Should I be troubled when the Purblind Knight, Who squints more in his judgment than his fight, Picks filly faults, and censures what I write? Or when the poor-fed poets of the town For fcabs and coach-room cry my verses down? I loath the rabble; 'tis enough for me If Sedley, Shadwell, Shephard, Wycherley, Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham, And fome few more, whom I omit to name, Approve my sense: I count their cenfure fame.
Sir CAR SCROPE, who thought himself reflected on at the latter End of the preceding Poem, published a Poem "In Defence of Satire," which occasioned the following Reply.
To Sir CAR SCROPE.
To rack and torture thy unmeaning brain,
In Satire's praise, to a low untun'd strain, In thee was most impertinent and vain. When in thy perfon we more clearly fee That fatire's of divine authority,
For God made one on man when he made thee; To shew there were some men, as there are apes, Fram'd for meer sport, who differ but in shapes : In thee are all these contradictions join'd, That make an afs prodigious and refin'd.
A lump deform'd and shapeless wert thou born, Begot in Love's despight and Nature's scorn; And art grown up the most ungrateful wight, Harsh to the ear, and hideous to the fight; Yet Love 's thy business, Beauty thy delight. Curse on that filly hour that first inspir'd Thy madness, to pretend to be admir'd; To paint thy grifly face, to dance, to dress, And all those aukward follies that express Thy loathsome love, and filthy daintiness. Who needs wilt be an ugly Beau-Garçon, Spit at, and shunn'd by every girl in town; Where dreadfully Love's scare-crow thou art plac'd To fright the tender flock that long to taste : While every coming maid, when you appear, Starts back for shame, and straight turns chafte for fear; For none fo poor or prostitute have prov'd, Where you made love, t' endure to be belov'd. 'T were labour loft, or elfe I would advise; But thy half-wit will ne'er let thee be wife. Half witty, and half mad, and scarce half brave, Half honeft (which is very much a knave) Made up of all these halves, thou canst not pass For any thing intirely, but an Afs.
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Scharms are nonsense, nonsense seems a charm, Which hearers of all judgment does difarm; For fongs and scenes a double audience bring, And doggrel takes, which Smiths in satin sing. Now to machines and a dull mask you run ; We find that wit 's the monster you would shun,
And by my troth 'tis most difcreetly done. For fince with vice and folly wit is fed, Through mercy 'tis most of you are not dead. Players turn puppets now at your defire, In their mouth's nonfense, in their tail 's a wire, They fly through crowds of clouts and showers of fire. A kind of lofing Loadum is their game, Where the worft writer has the greatest fame. To get vile plays like theirs shall be our care ; But of fuch aukward actors we despair.
False taught at first-----
Like bowls ill-biass'd, still the more they run, They 're further off than when they first begun. In comedy their unweigh'd action mark, There's one is such a dear familiar spark, He yawns as if he were but half awake, And fribbling for free speaking does mistake; False accent and neglectful action too : They have both so nigh good, yet neither true,
That both together, like an ape's mock-face, By near refembling man, do man disgrace. Thorough-pac'd ill actors may, perhaps, be cur'd; Half players, like half wits, can't be endur'd. Yet these are they, who durst expose the age Of the great wonder of the English stage; Whom Nature seem'd to form for your delight, And bid him speak, as the bid Shakespeare write. Those blades indeed are cripples in their art, Mimic his foot, but not his fpeaking part. Let them the Traitor or Volpone try, Could they------
Rage like Cethegus, or like Caffius die, They ne'er had fent to Paris for such fancies, As monfters heads and Merry-Andrew's dances.
Wither'd, perhaps, not perish'd, we appear; But they are blighted, and ne'er came to bear. Th' old poets dress'd your mistress Wit before; These draw you on with an old painted whore, And fell, like bawds, patch'd plays formaids twice o'er. Yet they may scorn our house and actors too,
Since they have fwell'd so high to hector you. They cry, Pox o' these Covent-Garden, men, Damn them, not one of them but keeps out ten.
Were they once gone, we for those thundering blades Should have an audience of substantial trades, Who love our muzzled boys and tearing fellows, My Lord, great Neptune, and great nephew Æolus.
O how the merry citizen 's in love
Psyche, the goddess of each field and grove. He cries, I' faith, methinks 'tis well enough; But you roar out and cry, 'Tis all damn'd stuff! So to their house the graver fops repair, While men of wit find one another here.
By the Lady ELIZABETH HOWARD.
'IT has of late took up a trick t' appear Unmannerly, or at the best, severe : And poets share the fate by which we fall, When kindly we attempt to please you all. 'Tis hard your scorn should against such prevail, Whose ends are to divert you, though they fail. You men would think it an ill-natur'd jest, Should we laugh at you when you do your best. Then rail not here, though you fee reason for 't; If wit can find itself no better sport, Wit is a very foolish thing at court.
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