And the debauched'st actions they can do,
Mere trifles to the circumstance and show.
For 'tis not what they do that 's now the sin,
But what they lewdly affect and glory in.
As if preposterously they would profess
A fore'd hypocrisy of wickedness,

And affectation, that makes good things bad,
Must make affected shame accurs'd and mad;
For vices for themselves may find excuse,
But never for their compliment and shews;
That if there ever were a mystery
Of moral secular iniquity,

And that the churches may not lose their due.
By being encroach'd upon, 'tis now, and new :
For men are now as scrupulous and nice,
And tender-conscienc'd of low paltry vice,
Disdain as proudly to be thought to have
To do in any mischief but the brave,
As the most scrupulous zealot of late times
T'appear in any but the horrid'st crimes;
Have as precise and strict punctilios
Now to appear, as then to make no shows,
And steer the world, by disagreeing force
Of different customs, 'gainst her natural course:
So powerful 's ill Example to encroach,
And Nature, spite of all her laws, debauch,
Example, that imperious dictator,

Of all that 's good or bad to human nature,
By which the world 's corrupted and reclaim'd,
Hopes to be sav'd, and studies to be damn'd;
That reconciles all contrarieties,

Makes wisdom foolishness, and folly wise,
Imposes on divinity, and sets

Her seal alike on truths and counterfeits;
Alters all characters of virtue and vice,
And passes one for th' other in disguise;
Makes all things, as it pleases, understood,
The good receiv'd for bad, and bad for good;
That slyly counterchanges wrong and right,
Like white in fields of black, and black in white;
As if the laws of Nature had been made
Of purpose only to be disobey'd;
Or man had lost his mighty interest,
By having been distinguish'd from a beast;
And had no other way but sin and vice,
To be restor'd again to Paradise.

How copious is our language lately grown,
To make blaspheming wit, and a jargon !
And yet how expressive and significant,

In demme, at once to curse, and swear, and rant!
As if no way express'd men's souls so well,
As damning of them to the pit of Hell;
Nor any asseveration were so civil,
As mortgaging salvation to the Devil;

Or that his name did add a charming grace,
And blasphemy a purity to our phrase.
For what can any language more enrich,
Than to pay souls for viciating speech;
When the great'st tyrant in the world made those
But lick their words out that abus'd his prose?
What trivial punishments did then protect
To public censure a profound respect,
When the most shameful penance, and severe,
That could b' inflicted on a cavalier,
For infamous debauchery, was no worse
Than but to be degraded from his horse,
And have his livery of oats and hay,
Instead of cutting spurs off, tak'n away?
They held no torture then so great as shame,
And that to slay was less than to defame;

For just so much regard as men express
To th' censure of the public, more or less,
The same will be return'd to them again,
In shame or reputation, to a grain;
And, how perverse soe'er the world appears,
'Tis just to all the bad it sees and hears,
And for that virtue strives to be allow'd
For all the injuries it does the good.

How silly were their sages heretofore,
To fright their heroes with a siren whore !
Make them believe a water-witch, with charms,
Could sink their men of war as easy as storms,
And turn their mariners, that heard them sing,
Into land-porpusses, and cod and ling;
To terrify those mighty champions,

As we do children now with Bloody bones;
Until the subtlest of their conjurers
Seal'd up the labels to his soul, his ears,
And tv'd his deafen'd sailors (while he pass'd
The dreadful lady's lodgings) to the mast,
And rather venture drowning, than to wrong
The sea-pugs' chaste ears with a bawdy song:
To b' out of countenance, and, like an ass,
Not pledge the lady Circe one beer-glass ;
Unmannerly refuse her treat and wine,
For fear of being turn'd into a swine,
When one of our heroic adventurers now
Would drink her down, and turn her int' a sow!

So simple were those times, when a grave sage
Could with an old wife's tale instruct the age,
Teach virtue more fantastic ways and nice,
Than ours will now endure t' improve in vice;
Made a dull sentence, and a moral fable,
Do more than all our holdings-forth are able,
A forc'd obscure mythology convince,
Beyond our worst inflictions upon sins;
When an old proverb, or an end of verse,
Could more than all our penal laws coerce,
And keep men honester than all our furies
Of jailors, judges, constables, and juries;
Who were converted then with an old saying,
Better than all our preaching now, and praying.
What fops had these been, had they liv'd with us,
Where the best reason 's made ridiculous,
And all the plain and sober things we say,
By raillery are put beside their play?
For men are grown above all knowledge now,
And what they 're ignorant of disdain to know;
Engross truth (like fanatics) underhand,
And boldly judge before they understand;
The self-same courses equally advance,
In spiritual and carnal ignorance,
And, by the same degrees of confidence,
Become impregnable against all sense;
For, as they outgrew ordinances then,
So would they now morality again.
Though Drudgery and Knowledge are of kin,
And both descended from one parent, Sin,
And therefore seldom have been known to part,
In tracing out the ways of Truth and Art,
Yet they have north-west passages to steer,
A short way to it, without pains or eare:
For, as implicit faith is far more stiff
Than that which understands its own belief,
So those that think, and do but think they know,

