Befides three holy mitred Hectors, No health of potentate is funk, That pays to make his Thefe Dutch delights, I mention'd laft, This truly is a degradation, But would oblige the crown and nation. Next to your wife negotiation. 4 If you pretend, as well you may, Your high degree, your friends will fay, His grace of Bucks has made a farce, And you, whofe comic wit is terfe all, Can hardly fall below Rehearsal. Then finish what you have began; But fcribble fafter if you can: For yet no George, to our difcerning, Has writ without a ten years warning. EPISTLE the EIGHTH. то Mr. SOUTHERN E, ON HIS COMEDY call'd, The WIVES EXCUSE. URE there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain SUR To write, while these malignant planets reign. Some very foolish influence rules the pit, Not always kind to sense, or just to wit: And whilft it lafts, let buffoonry fucceed, To make us laugh; for never was more need. Farce, in itself, is of a nafty scent; But the gain smells not of the excrement. The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too, With all her charms, bore but a single show: But let a monfter Mufcovite appear, He draws a crowded audience round the year. May be thou haft not pleas'd the box and pit ; Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy wit: So Terence plotted, but fo Terence writ. } Like his thy thoughts are true, thy language clean; E'en lewdness is made moral in thy scene. The hearers may for want of Nokes repine; But reft fecure, the readers will be thine. With fuch good manners, as the Wife did use, EPISTLE the NINTH. то HENRY HIGDEN, Esq; ON HIS Tranflation of the Tenth Satire of JUVENAL. HE Grecian wits, who Satire firft began, ΤΗ Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man ; At mighty villains, who the state oppreft, They durft not rail, perhaps; they lafh'd, at leaft, And turn'd them out of office with a jeft. No fool could peep abroad, but ready stand The drolls to clap a bauble in his hand. Wife legiflators never yet could draw A fop within the reach of common law; For pofture, drefs, grimace and affectation, Tho foes to fense, are harmless to the nation. Our laft redress is dint of verfe to try, And Satire is our court of Chancery. This way took Horace to reform an age, Not bad enough to need an author's rage. But yours, who liv'd in more degenerate times, Was forc'd to faften deep, and worry crimes. Yet you, my friend, have temper'd him fo well, You make him fmile in fpite of all his zeal : |