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POEMS

OF THE

EARL OF DORSET

TO MR. EDWARD HOWARD,

ON HIS INCOMPARABLE, INCOMPREHENSIBLE POEM, CALLED
THE BRITISH PRINCES.

COME on, ye critics, find one fault who dares;
For read it backward, like a witch's prayers,
'Twill do as well; throw not away your jests
On solid nonsense, that abides all tests.
Wit, like tierce-claret, when 't begins to pall,
Neglected lies, and 's of no use at all,
But, in its full perfection of decay,
Turns vinegar, and comes again in play.
Thou hast a brain, such as it is indeed;
On what else should thy worm of fancy feed!
Yet in a filbert I have often known
Maggots survive, when all the kernel 's gone.
This simile shall stand in thy defence, [sense.
'Gainst those dull rogues who now and then write
Thy style's the same, whatever be thy theme,
As some digestions turn all meat to phlegm:
They lie, dear Ned, who say thy brain is barren,
Where deep conceits, like maggots, breed in carrion.
Thy stumbling founder'd jade can trot as high
As any other Pegasus can fly :

So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud,
Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood,
As skilful divers to the bottom fall
Sooner than those who cannot swim at all;
So in this way of writing, without thinking,
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.
Thou writ'st below even thy own natural parts,
And with acquir'd dulness and new arts
Of study'd nonsense, tak'st kind readers hearts.
Therefore, dear Ned, at my advice, forbear
Such loud complaints 'gainst critics to prefer,
Since thou art turn'd an arrant libeller;
Thou sett'st thy name to what thyself dost write;
Did ever libel yet so sharply bite?

TO THE SAME, ON HIS PLAYS. THOU damn'd Antipodes to common sense, Thou foil to Flecknoe, pr'ythee tell from whence

Does all this mighty stock of dulness spring?
Is it thy own, or hast it from Snow-hill,
Assisted by some ballad-making quill?
No, they fly higher yet, thy plays are such,
I'd swear they were translated out of Dutch.
Fain would I know what diet thou dost keep,
If thou dost always, or dost never sleep?
Sure hasty-pudding is thy chiefest dish,
With bullock's liver, or some stinking fish:
Garbage, ox-cheeks, and tripes, do feast thy brain,
Which nobly pays this tribute back again.
With daisy-roots thy dwarfish Muse is fed,
A giant's body, with a pigmy's head.
Canst thou not find, among thy numerous race
Of kindred, one to tell thee that thy plays
Are laught at by the pit, box, galleries, nay, stage?
Think on 't a while, and thou wilt quickly find
Thy body made for labour, not thy mind.
No other use of paper thou shouldst make,
Than carrying loads and reams upon thy back.
Carry vast burdens till thy shoulders shrink,
But curst be he that gives thee pen and ink:
Such dangerous weapons should be kept from fools,
As nurses from their children keep edg'd tools:
For thy dull fancy a muckinder is fit

To wipe the slabberings of thy snotty wit:
And though 'tis late if justice could be found,
Thy plays, like blind-born puppies, should be drown'd
For were it not that we respect afford
Unto the son of an heroic lord,
Thine in the ducking-stool should take her seat,
Drest like herself in a great chair of state;
Where like a Muse of quality she'd die,
And thou thyself shalt make her elegy,
In the same strain thou writ'st thy comedy.

TO SIR THOMAS ST. SERFE,

ON THE PRINTING HIS PLAY CALLED TARUGO'S WILES, 1668.

TARUGO gave us wonder and delight,
When he oblig'd the world by candle-light:

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Did but attempt th' uniting of our isle.
What kings and Nature only could design,
Shall be accomplish'd by this work of thine.
For, who is such a Cockney in his heart,
Proud of the plenty of the southern part,
To scorn that union, by which we may
Boast 'twas his countryman that writ this play?
Phoebus himself, indulgent to my Muse,
Has to the country sent this kind excuse;
Fair Northern Lass, it is not through neglect
I court thee at a distance, but respect;
I cannot act, my passion is so great,
But I'll make up in light what wants in heat;
On thee I will bestow my longest days,
And crown thy sons with everlasting bays:
My beams that reach thee shall employ their powers
To ripen souls of men, not fruits or flowers.
Let warmer climes my fading favours boast,
Poets and stars shine brightest in the frost.