Are far more obstinate than those that do,
And more averse than if they 'ad ne'er been taught、

A wrong way, to a right one to be brought;
Take boldness upon credit beforehand,
And grow too positive to understand;

Believe themselves as knowing and as famous,
As if their gifts had gotten a mandamus,
A bill of store to take up a degree,
With all the learning to it, custom-free,

And look as big for what they bought at court,
As if they 'ad done their exercises for 't.

SATIRE UPON GAMING.

WHAT fool would trouble Fortune more,
When she has been too kind before;
Or tempt her to take back again
What she had thrown away in vain,
By idly venturing her good graces
To be dispos'd of by ames-aces;
Or settling it in trust to uses

Out of his power, on trays and deuces;
To put it to the chance, and try,
I' th' ballot of a box and die,
Whether his money be his own,
And lose it, if he be o'erthrown;
As if he were betray'd, and set
By his own stars to every cheat,
Or wretchedly condemn'd by Fate
To throw dice for his own estate;
As mutineers, by fatal doom,
Do for their lives upon a drum?
For what less influence can produce
So great a monster as a chouse,
Or any two-legg'd thing possess
With such a brutish sottishness?
Unless those tutelary stars,
Intrusted by astrologers

To have the charge of man, combin'd
To use him in the self-same kind;

As those that help'd them to the trust,
Are wont to deal with others just.
For to become so sadly dull
And stupid, as to fine for gull,
(Not, as in cities, to b' excus'd,
But to be judg'd fit to be us'd)
That whosoe'er can draw it in
Is sure inevitably t' win,

And, with a curs'd half-witted fate,
To grow more dully desperate,

The more 'tis made a common prey,
And cheated foppishly at play,
Is their condition; Fate betrays
To Folly first, and then destroys.
For what but miracles can serve
So great a madness to preserve,

As his, that ventures goods and chattles

(Where there's no quarter given) in battles,

And fights with money-bags as bold,
As men with sand-bags did of old;

Puts lands, and tenements, and stocks,
Into a paltry juggler's box;

And, like an alderman of Gothamn,
Embarketh in so vile a bottom;
Engages blind and senseless hap

'Gainst high, and low, and slur, and knap,
(As Tartars with a man of straw
Fncounter lions hand to paw)
With those that never venture more
Than they had safely ensur'd before;

Who, when they knock the box, and shake, Do, like the Indian rattlesnake,

But strive to ruin and destroy
Those, that mistake it for fair play;
That have their fulhams at command,
Brought up to do their feats at hand;
That understand their calls and knocks,
And how to place themselves i' th' box;
Can tell the oddses of all games,
And when to answer to their names;
And, when he conjures them t' appear,
Like imps, are ready every where;
When to play foul, and when run fair
(Out of design) upon the square,
And let the greedy cully win,
Only to draw him further in;
While those with which he idly plays
Have no regard to what he says,
Although he jernie and blaspheme,
When they miscarry, Heaven and them,
And damn his soul, and swear, and curse,
And crucify his Saviour worse

Than those Jew-troopers, that threw out,
When they were rating for his coat;
Denounce revenge, as if they heard,
And rightly understood and fear'd,
And would take heed another time,
How to commit so bold a crime;
When the poor bones are innocent
Of all he did, or said, or meant,
And have as little sense, almost,
As he that damns them when he 'as lost;
As if he had rely'd upon

Their judgment rather than his own;
And that it were their fault, not his,
That manag'd them himself amiss,
And gave them ill instructions how
To run, as he would have them do,
And then condemns them sillily
For having no more wit than he!

SATIRE TO A BAD POET.

GREAT famous wit! whose rich and easy vein,
Free, and unus'd to drudgery and pain,
Has all Apollo's treasure at command,
And how good verse is coin'd do'st understand;

In all Wit's combats master of defence!

