worst the author of the Oxford bells:
Nor fhould we 'fcape the fentence, to depart,
Ev'n in our first original, a cart.

No zealous brother there would want a stone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan;
Religion, learning, wit, would be fuppreft,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beaft:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief fupporters of the triple crown;
And Ariftotle's for deftruction ripe;
Some fay, he call'd the foul an organ-pipe,
Which by fome little help of derivation,
Shall then be prov'd a pipe of infpiration.

XI.

Ir yet there be a few that take delight
In that which reasonable men should write;
To them alone we dedicate this night.
The reft may fatisfy their curious itch
With city gazettes, or fome factious speech,
Or whate'er libel, for the public good,
Stirs up the fhrove-tide crew to fire and blood.
Remove your benches, you apoftate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or fee what's worse, the devil and the pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, refemble the diftracted age;
Noife, madness, all unreasonable things,
That ftrike at fenfe, as rebels do at kings.
The ftyle of forty-one our poets write,
And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.
Such cenfures our mistaking audience make,
That 'tis almoft grown scandalous to take.

LADIES, the beardlefs author of this day Commends to you the fortune of his play. A woman wit has often grac'd the stage; But he's the first boy-poet of our age.

Early as is the year his fancies blow,
Like young Narciffus peeping through the fnow.
Thus Cowley bloffom'd foon, yet flourish'd long;
This is as forward, and may prove as strong.

THE fam'd Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance
Orlando, and the Paladins of France,
Records, that, when our wit and fenfe is flown,
"Tis lodg'd within the circle of the moon,
In earthen jars, which one, who thither foar'd,
Set to his nofe, snuff'd up, and was reftor'd.
Whate'er the story be, the moral's true;
The wit we loft in town, we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with fober sense.
When London votes with Southwark's difagree,
Here may they find their long-loft loyalty.
Here bufy fenates, to th' old cause inclin'd,
May fnuff the votes their fellows left behind:
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows
dear,

May come, and find their last provision here:

Whereas we cannot much lament our lofs,
Who neither carry'd back, nor brought one
crofs.

We look'd what reprefentatives would bring;
But they help'd us, just as they did the king.
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyls books to those who know their
worth ;

And though the first was facrific'd before,
These volutnes doubly will the price restore.
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whofe undaunted Mufe, with loyal rage,
Has never fpar'd the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forc'd to turn his fatire into praise.

IN thofe cold regions which no fummers cheer, Where brooding darkness covers half the year, To hollow caves the shivering natives go; Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of fnow.

But when the tedious twilight wears away, And stars grow paler at th' approach of day, The longing crowds to frozen mountains run; Happy who first can fee the glimmering fun