EPILOGUE

ON THE REVIVAL OF BEN JONSON'S PLAY, CALLED
EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR.'

To make me speak in such a play's defence;
ENTREATY shall not serve, nor violence,
A play, where Wit and Humour do agree
To break all practis'd laws of Comedy.
The scene (what more absurd!) in England lies,
No gods descend, nor dancing devils rise;
No captive prince from unknown country brought,
No battle, nay, there 's scarce a duel fought:
And something yet more sharply might be said,
But I consider the poor author's dead:
Let that be his excuse-now for our own,
Why-faith, in my opinion, we need none.
The parts were fitted well; but some will say,
"Pox on them, rogues, what made them choose this
I do not doubt but you will credit me,
It was not choice but mere necessity:
To all our writing friends, in town, we sent,
But not a wit durst venture out in Lent:

[play

Have patience but till Easter-term, and then,
You shall have jigg and hobby-horse again.
Here's Mr. Matthew, our domestic wit',
Does promise one o' th' ten plays he has writ:
But since great bribes weigh nothing with the just,
Know, we have merits, and to them we trust.
When any fasts, or holidays, defer

EPILOGUE TO MOLIERE'S TARTUFFE, The public labours of the theatre,

TRANSLATED BY MR. MEDBURNE.

SPOKEN BY TARTUFFE.

MANY have been the vain attempts of wit,
Against the still-prevailing hypocrite:
Once, and but once, a poet got the day,
And vanquish'd Busy in a puppet-play;
And Busy, rallying, arm'd with zeal and rage,
Possess'd the pulpit, and pull'd down the stage.
To laugh at English knaves is dangerous then,
While English fools will think them honest men:
But sure no zealous brother can deny us
Free leave with this our monsieur Ananias:
A man may say, without being call'd an atheist,
There are damn'd rogues among the French and
papist,

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That fix salvation to short band and air,
That belch and snuffle to prolong a prayer;
That use "enjoy the creature," to express
Plain whoring, gluttony, and drunkenness ;
And, in a decent way, perform them too
As well, nay better far, perhaps, than you.
Whose fleshly failings are but fornication,
We godly phrase it gospel-propagation,"
Just as rebellion was call'd reformation.
Zeal stands but sentry at the gate of Sin,
Whilst all that have the word pass freely in:
Silent, and in the dark, for fear of spies,
We march, and take Damnation by surprise.
There's not a roaring blade in all this town
Can go so far towards Hell for half-a-crown
As I for sixpence, for I know the way;
For want of guides men are too apt to stray:
Therefore give ear to what I shall advise,
Let every marry'd man, that 's grave and wise,
Take a Tartuffe of known ability,

To teach and to increase his family;
Who shall so settle lasting reformation,
First get his son, then give him education.

We ride not forth, although the day be fair,
On ambling tit, to take the suburb air;
But with our authors meet, and spend that time
To make up quarrels between Sense and Rhyme.
Wednesdays and Fridays constantly we sate,
Till after many a long and free debate,
For diverse weighty reasons 't was thought fit,
Unruly Sense should still to Rhyme submit:
This, the most wholesome law we ever made,
So strictly in his epilogue obey'd,
Sure no man here will ever dare to break-
[Enter Jonson's Ghost.]
"Hold, and give way, for I myself will speak;
Can you encourage so much insolence,
And add new faults still to the great offence,
Your ancestors so rashly did commit,
Against the mighty powers of Art and Wit;
When they condemn'd those noble works of mine,
Sejanus, and my best-lov'd Catiline?
Repent, or on your guilty heads shall fall
The curse of many a rhyming pastoral.
The three bold Beauchamps shall revive again,
And with the London 'prentice conquer Spain.
All the dull follies of the former age
Shall find applause on this corrupted stage:
But if you pay the great arrears of praise,
So long since due to my much-injur❜d plays,
From all past crimes I first will set you free,
And then inspire some one to write like me."

