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A SATIRE AGAINST MANKIND.

WERE I, who to my cost already am

One of those strange prodigious creatures man,
A spirit free, to choose for my own share,
What sort of flesh and blood I pleas'd to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or any thing, but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

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The senses are too gross, and he'll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other five;
And, before certain instinct, will prefer
Reason, which fifty times for one does err.
Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,
Which leaves the light of Nature, sense, behind:
Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes,
Through Errour's fenny bogs, and thorny brakes;
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimsies heapt in his own brain:
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong
down

Into Doubt's boundless sea, where, like to drown,
Books bear him up a while, and make him try
To swim with bladders of philosophy;
In hopes still to o'ertake the skipping light,
The vapour dances in his dazzled sight,
Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then Old Age and Experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to Death, and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
Huddled in dirt, this reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise:
Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch,
And made him venture to be made a wretch:
His wisdom did his happiness destroy,
Aiming to know the world he should enjoy:
And wit was his vain frivolous pretence,
Of pleasing others at his own expense;
For wits are treated just like common whores,
First they're enjoy'd, and then kick'd out of
doors:

The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains,
That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains.
Women, and men of wit, are dangerous tools,
And ever fatal to admiring fools.

Pleasure allures; and when the fops escape,
'Tis not that they are lov'd, but fortunate;
And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate.
But now, methinks, some formal band and beard
Takes me to task: "Come on, sir, I'm prepar'd."
"Then, by your favour, any thing that 's writ,
Against this gibing, gingling knack, call'd wit,
Likes me abundantly; but you'll take care,
Upon this point, not to be too severe;'
Perhaps my Muse were fitter for this part;
For, I profess, I can be very smart
On wit, which I abhor with all my heart.
I long to lash it in some sharp essay,
But your grand indiscretion bids me stay,
And turns my tide of ink another way.
What rage ferments in your degenerate mind,
To make you rail at reason and mankind?
Blest glorious man, to whom alone kind Heaven
An everlasting soul hath freely given;
Whom his great Maker took such care to make,
That from himself he did the image take,
And this fair frame in shining reason drest,
To dignify his nature above beast:

Reason, by whose aspiring influence,
We take a flight beyond material sense,
Dive into mysteries, then, soaring, pierce
The flaming limits of the universe,

Search Heaven and Hell, find out what 's acted

there,

And give the world true grounds of hope and fear."
"Hold, mighty man," I cry, "all this we know
From the pathetic pen of Ingelo,
From Patrick's Pilgrim, Sibb's Soliloquies,
And 'tis this very reason I despise
This supernatural gift, that makes a mite
Think he 's the image of the Infinite;
Comparing his short life, void of all rest,
To the Eternal and the Ever-blest:
This busy puzzling stirrer up of doubt,
That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out,
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools,
The reverend bedlams, colleges, and schools,
Borne on whose wings, each heavy sot can pierce-
The limits of the boundless universe.

So charming ointments make an old witch fly,
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis this exalted power, whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities:

This made a whimsical philosopher,
Before the spacious world his tub prefer;
And we have, many modern coxcombs, who
Retire to think, 'cause they have nought to do.
But thoughts were given for actions' government,
Where action ceases, thought 's impertinent.
Our sphere of action is life's happiness,
And he that thinks beyond, thinks like an ass.
Thus whilst against false reasoning I inveigh,
I own right reason, which I would obey;
That reason, which distinguishes by sense,
And gives us rules of good and ill from thence:
That bounds desires with a reforming will,
To keep them more in vigour, not to kill:
Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,
Renewing appetites, yours would destroy.
My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat;
Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat;
Perversely yours, your appetite does mock;
This asks for food; that answers, what 's a clock!
"This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures;
'Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.
Thus I think reason righted: but for man,
I'll ne'er recant, defend him if you can.
For all his pride, and his philosophy,
'Tis evident beasts are, in their degree,
As wise at least, and better far than he.
Those creatures are the wisest, who attain,
By surest means, the ends at which they aim.
If therefore Jowler finds, and kills his hare,
Better than Meres supplies committee-chair;
Though one 's a statesman, th' other but a hound,
Jowler justice will be wiser found.
You see how far man's wisdom here extends:
Look next if human nature makes amends;
Whose principles are most generous and just;
And to whose morals you would sooner trust:
Be judge yourself, I'll bring it to the test,
Which is the basest creature, man or beast:
Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey,
But savage man alone does man betray.
Prest by necessity, they kill for food;
Man undoes man, to do himself no good:
With teeth and claws by Nature arm'd, they hunt
Nature's allowance, to supply their want.

