Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,
Foreshows our change of state, and thin third days,
'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us poor;
For then the printer's press would suffer more.
Their pamphleteers each day their venom spit;
They thrive by treason, and we starve by wit.
Confess the truth, which of you has not laid
Four farthings out to buy the Hatfield Maid?
Or, which is duller yet, and more would spite us,
Democritus's wars with Heraclitus?
Such are the authors, who have run us down,
And exercis'd you critics of the town.
Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes,
Y'abuse yourselves more dully than the times.
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags and scribbled out of fashion.
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith, they may hang their harps upon the willows;
'Tis just like children when they box with pillows.
Then put an end to civil wars for shame;
Let each knight-errant, who has wrong'd a dame,
'Throw down his pen, and give her, as he can,
The satisfaction of a gentleman.
The word is given, and with a loud huzza
The mitred moppet from his chair they draw:
On the slain corpse contending nations fall:
Alas! what's one poor pope among them all!
He burns: now all true hearts your triumphs
ring:
And next, for fashion, cry, "God save the king!"
A needful cry in midst of such alarms,
When forty thousand men are up in arms.
But after he's once saved, to make amends,
In each succeeding health they damn his friends:
So God begins, but still the Devil ends.
What if some one, inspir'd with zeal, should call,
Come, let's go cry, "God save him at Whitehall?*
His best friends would not like this over care,
Or think him e'er the safer for this prayer."
Five praying saints are by an act allow'd;
But not the whole church-militant in crowd.
Yet, should Heaven all the true petitions drain
Of Presbyterians, who would kings maintain,
Of forty thousand, five would scarce remain.
TO THE LOYAL BROTHER; OR, THE PERSIAN PRINCE. [BY MR. SOUTHERNE, 1682.]
POETS, like lawful monarchs, rul'd the stage,
Till critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd our age.
Mark how they jump: critics would regulate
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state:
Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them!)
The critic humbly seems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the king:
But one's advice into a satire slides;
T" other's petition a remonstrance hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no pence;
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince.
The critic all our troops of friends discards;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds that fright beasts of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids as these,
Are safe-as long as e'er their subjects please:
And that would be till next queen Bess's night:
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.
Sir Edmundbury first, in woful wise,
Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes.
There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part,
And pities the poor pageant from her heart;
Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire,
And, with a civil congé, does retire:
But guiltless blood to ground must never fall;
There's Antichrist behind, to pay for all.
The punk of Babylon in pomp appears,
A lewd old gentleman of seventy years:
Whose age in vain our mercy would implore;
For few take pity on an old cast-whore.
The Devil, who brought him to the shame, takes part;
Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart;
Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart.
EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.
A VIRGIN poet was serv'd up to day,
Who, till this hour, ne'er cackled for a play.
He 's neither yet a Whig nor Tory boy:
But, like a girl whom several would enjoy,
Begs leave to make the best of his own natural
Were I to play my callow author's game,
The king's house would instruct me by the name.
There's loyalty to one; I wish no more:
A commonwealth sounds like a common whore.
Let husband or gallant be what they will,
One part of woman is true Tory still.
If any factious spirit should rebel,
Our sex, with ease, can every rising quell.
Then, as you hope we should your failings hide,
An honest jury for our play provide.
Whigs at their poets never take offence;
They save dull culprits who have murder'd sense.
Though nonsense is a nauseous heavy mass,
The vehicle call'd Faction makes it pass.
Faction in play 's the commonwealth-man's bribe;
The leaden farthing of the canting tribe:
Though void in payment laws and statutes make it,
The neighbourhood, that knows the man, will
take it.
"Tis Faction buys the votes of half the pit;
Their's is the pension-parliament of wit.
In city clubs their venom let them vent;
For there 'tis safe in its own element.
Here, where their madness can have no pretence,
Let them forget themselves an hour of sense.
In one poor isle, why should two factions be?
Small difference in your vices I can see:
In drink and drabs both sides too well agree.
Would there were more preferments in the land:
If places fell, the party could not stand:
Of this damn'd grievance every Whig complains:
They grunt like hogs till they have got their grains
Mean time you see what trade our plots advance;
We send each year good money into France;
And they that know what merchandize we need,
Send o'er true Protestants to mend our breed.
TO THE DUKE OF GUISE, 1683.
OUR play's a parallel: the Holy League
Begot our Covenant: Guisards got the Whig:
Whate'er our hot-brain'd sheriffs did advance
Was, like our fashions, first produc'd in France;
And, when worn out, well scourg'd, and banish'd
like their godly beggars, here. Could the same trick, twice play'd, our nation gull ? It looks as if the Devil were grown dull,
Or serv'd us up, in scorn, his broken meat,
And thought we were not worth a better cheat.
The fulsome Covenant, one would think in reason,
Had given us all our bellies full of treason:
And yet, the name but chang'd, our nasty nation
Chaws its own excrement, th' Association.
'Tis true we have not learn'd their poisoning way,
For that 's a mode, but newly come in play;
Besides, your drug 's uncertain to prevail;
But your true Protestant can never fail,
With that compendious instrument a flail.
Go on; and bite, e'en though the hook lies bare:
Twice in one age expel the lawful heir:
Once more decide religion by the sword;
And purchase for us a new tyrant lord.