SONG,

WRITTEN AT SEA, IN THE FIRST Dutch war, 1665, THE NIGHT BEFORE AN ENGAGEMENT.

To all you ladies now at land,

We men, at sea, indite;
But first would have you understand,
How hard it is to write;

I Matthew Medbourn, an eminent actor.

The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you,

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,

Roll up and down our ships at sea.
With a fa, &c.

Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;

Nor yet conclude our ships are lost,
By Dutchmen, or by wind:
Our tears we 'll send a speedier way,
The tide shall bring them twice a-day
With a fa, &c.,

The king, with wonder and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold;
Fecause the tides will higher rise,
Than e'er they us'd of old:

But let him know, it is our tears

Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs.
With a fa, &c.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know
Our sad and dismal story;

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,
And quit their fort at Goree:

For what resistance can they find

From men who 've left their hearts behind? With a fa, &c.

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,
No sorrow we shall find:

'Tis then no matter how things go,

Or who 's our friend, or who 's our foe.
With a fa, &c.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main;
Or else at serious ombre play;
But, why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you.
With a fa, &c.

But now our fears tempestuous grow,
And cast our hopes away;
Whilst you, regardless of our woe,
Sit careless at a play:
Perhaps, permit some happier man
To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.
With a fa, &c.

When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note;

As if it sigh'd with each man's care,
For being so remote ;

Think how often love we 've made

To you, when all those tunes were play'd. With a fa, &c.

In justice you cannot refuse,

To think of our distress;

When we for hopes of honour lose

Our certain happiness;

All those designs are but to prove
Ourselves more worthy of your love.
With a fa, &c.

And now we've told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears;
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity from your tears;
Let's hear of no inconstancy,
We have too much of that at sea.
With a fa, la, la, la, la.

ON THE COUNTESS OF DORCHESTER, MISTRESS TO KING JAMES THE SECOND, 1680.

TELL me, Dorinda, why so gay,

Why such embroidery, fringe, and lace?
Can any dresses find a way,
To stop th' approaches of decay,

And mend a ruin'd face?

Wilt thou still sparkle in the box,
Still ogle in the ring?

Canst thou forget thy age and pox?
Can all that shines on shells and rocks
Make thee a fine young thing?

So have I seen in larder dark
Of veal a lucid loin;

Replete with many a brilliant spark,
As wise philosophers remark,

At once both stink and shine.

ON THE SAME.

PROUD with the spoils of royal cully,
With false pretence to wit and parts,
She swaggers like a batter'd bully,

To try the tempers of mens' hearts.

Though she appear as glittering fine,

As gems, and jetts, and paint, can make her; She ne'er can win a breast like mine; The Devil and sir David take her.

KNOTTING.

Ar noon, in a sunshiny day,
The brighter lady of the May,
Young Chloris, innocent and gay,
Sat knotting in a shade:
Each slender finger play'd its part,
With such activity and art,
As would inflame a youthful heart,

And warm the most decay'd.

Her favourite swain, by chance, came by,
He saw no anger in her eye;

Yet when the bashful boy drew nigh,
She would have seem'd afraid.

She let her ivory needle fall,
And hurl'd away the twisted ball:
But straight gave Strephon such a call,
As would have rais'd the dead.

1 Sir David Colyear, late earl of Portmore,

"Dear gentle youth, is 't none but thee? With innocence I dare be free;

By so much truth and modesty

No nymph was e'er betray'd.