But man, with smiles, embraces, friendships, praise, Who hunt preferment, but abhor good lives,
Inhumanly his fellow's life betrays;
With voluntary pains works his distress;
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For huuger or for love, they bite or tear,
Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear:
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid,
From fear to fear successively betray'd:

Whose lust exalted to that height arrives, They act adultery with their own wives; And, ere a score of years completed be, Can from the lofty stage of honour see, Half a large parish their own progeny. Nor doating who would be ador'd, For domineering at the council-board,

Base fear, the source whence his base passions A greater fop, in business at fourscore,

came,

His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame:
The lust of power, to which he 's such a slave,
And for the which alone he dares be brave;
To which his various projects are design'd,
Which makes him generous, affable, and kind;
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions in a forc'd disguise;
Leads a most tedious life, in misery,
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join;
The good he acts, the ill he does endure,
'Tis all from fear to make himself secure.
Merely for safety, after fame they thirst;
For all men would be cowards if they durst:
And honesty's against all common sense;
Men must be knaves; 'tis in their own defence
Mankind 's dishonest; if you think it fair,
Amongst known cheats, to play upon the square,
You'll be undone

Nor can weak truth your reputation save;
The knaves will all agree to call you knave.
Wrong'd shall he live, insulted o'er, opprest,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest.
Thus here you see what human nature craves,
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves.
The difference lies, as far as I can see,
Not in the thing itself, but the degree;
And all the subject-matter of debate,
Is only who's a knave of the first-rate."

POSTSCRIPT.

ALL this with indignation have I hurl'd,
At the pretending part of the proud world,
Who, swoln with selfish vanity, devise
False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies,
Over their fellow-slaves to tyrannize.

But if in court so just a man there be,
(In court a just man, yet unknown to me)
Who does his needful flattery direct,
Not to oppress and ruin, but protect;
Since flattery, which way soever laid,
Is still a tax on that unhappy trade;
If so upright a statesman you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbias'd mind;
Who does his arts and policies apply,
To raise his country, not his family.

Is there a mortal who on God relies?
Whose life his faith and doctrine justifies?
Not one blown up with vain aspiring pride,
Who, for reproof of sins, does man deride:
Whose envious heart with saucy eloquence
Dares chide at kings, and rail at men of sense:
Who in his talking vents more peevish lies,
More bitter railings, scandals, calumnies,
Than at a gossiping are thrown about,
When the good wives drink free, and then fall out.
None of the sensual tribe, whose talents lie
In avarice, pride, in sloth, and gluttony;

Fonder of serious toys, affected more,
Than the gay glittering fool at twenty proves,
With all his noise, his tawdry clothes, and loves.
But a meek humble man of modest sense,
Who, preaching peace, does practise continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths, which no man can conceive.
If upon Earth there dwell such godlike men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them;
Adore those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
And, with the thinking world, their laws obey.
If such there are, yet grant me this at least,
Man differs more from man, than man from beast.

THE MAIMED DEBAUCHEE.

As some brave admiral, in former war
Depriv'd of force, but prest with courage still,
Two rival fleets appearing from afar,

Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill:

From whence (with thoughts full of concern) he views
The wise and daring conduct of the fight:
And each bold action to his mind renews

His present glory, and his past delight:

From his fierce eyes flashes of rage he throws,
As from black clouds when lightning breaks away,
Transported, thinks himself amidst his foes,
And absent, yet enjoys the bloody day.

So when my days of impotence approach,
And I'm, by wine and love's unlucky chance,
Driven from the pleasing billows of debauch,
On the dull shore of lazy temperance:

My pains at last some respite shall afford,

While I behold the battles you maintain; When fleets of glasses sail around the board, From whose broadsides vollies of wit shall rain.

Nor shall the sight of honourable scars,

Which my too forward valour did procure, Frighten new-listed soldiers from the wars;

Past joys have more than paid what I endure. Should some brave youth (worth being drunk) prove And from his fair inviter meanly shrink, [nice Twould please the ghost of my departed vice, If, at my counsel, he repent and drink.