Tell me, how dost thou pass on Rhyme and Sense!
"Tis said they apply to thee, and in thy verse
Do freely range themselves as volunteers,
And without pain, or pumping for a word,
Place themselves fitly of their own accord.
I, whom a loud caprich (for some great crime

I have committed) has condemned to rhyme,
With slavish obstinacy vex my brain

To reconcile them, but, alas! in vain.
Sometimes I set my wits upon the rack,

And, when I would say white, the verse says black;
When I would draw a brave man to the life,

It names some slave, that pimps to his own wife,
Or base poltroon, that would have sold his daughter,
If he had met with any to have bought her;
When I would praisẽ an author, the untoward
Damn'd sense says Virgil, but the rhyme-
In fine, whate'er I strive to bring about,
The contrary (spite of my heart) comes out.
Sometimes, enrag'd for time and pains mispent,
I give it over, tir'd, and discontent,

Admire whate'er they find abroad,
But nothing here, though e'er so good:
Be natives wheresoe'er they come,
And only foreigners at home;

To which they appear so far estrang'd,
As if they 'ad been i' th' cradle chang'd,
Or from beyond the seas convey'd
By witches-not born here, but laid;
Or by outlandish fathers were
Begotten on their mothers here,
And therefore justly slight that nation,
Where they 've so mongrel a relation;
And seek out other climates, where
They may degenerate less than here;
As woodcocks, when their plumes are grown,
Borne on the wind's wings and their own,
Forsake the countries where they 're hatch'd,
And seek out others to be catch'd:
So they more naturally may please
And humour their own geniuses,
Apply to all things which they see
With their own fancies best agree;
No matter how ridiculous,
'Tis all one, if it be in use;
For nothing can be bad or good,
But as 'tis in or out of mode;
And, as the nations are that use it,
All ought to practise or refuse it;
Tobserve their postures, move, and stand,
As they give out the word o' command;
To learn the dullest of their whims,
And how to wear their very limbs;
To turn and manage every part,
Like puppets, by their rules of art;
To shrug discreetly, act, and tread,
And politicly shake the head,
Until the ignorant, (that guess
At all things by th' appearances)
To see how Art and Nature strive,
Believe them really alive,

And that they're very men, not things
That move by puppet-work and springs;
When truly all their feats have been
As well perform'd by motion-men,
And the worst drolls of Punchinellos
Were much th' ingeniouser fellows;
For, when they're perfect in their lesson,
Th' hypothesis grows out of season,
And, all their labour lost, they 're fain
To learn new, and begin again;
To talk eternally and loud,
And altogether in a crowd,
No matter what; for in the noise
No man minds what another says:
Tassume a confidence beyond
Mankind, for solid and profound,
And still, the less and less they know,
The greater dose of that allow :
Decry all things; for to be wise
Is not to know, but to despise;
And deep judicious confidence
Has still the odds of wit and sense,
And can pretend a title to

Far greater things than they can do:
Tadorn their English with French scraps,
And give their very language claps;
To jernie rightly, and renounce
I' th' pure and most approv'd-of tones,
And, while they idly think t' enrich,
Adulterate their native speech:

For, though to smatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetorique

Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious,
To smatter French is meritorious;
And to forget their mother-tongue,
Or purposely to speak it wrong,
A hopeful sign of parts and wit,
And that they improve and benefit;
As those that have been taught amiss,
In liberal arts and sciences,

Must all they 'ad learnt before in vain
Forget quite, and begin again.

SATIRE UPON DRUNKENNESS.

'Tis pity Wine, which Nature meant
To man in kindness to present,
And gave him kindly, to caress
And cherish his frail happiness;
Of equal virtue to renew

His wearied mind and body too;
Should (like the cyder-tree in Eden,
Which only grew to be forbidden)
No sooner come to be enjoy'd,
But th' owner's fatally destroy'd;
And that which she for good design'd,
Becomes the ruin of mankind,
That for a little vain excess
Runs out of all its happiness,

And makes the friend of Truth and Love
Their greatest adversary prove;
T' abuse a blessing she bestow'd
So truly essential to his good,
To countervail his pensive cares,
And slavish drudgery of affairs;
To teach him judgment, wit, and sense,
And, more than all these, confidence ;
To pass his times of recreation
In choice and noble conversation,
Catch truth and reason unawares,
As men do health in wholesome airs;
(While fools their conversants possess
As unawares with sottishness)
To gain access a private way
To man's best sense, by its own key,
Which painful judges strive in vain
By any other course t' obtain;
To pull off all disguise, and view
Things as they 're natural and true;
Discover fools and knaves, allow'd
For wise and honest in the crowd;
With innocent and virtuous sport
Make short days long, and long nights short,
And mirth, the only antidote

Against diseases ere they 're got;

To save health harmless from th' access
Both of the med'cine and disease;
Or make it help itself, secure
Against the desperat'st fit, the cure.
All these subiime prerogatives

Of happiness to human lives,
He vainly throws away and slights,
For madness, noise, and bloody fights;
When nothing can decide, but swords
And pots, the right or wrong of words,
Like princes' titles; and he 's outed
The justice of his cause that's routed.