"Come lean thy head upon my lap; While thy smooth cheeks I stroke and clap, Thou may'st securely take a nap ;"

Which he, poor fool, obey'd.

She saw him yawn, and heard him snore,
And found him fast asleep all o'er.
She sigh'd, and could endure no more,
But starting up, she said:

"Such virtue shall rewarded be:
For this thy dull fidelity,

I'll trust you with my flocks, not me,
Pursue thy grazing trade;

"Go, milk thy goats, and shear thy sheep, And watch all night thy flocks to keep; Thou shalt no more be lull'd asleep

By me, mistaken maid.”

THE ANTIQUATED COQUET,

A SATIRE ON A LADY OF IRELAND',

PHYLLIS, if you will not agree
To give me back my liberty,
In spite of you, I must regain

My loss of time, and break your chain.
You were mistaken, if you thought
I was so grossly to be caught;
Or that I was so blindly bred,
As not to be in woman read.
Perhaps you took me for a fool,
Design'd alone your sex's tool;
Nay, you might think so mad a thing,
That, with a little fashioning,

I might in time, for your dear sake,
That monster call'd a husband make:
Perhaps I might, had I not found
One darling vice in you abound;
A vice to me, which e'er will prove
An antidote to banish love.
O! I could better bear an old,
Ugly, diseas'd, mis-shapen scold,
Or one who games, or will be drunk,
A fool, a spendthrift, bawd, or punk,
Than one at all who wildly flies,
And, with soft, asking, giving eyes,
And thousand other wanton arts,
So meanly trades in begging hearts.

How might such wondrous charms perplex,
Give chains, or death, to all our sex,
Did she not so unwisely set,
For every fluttering fool, her net!
So poorly proud of vulgar praise,

Her very look her thoughts betrays;

She never stays till we begin,

But beckons us herself to sin.

Ere we can ask, she cries consent,
So quick her yielding looks are sent,
They hope forestal, and even desire prevent.
But Nature's turn'd when women woo,
We hate in them what we should do;

Supposed to be of the name of Clanbrazil,

Desire 's asleep, and cannot wake,
When women such advances make:
Both time and charms thus Phyllis wastes,
Since each must surfeit ere he tastes.
Nothing escapes her wandering eyes,
No one she thinks too mean a prize;
Ev'n Lynch, the lag of human kind,
Nearest to brutes by God design'd,
May boast the smiles of this coquet,
As much as any man of wit.
The signs bang thinner in the Strand,
The Dutch scarce more infest the land,
Though Egypt's locusts they outvie,
In number and voracity.

Whores are not half so plenty found,
In play-house, or that hallow'd ground
Of Temple-walks or Whetstone's Park;
Caresses less abound in Spark 3.
Then with kind looks for all who come,
At bawdy-house, the drawing-room:
But all in vain she throws her darts,
They hit, but cannot hurt our hearts:
Age has enerv'd her charms so much,
That fearless all her eyes approach;
Each her autumnal face degrades
With "Reverend Mother of the Maids!"
But 'tis ill-natur'd to run on,
Forgetting what her charms have done;
To Teagueland we this beauty owe,
Teagueland her earliest charms did know:
There first her tyrant beauties reign'd;
Where'er she look'd, she conquest gain'd.
No heart the glances could repel,
The Teagues in shoals before her fell;
And trotting bogs was all the art
The Sound had left to save his heart.
She kill'd so fast, by my salvation,
She near dispeopled half the nation:
Though she, good soul, to save took care
All, all she could from sad despair.
From thence she hither came to prove
If yet her charms could kindle love:
But, ah! it was too late to try,

For Spring was gone, and Winter nigh:
Yet though her eyes such conquests made,
That they were shunn'd, or else obey'd,
Yet now her charms are so decay'd,
She thanks each coxcomb that will deign
To praise her face, and wear her chain.
So some old soldier, who had done
Wonders in youth, and battles won,
When feeble years his strength depose,
That he too weak to vanquish grows,
With mangled face and wooden leg,
Reduc'd about for alms to beg,
O'erjoy'd, a thousand thanks bestows
On him who but a farthing throws.