Or should some cold-complexion'd sot forbid, With his dull morals, our night's brisk alarms; I'll fire his blood, by telling what I did

When I was strong, and able to bear arms.

I'll tell of whores attack'd, their lords at home,
Bawds quarters beaten up, and fortress won;
Windows demolish'd, watches overcome,

And handsome ills by my contrivance done.

With tales like these I will such heat inspire,
As to important mischief shall incline;
I'll make him long some ancient church to fire,
And fear no lewdness they 're call'd to by wine.
Thus statesman-like I'll saucily impose,
And, safe from danger, valiantly advise;
Shelter'd in impotence urge you to blows,
And, being good for nothing else, be wise.

UPON NOTHING.

NOTHING! thou elder brother ev'n to Shade,
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And (well fixt) art alone of ending not afraid.
Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
When primitive Nothing, Something straight begot,
Then all proceeded from the great united-What.
Something, the general attribute of all,
Sever'd from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguish'd fall.
Yet something did thy mighty power command,
And from thy fruitful emptiness's hand,
Snatch'd men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land.
Matter, the wicked'st offspring of thy race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace,
And rebel Light obscur'd thy reverend dusky face.
With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join;
Body, thy foe, with thee did leagues combine,
To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line.
But turn-coat Time assists the foe in vain,
And, brib'd by thee, assists thy short-liv'd reign,
And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again.
Though mysteries are barr'd from laic eyes,
And the divine alone, with warrant, pries
Into thy bosom, where the truth in private lies:
Yet this of thee the wise may freely say,
Thou from the virtuous nothing tak'st away,
And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray.
Great Negative! how vainly would the wise
Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise?
Didst thou not stand to point their dull philosophies.

Is, or is not, the two great ends of Fate,
And, true or false, the subject of debate,
That perfect or destroy the vast designs of Fate;
When they have rack'd the politician's breast,
Within thy bosom most securely rest,

And, when reduc'd to thee, are least unsafe and best.
But Nothing, why does Something still permit,
That sacred monarchs should at council sit,
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit?
Whilst weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes' coffers, and from statesmens' brains,
And nothing there like stately Nothing reigns.
Nothing, who dwell'st with fools in grave disguise,
For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise,
Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like
thee look wise.

French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,

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Spaniards' dispatch, Danes' wit, are mainly seen in thee.

The great man's gratitude to his best friend, Kings' promises, whores' vows, towards thee they bend,

Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.

TRANSLATION

OF SOME LINES IN LUCRETIUS.

THE gods, by right of Nature, must possess
An everlasting age of perfect peace;
Far off remov'd from us and our affairs,
Neither approach'd by dangers or by cares;
Rich in themselves, to whom we cannot add;
Not pleas'd by good deeds, nor provok'd by bad.

THE LATTER END OF THE CHORUS OF

THE SECOND ACT OF SENECA'S TROAS,

TRANSLATED.

AFTER death nothing is, and nothing death,
The utmost limits of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside

His hope of Heaven, (whose faith is but his pride)
Let slavish souls lay by their fear,
Nor be concern'd which way, or where,
After this life they shall be hurl'd:

Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept,
Where things destroy'd with things unborn are kept;
Devouring Time swallows us whole,
Impartial Death confounds body and soul.
For Hell, and the foul fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery gaols,
Devis'd by rogues, dreaded by fools,
With his grim grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idles tales,
Dreams, whimsies, and no more.

ΤΟ

HIS SACRED MAJESTY,

OH HIS RESTORATION IN THE YEAR 1660. VIRTUE's triumphant shrine! who dost engage At once three kingdoms in a pilgrimage: Which in ecstatic duty strive to come Out of themselves, as well as from their home; Whilst England grows one camp, and London is Itself the nation, not metropolis; And loyal Kent renews her arts again, Fencing her ways with moving groves of men: Forgive this distant homage, which does meet Your blest approach on sedentary feet; And though my youth, not patient yet to bear The weight of arms, denies me to appear In steel before you; yet, great sir, approve My manly wishes, and more vigorous love; In whom a cold respect were treason to A father's ashes, greater than to you; Whose one ambition 't is for to be known, By daring loyalty, your Wilmot's son. Wadh. Coll.