No sooner has a charge been sounded With-Son of a whore, and Damn'd confounded, And the bold signal given, the lie, But instantly the bottles fly,

Where cups and glasses are small shot,

And cannon-ball a pewter-pot:

That blood, that 's hardly in the vein,

Is now remanded back again;

Though sprung from wine of the same piece,
And near a-kin, within degrees,
Strives to commit assassinations

On its own natural relations;
And those twin-spirits, so kind-hearted,
That from their friends so lately parted,
No sooner several ways are gone,
But by themselves are set upon,
Surpris'd like brother against brother,
And put to th' sword by one another;
So much more fierce are civil wars,
Than those between mere foreigners!
And man himself, with wine possest,
More savage than the wildest beast!
For serpents, when they meet to water,
Lay by their poison and their nature:
And fiercest creatures, that repair,
In thirsty deserts, to their rare
And distant river's banks to drink,
In love and close alliance link,

And from their mixture of strange seeds
Produce new, never-heard-of breeds,
To whom the fiercer unicorn
Begins a large health with his horn;
As cuckolds put their antidotes,
When they drink coffee, into th' pots;
While man, with raging drink inflam'd,
Is far more savage and untam'd;
Supplies his loss of wit and sense
With barbarousness and insolence;
Believes himself, the less he 's able,
The more heroic and formidable;
Lays by his reason in his bowls,
As Turks are said to do their souls,
Until it has so often been
Shut out of its lodging, and let in,
At length it never can attain
To find the right way back again;
Drinks all his time away, and prunes
The end of 's life, as vignerons
Cut short the branches of a vine,
To make it bear more plenty o' wine;
And that which Nature did intend
T enlarge his life, perverts t' its end.

So Noah, when he anchor'd safe on
The mountain's top, his lofty haven,
And all the passengers he bore
Were on the new world set ashore,
He made it next his chief design
To plant and propagate a vine;

Which since has overwhelm'd and drown'd
Far greater numbers, on dry ground,
Of wretched mankind, one by one,
Than all the flood before had done.

SATIRE UPON MARRIAGE. SURE marriages were never so well fitted, As when to matrimony men were committed, Like thieves by justices, and to a wife Bound, like to good behaviour, during life:

For then 'twas but a civil contract made
Between two partners that set up a trade;
And if both fail'd, there was no conscience
Nor faith invaded in the strictest sense;

No canon of the church, nor vow, was broke,
When men did free their gall'd necks from the yoke;
But when they tir'd, like other horned beasts,
Might have it taken off, and take their rests,
Without being bound in duty to show cause,
Or reckon with divine or human laws.

For since, what use of matrimony has been
But to make gallantry a greater sin?
As if there were no appetite nor gust,
Below adultery, in modish lust;
Or no debauchery were exquisite,
Until it has attain'd its perfect height.
For men do now take wives to nobler ends,

Not to bear children, but to bear the friends; ir

Whom nothing can oblige at such a rate

As these endearing offices of late.

For men are now grown wise, and understand
How to improve their crimes as well as land;
And, if they 've issue, make the infants pay
Down for their own begetting on the day,
The charges of the gossiping disburse,

And pay beforehand (ere they 're born) the nurse;
As he that got a monster on a cow,
Out of design of setting up a show.

For why should not the brats for all account,

As well as for the christening at the fount,

When those that stand for them lay down the rate
O' th' banquet and the priest in spoons and plate?
The ancient Romans made the state allow
For getting all men's children above two:
Then married men, to propagate the breed,
Had great rewards for what they never did,
Were privileg'd, and highly honour'd too,
For owning what their friends were fain to do;
For so they 'ad children, they regarded not
By whom, (good men) or how, they were begot.
To borrow wives (like money) or to lend,
Was then the civil office of a friend,
And he that made a scruple in the case
Was held a miserable wretch and base;
For when they 'ad children by 'em, th' honest men
Return'd them to their husbands back again.
Then, for th' encouragement and propagation
Of such a great concernment to the nation,
All people were so full of complacence,
And civil duty to the public sense,

hey had no name t' express a cuckold then,
But that which signified all married men;
Nor was the thing accounted a disgrace,
Unless among the dirty populace,
And no man understands on what account
Less civil nations after hit upon
't:
For to be known a cuckold can be no
Dishonour but to him that thinks it so;
For if he feel no chagrin or remorse,

His forehead's shot-free, and he's ne'er the worse:
For horns (like horny callouses) are found

To grow on sculls that have receiv'd a wound,
Are crackt, and broken; not at all on those,
That are invulnerate and free from blows.
What a brave time had cuckold-makers then,
When they were held the worthiest of men,
The real fathers of the commonwealth,
That planted colonies in Rome itself!
When he that help'd his neighbours, and begot
Most Romans, was the noblest patriot!