with it manfully for years. tune began to flow for him king's chaplain, and doctor in divinity by James's recommendation to Cambridge. His habits of life had at an early period brought him among the great; and his accomplishments made him so distinguished a favorite there, that his design of entering the church was no sooner known, than he had fourteen offers of benefices! but all his habits had connected him with London, and he was elected preacher of Lincoln's-inn. On his return from the German embassy with lord Doncaster, in 1619, higher preferment still awaited him: the king gave him the deanery of St. Pauls, with St. Dunstan's in the West, and other benefices: he was next chosen prolocutor to the convocation, and seemed to have the highest dignities of the church opened to his tread, when he was seized with illness, and died, in 1631, at the age of 58. As an English poet, he was powerful but rude his taste was displayed in perpetual epigram, and his morality in the roughest scorn of public manners. a scholar, he was known by the vividness of his Latin verses; and as a divine, by the eccentricity of his 'Biathanatos,' an argument for the right of every man over his own life: but this volume has been supposed to originate in a mere trial of his skill in casuistry, the favorite science of the day; and it must be acknowleged, that he did not suffer it to appear in his life-time.

But, at length, the tide of forhe took orders, and was made

As

As an apology for the style of his poems, it is to be remembered that they were all written before he was twentyfive.

SATIRE II.

SIR, though (I thank God for it) I do hate
Perfectly all this town; yet there's one state
In all ill things, so excellently best,

That hate towards them breeds pity towards the

rest.

Though poetry, indeed, be such a sin,

As, I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in:
Though, like the pestilence, and old-fashion'd love,
Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be starved out; yet their state
Is poor, disarm'd, like papists, not worth hate..
One (like a wretch, which at barre judged as

dead,

Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot

read,

And saves his life) gives idiot actors means
(Starving himself) to live by his labor'd scenes.
As in some organs, puppets dance above,

And bellows pant below, which them do move.
One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's
charms

Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms:
Rams and slings now are silly battery;

Pistolets are the best artillery.

SATIRE II.

YES; thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too:
Yet here, as ev'n in hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,

That all beside, one pities, not abhors;

As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores. I grant that poetry 's a crying sin;

It brought, no doubt, the excise and army in:

Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows

how;

But that the cure is starving, all allow.

Yet like the papist's, is the poet's state;

10

Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate! Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:

15

The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus, as the pipes of some carved organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heaved by the breath, the inspiring bellows blow;
The inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

20

One sings the fair; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love: In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold; And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold.

And they who write to lords, rewards to get,

Are they not like singers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'scuse for writing, and for writing ill.

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw Others wits' fruits, and in his ravenous maw Rankly digested, doth these things out-spue, As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis true; For if one eat my meat, though it be known The meat was mine, the excrement's his own. But these do me no harm, nor they which use, to out-usure Jews, To outdrink the sea, to outswear the Letanie, Who with sins all kinds as familiar be As confessors, and for whose sinful sake Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make ; Whose strange sins canonists could hardly tell In which commandment's large receit they dwell. But these punish themselves. The insolence Of Coscus, only, breeds my just offence, Whom time (which rots all, and makes botches

And plodding on, must make a calf an ox)
Hath made a lawyer; which, alas! of late;
But scarce a poet: jollier of this state,
Than are new-beneficed ministers, he throws,
Like nets or lime-twigs, wheresoe'er he goes,
His title of barrister on every wench,

And woos in language of the Pleas and Bench,

These write to lords, some mean reward to get, As needy beggars sing at doors for meat; Those write because all write, and so have still Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

26

30

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others' wit: 'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before; His rank digestion makes it wit no more: Sense, pass'd through him, no longer is the same; For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs 35 Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres, Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir, Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear; Wicked as pages, who in early years Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears. Ev'n those I pardon, for whose sinful sake Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make; Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell In what commandment's large contents they dwell.

One, one man only breeds my just offence;

41

45

Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence:

Time, that at last matures a clap to ***,
Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
And brings all natural events to pass,
Hath made him an attorney of an ass.
No young divine new beneficed, can be
More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
What farther could I wish the fop to do,

But turn a wit, and scribble verses too;

POPE.

II.

T

50