ROCHESTER

TO HER

Poets and women have an equal right
To hate the dull, who, dead to all delight,

SACRED MAJESTY THE QUEEN-MOTHER. Feel pain alone, and have no joy but spite.

ON THE DEATH OF MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE.

RESPITE, great queen, your just and hasty fears:
There's no infection lodges in our tears.
Though our unhappy air be arm'd with death,
Yet sighs have an untainted guiltless breath.
Oh! stay a while, and teach your equal skill
To understand, and to support our ill.

You that in mighty wrongs an age have spent,
And seem to have out-liv'd ev'n banishment;
Whom traitorous Mischief sought its earliest prey,
When to most sacred blood it made its way,
And did thereby its black design impart,

To take his head, that wounded first his heart:
You that, unmov'd, great Charles's ruin stood,
When three great nations sunk beneath the load;
Then a young daughter lost, yet balsam found
To stanch that new and freshly-bleeding wound;
And, after this, with fixt and steady eyes
Beheld your noble Gloucester's obsequies;
And then sustain'd the royal princess' fall:
You only can lament her funeral.

But you will hence remove, and leave behind
Our sad complaints lost in the empty wind;
Those winds that bid you stay, and loudly roar
Destruction, and drive back to the firm shore;
Shipwreck to safety, and the envy fly
Of sharing in this scene of tragedy:

While sickness, from whose rage you post away,
Relents, and only now contrives your stay;
The lately fatal and infectious ill

Courts the fair princess, and forgets to kill:
In vain on fevers curses we dispense,
And vent our passion's angry eloquence:
In vain we blast the ministers of Fate,
And the forlorn physicians imprecate;
Say they to Death new poisons add and fire,
Murder securely for reward and hire;
Art basilisks, that kill whome'er they see,
And truly write bills of mortality,

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Who, lest the bleeding corpse should them betray,
First drain those vital speaking streams away.
And will you, by your flight, take part with these?
Become yourself a third and new disease?
If they have caus'd our loss, then so have you,
Who take yourself and the fair princess too:
For we, depriv'd, an equal damage have
When France doth ravish hence, as when the grave:
But that your choice th' unkindness doth improve,
And dereliction adds to your remove.

ROCHESTER, Of Wadham College.

AN EPILOGUE,

SOME few, from wit, have this true maxim got,
"That 'tis still better to be pleas'd than not ;"
And therefore never their own torment plot.
While the malicious critics still agree

To loath each play they come and pay to see.
The first know 'tis a meaner part of sense
To find a fault, than taste an excellence :
Therefore they praise, and strive to like, while these
Are dully vain of being hard to please.

"Twas impotence did first this vice begin;
Fools censure wit, as old men rail at sin:
Who envy pleasure which they cannot taste,
And, good for nothing, would be wise at last.
Since therefore to the women it appears,
That all the enemies of wit are theirs,
Our poet the dull herd no longer fears.
Whate'er his fate may prove, 'twill be his pride.
To stand or fall with beauty on his side.

AN ALLUSION

TO THE TENTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

WELL, Sir, 't is granted; I said Dryden's rhymes
Were stolen, unequal, nay, dull, many times:
What foolish patron is there found of his,
So blindly partial to deny me this?
But that his plays, embroider'd up and down
With wit and learning, justly pleas'd the town,
In the same paper I as freely own.

Yet, having this allow'd, the heavy mass

That stuffs up his loose volumes, must not pass;
For by that rule I might as well admit
Crown's tedious scenes for poetry and wit.
"Tis therefore not enough, when your false sense
Hits the false judgment of an audience

Of clapping fools, assembling, a vast crowd,
Till the throng'd play-house crack'd with the dull
load;

Though ev'n that talent merits, in some sort,
That can divert the rabble and the court,
Which blundering Settle never could obtain,
And puzzling Otway labours at in vain :
But within due proportion circumscribe
Whate'er you write, that with a flowing tide
The style may rise, yet in its rise forbear
With useless words t' oppress the weary'd ear.
Here be your language lofty, there more light,
Your rhetoric with your poetry unite.
For elegance sake, sometimes allay the force
Of epithets, 'twill soften the discourse:
A jest in scorn points out and hits the thing
More home, than the remotest satire's sting.
Shakspeare and Jonson did in this excel,
And might herein be imitated well,
Whom refin'd Etherege copies not at all,
But is himself a sheer original.

Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindaric strains,
Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains,
And rides a jaded Muse, whipt, with loose reins.
When Lee makes temperate Scipio fret and rave,
And Hannibal a whining amorous slave,

I laugh, and wish the hot-brain'd fustian fool
In Busby's hands, to be well lash'd at school.
Of all our modern wits, none seem to me
Once to have touch'd upon true comedy,
But hasty Shadwell, and slow Wycherley.
Shadwell's unfinish'd works do yet impart
Great proofs of force of Nature, none of Art;
With just bold strokes he dashes here and there,
Showing great mastery with little care,
Scorning to varnish his good touches o'er,
To make the fools and women praise them more.
But Wycherley earns hard whate'er he gains,
He wants no judgment, and he spares no pains:

He frequently excels, and, at the least,
Makes fewer faults, than any of the rest.
Waller, by Nature for the bays design'd,
With force and fire, and fancy unconfin'd,
In panegyric does excel mankind.

He best can turn, enforce, and soften things,
To praise great conquerors, and flatter kings.
For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,
The best good man, with the worst-natur'd Muse.
For songs and verses mannerly obscene,
That can stir Nature up by springs unseen,
And, without forcing blushes, warm the queen;
Sedley has that prevailing gentle art,
That can with a resistless power impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart,
Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Betwixt declining virtue and desire,
Till the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away,
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.
Dryden in vain try'd this nice way of wit;
For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit
To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob,
And thus he got the name of Poet Squab.
But, to be just, 't will to his praise be found,
His excellencies more than faults abound:
Nor dare I from his sacred temples tear
The laurel, which he best deserves to wear.
But does not Dryden find e'en Jonson dull?
Beaumont and Fletcher uncorrect, and full

Or when the poor-fed poets of the town
For scabs and coach-room cry my verses down?'
I loath the rabble; 't is enough for me
If Sedley, Shadwell, Shephard, Wycherley,
Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
And some few more, whom I omit to uame,
Approve my sense: I count their censure fame.

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 person we more clearly see
That satire's of divine authority,

For God made one on man when he made thee;
To show there were some men, as there are apes,
Fram'd for mere sport, who differ but in shapes:
In thee are all these contradictions join'd,
That make an ass 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 sight;
Yet Love 's thy business, Beauty thy delight.
Curse on that silly hour that first inspir'd
Thy madness, to pretend to be admir'd;
To paint thy grisly face, to dance, to dress,

Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakspeare's style And all those awkward follies that express

Stiff and affected? To his own the while
Allowing all the justice that his pride
So arrogantly had to these deny'd?
And may not I have leave impartially

To search and censure Dryden's works, and try
If those gross faults his choice pen doth commit
Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit?
Or if his lumpish fancy does refuse
Spirit and grace to his loose slattern Muse?
Five hundred verses every morning writ,
Prove him no more a poet than a wit;
Such scribbling authors have been seen before;
Mustapha, the Island Princess, forty more,
Were things perhaps compos'd in half an hour.
To write what may securely stand the test
Of being well read over thrice at least,
Compare each phrase, examine every line,
Weigh every word, and every thought refine;
Scorn all applause the vile rout can bestow,
And be content to please those few who know.
Canst thou be such a vain mistaken thing,
To wish thy works might make a play-house ring
With the unthinking laughter and poor praise
Of fops and ladies, factious for thy plays?
Then send a cunning friend to learn thy doom
From the shrewd judges in the drawing-room.
I've no ambition on that idle score,
But say with Betty Morice heretofore,

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 scarecrow 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 chaste

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As charms are nonsense, nonsense seems a charm,
Which hearers of all judgment does disarm;
For songs 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 discreetly done.

When a court lady call'd her Buckhurst's whore '; For since with vice and folly Wit is fed,

"I please one man of wit, am proud on 't too,
Let all the coxcombs dance to bed to you."
Should I be troubled when the purblind knight,
Who squints more in his judgment than his sight,
Picks silly faults, and censures what I write?

The same probably who is celebrated by lord Buckhurst (or Dorset) in his poems. See Gent. Mag. 1780, p. 218.

Through mercy 'tis most of you are not dead.
Players turn puppets now at your desire,
In their mouth 's nonsense, in their tail 's a wire,
They fly through crowds of clouts and showers of
fire.

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 this reply.

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