SONG TO CHLORIS,

FROM THE BLIND ARCHER.

AH! Chloris, 'tis time to disarm your bright eyes,
And lay by those terrible glances;

We live in an age that 's more civil and wise,
Than to follow the rules of romances,

2 A notorious debauchee.

3 Elizabeth Spark, a noted courtezan.

When once your round bubbies begin but to pout, They'll allow you no long time of courting; And you'll find it a very hard task to hold out; For all maidens are mortal at fourteen.

SONG.

METHINKS the poor town has been troubled too long, With Phyllis and Chloris in every song,

By fools, who at once can both love and despair,
And will never leave calling them cruel and fair;
Which justly provokes me in rhyme to express
The truth that I know of bonny Black Bess.

This Bess of my heart, this Bess of my soul,
Has a skin white as milk, and hair as black as a coal;
She's plump, yet with ease you may span round
her waist,

But her round swelling thighs can scarce be embrac❜d:
Her belly is soft, not a word of the rest:

But I know what I think, when I drink to the best.

The ploughman and 'squire, the arranter clown,
At home she subdued in her paragon gown;
But now she adorns both the boxes and pit,
And the proudest town gallants are forc'd to submit ;
All hearts fall a-leaping wherever she comes,
And beat day and night, like my lord Craven's drums.

I dare not permit her to come to Whitehall,
For she'd outshine the ladies, paint, jewels, and all;
If a lord should but whisper his love in the crowd,
She'd sell him a bargain, and laugh out aloud:
Then the queen, overhearing what Betty did say,
Would send Mr. Roper to take her away.

But to those that have had my dear Bess in their

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"For you, my love, is all my fear! Hark, how the drums do rattle! Alas, sir! what should you do here In dreadful day of battle?

"Let little Orange stay and fight,
For danger 's his diversion;
The wise will think you in the right,
Not to expose your person:

"Nor vex your thoughts how to repair The ruins of your glory;

You ought to leave so mean a care

To those who pen your story.

"Are not Boileau and Corneille paid
For panegyric writing?
They know how heroes may be made,
Without the help of fighting.

"When foes too saucily approach,

"Tis best to leave them fairly: Put six good horses to your coach, And carry me to Marly.

"Let Bouflers, to secure your fame, Go take some town or buy it; Whilst you, great sir, at Nôtre Dame, Te Deum sing in quiet."

SONG.

PHYLLIS, the fairest of Love's foes,
Though fiercer than a dragon,
Phyllis, that scorn'd the powder'd beaux,
What has she now to brag on?
So long she kept her legs so close,

Till they had scarce a rag on.

Compell'd through want, this wretched maid
Did sad complaints begin;
Which surly Strephon hearing, said,
"It was both shame and sin,
To pity such a lazy jade,

As will neither play nor spin."

SONG.

MAY the ambitious ever find

Success in crowds and noise,

While gentle Love does fill my mind
With silent real joys!

May knaves and fools grow rich and great,
And the world think them wise,

While I lie dying at her feet,

And all the world despise.

Let conquering kings new triumphs raise,
And melt in court delights;
Her eyes can give much brighter days,
Her arms much softer nights.

SONG.

DORINDA'S Sparkling wit and eyes,
United, cast too fierce a light,
Which blazes high, but quickly dies,
Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight.

Love is a calmer gentler joy,

Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace; Her Cupid is a blackguard boy, That runs his link full in your face.

A FRENCH SONG PARAPHRASED.

In grey-hair'd Cælia's wither'd arms

As mighty Lewis lay,

She cry'd, "If I have any charms,
My dearest, let's away.

SONG.

SYLVIA, methinks you are unfit For your great lord's embrace; For though we all allow you wit, We can't a handsome face.

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