When fighs and prayers their ladies cannot move,
They rail, write treason, and turn Whigs to love.
Nay, and I fear they worse defigns advance,
There's a damn'd love-trick now brought o'er from
France;
We charm in vain, and drefs, and keep a pother,
Whilst those false rogues are ogling one another.
All fins befides adınit fome expiation;
But this against our fex is plain damnation.
They join for libels too these women-haters;
And, as they club for love, they club for fatires :
The best on 't is they hurt not: for they wear
Stings in their tails, their only venom's there.
'Tis true, some shot at first the ladies hit,
While able marksmen made, and men of wit:
But now the fools give fire, whose bounce is louder:
And yet, like mere train-bands, they fhoot but powder.
Libels, like plots, sweep all in their first fury;
Then dwindle like an ignoramus jury:
Thus age begins with touzing and with tumbling;
But grunts, and groans, and ends at laft in fumbling.
XXII.
PROLOGUE
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
SPOKEN BY MR. HART, AT THE ACTING OF THE
SILENT WOMAN.
HAT Greece, when learning flourish'd, only knew,
Athenian judges, you this day renew.
Here too are annual rites to Pallas done,
And here poetic prizes loft or won.
VOL. XIX.
S
Methinks I fee you, crown'd with olives, fit,
And ftrike a facred horror from the pit.
A day of doom is this of your decree,
Where ev'n the beft are but by mercy free:
A day, which none but Jonfon durft have wifh'd to fee..
Here they, who long have known the useful stage,
Come to be taught themselves to teach the age.
As
your
commiffioners our poets go,
To cultivate the virtue which you sow;
In your Lycæum first themselves refin’d,
And delegated thence to human-kind.
But as ambaffadors, when long from home,
For new instructions to their princes come;
So poets, who your precepts have forgot,
Return, and beg they may be better taught:
Follies and faults elfewhere by them are shown,
But by your manners they correct their own.
Th' illiterate writer, emp'ric-like, applies
To minds difeas'd, unfafe, chance, remedies:
The learn'd in schools, where knowledge firft began,
Studies with care th' anatomy of man;
Sees virtue, vice, and paffions, in their cause,
And fame from science, not from fortune, draws.
So Poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
There haughty dunces, whofe unlearned pen
Could ne'er fpell grammar, would be reading men.
Such build their poems the Lucretian way;
So many huddled atoms make a play;
And if they hit in order by fome chance,
They call that nature, which is ignorance.
To fuch a fame let mere town-wits aspire,
And their gay nonfenfe their own cits admire.
Our poet, could he find forgiveness here,
Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
He owns no crown from those Prætorian bands,
But knows that right is in the senate's hands,
Not impudent enough to hope your praise,
Low at the Mufes feet his wreath he lays,
And, where he took it up, refigns his bays.
Kings make their poets whom themselves think fit,
But 'tis your fuffrage makes authentic wit.
}
SPOKEN BY THE SAME.
No poor Dutch peafant, wing'd with all his fear,
Flies with more hafte, when the French arms
draw near,
Then we with our poetic train come down,
For refuge hither, from th' infected town:
Heaven for our fins this fummer has thought fit
To vifit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things in its way;
But those hot Monfieurs were too quick to ftay:
Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
Th' Italian merry-andrews took their place,
And quite debauch'd the ftage with lewd grimace:
Instead of wit, and humours, your delight
Was there to fee two hobby-horfes fight;
S2
Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in,
And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.
For love you heard how amorous affes bray'd,
And cats in gutters gave their serenade.
Nature was out of countenance, and each day
Some new-born monfter fhewn you for a play.
But when all fail'd, to ftrike the ftage quite dumb,
Thofe wicked engines call'd machines are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are play'd,
And fhortly scenes in Lapland will be laid:
Art magic is for poetry profest;
And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Ægyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worship'd now.
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth and Simon Magus of the town,
Fletcher's defpis'd, your Jonfon's out of fashion,
And Wit the only drug in all the nation.
In this low ebb our wares to you are shown;
By you thofe ftaple authors worth is known;
For wit's a manufacture of your own.
When you, who only can, their scenes have prais'd,
We'll boldly back, and fay, the price is rais'd.
}
SPOKEN AT OXFORD, BY MRS. MARSHALL.
FT has our poet wish'd, this happy feat
Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat:
I wonder'd at his wifh, but now I find
He fought for quiet, and content of mind;
Which noifeful towns and courts can never know,
And only in the shades like laurels grow.
Youth, ere it fees the world, here ftudies reft,
And age returning thence concludes it beft.
What wonder if we court that happiness
Yearly to fhare, which hourly you poffefs,
Teaching ev'n you, while the vext world we show,
Your peace to value more, and better know?
'Tis all we can return for favours past,
Whofe holy memory shall ever last,
For patronage from him whofe care prefides
O'er every noble art, and every science guides:
Bathurst, a name the learn'd with reverence know,
And fcarcely more to his own Virgil owe;
Whofe age enjoys but what his youth deferv'd,
To rule thofe Mufes whom before he ferv'd.
His learning, and untainted manners too,
We find, Athenians, are deriv'd to you:
Such ancient hofpitality there refts.
In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian breasts,
Whofe kindness was religion to their guests.
Such modesty did to our fex appear,
As, had there been no laws, we need not fear,
Since each of you was our protector here..
Converse so chafte, and fo ftrict virtue shown,
As might Apollo with the Muses own.
Till our return, we must despair to find
Judges fo juft, fo knowing, and fo kind..
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