Pray for your king; but yet your purses spare:
Make him not twopence richer by your prayer.
To show you love him much, chastise him more;
And make him very great, and very poor.
Push him to wars, but still no pence advance;
Let him lose England, to recover France.
Cry freedom up with popular noisy votes:
And get enough to cut each other's throats.
Lop all the rights that fence your monarch's throne;
For fear of too much power, pray leave him none.
A noise was made of arbitrary sway;
But, in revenge, you Whigs have found a way,
An arbitrary duty now to pay.
Let his own servants, turn, to save their stake;
Glean from his plenty, and his wants forsake.
But let some Judas near his person stay,
To swallow the last sop, and then betray.
Make London independent of the crown:
A realm apart; the kingdom of the town.
Let ignoramus juries find no traitors:
And ignoramus poets scribble satires.
And, that your meaning none may fail to scan,
Do what in coffee-houses you began;
Pull down the master, and set up the man.
EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.
Much time and trouble this poor play has cost;
And, faith, I doubted once the cause was lost.
Yet no one man was meant; nor great nor small;
Our poets, like frank gamesters, threw at all.
They took no single aim-
But, like bold boys, true to their prince and hearty,
Huzza'd, and fir'd broadsides at the whole party.
Duels are crimes; but, when the cause is right,
In battle every man is bound to fight.
For what should hinder me to sell my skin Dear as I could, if once my hand were in? Se defendendo never was a sin.
'Tis a fine world, my masters, right or wrong,
The Whigs must talk, and Tories hold their tongue.
They must do all they can-
But we, forsooth, must bear a Christian mind;
And fight, like boys, with one hand ty'd behind.
Nay, and when one boy 's down, 'twere wondrous
To cry, box fair, and give him time to rise. [nice,
When Fortune favours, none but fools will dally:
Would any of you sparks, if Nan or Mally
Tipt you th' inviting wink, stand shall I; shall I?
A trimmer cry'd, (that heard me tell the story)
"Fie, mistress Cooke! faith, you're too rank a
Tory!
Wish not Whigs hang'd, but pity their hard cases;
You women love to see men make wry faces."
Pray sir, said I, dont think me such a Jew;
I say no more, but give the Devil his due.
"Lenitives," says he, "suit best with our condition."
Jack Ketch, says I, 's an excellent physician.
"I love no blood"-Nor I, sir, as I breathe;
But hanging is a fine dry kind of death.
"We trimmers are for holding all things even:"
Yes-just like him that hung 'twixt Hell and Heaven.
"Have we not had men's lives enough already?"
Yes sure;---but you're for holding all things steady:
Now, since the weight bangs all on our side, brother,
You trimmers should to poize it, hang on t' other.
Damn'd neuters, in their middle way of steering,
Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red-herring:
Not Whigs nor Tories they; nor this, nor that;
Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat,
A twilight animal, true to neither cause,
With Tory wings, but Whiggish teeth and claws.
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN TO THE PLAY, BEFORE
IT WAS FORBIDDEN LAST SUMMER 2.
Two houses join'd, two poets to a play?
You noisy Whigs will sure be pleas'd to day;
It looks so like two shrieves the city way.
But since our discords and divisions, cease,
You, Bilboa gallants, learn to keep the peace:
Make here no tilts: let our poor stage alone;
Or, if a decent murder must be done,
Pray take a civil turn to Marybone.
If not, I swear, we 'll pull up all our benches;
Not for your sakes, but for our orange-wenches:
For you thrust wide sometimes; and many a spark,
That misses one, can hit the other mark.
This makes our boxes full; for men of sense
Pay their four shillings in their own defence;
That safe behind the ladies they may stay,
Peep o'er the fan 3, and judge the bloody fray.
1 The actress, who spake the epilogue. N.
1 Langbaine says, this play found many enemies at its first appearance on the stage.
3 Hence Mr. Pope's couplet, Essay on Criticism,
The modest fan was lifted up no more,
And virgins smil'd at what they blush'd before.
But other foes give beauty worse alarms;
The posse poetarum 's up in arms:
No woman's fame their libels has escap'd;
Their ink runs venom, and their pens are clapt.
When sighs and prayers their ladies cannot move,
They rail, write treason, and turn Whigs to love.
Nay, and I fear they worse designs advance,
There's a damn'd love-trick now brought o'er from
France;
We charm in vain, and dress, and keep a pother,
Whilst those false rogues are ogling one another.
All sins besides admit some expiation;
But this against our sex is plain damnation.
They join for libels too these women-haters;
And, as they club for love, they club for satires:
The best on 't is they hurt not: for they wear
Stings in their tails, their only venom 's there.
'Tis true, some shot at first the ladies hit,
While able marksmen made, and men of wit:
But now the fools give fire, whose bounce is louder:
And yet, like mere train-bands, they shoot but
Libels, like plots, sweep all in their first fury;
Then dwindle like an ignoramus jury:
Thus age begins with touzing and with tumbling;
But grunts, and groans, and ends at last in fumbling.
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
SPOKEN BY MR. HART, AT THE ACTING OF THE SILENT
WOMAN.
And if they hit in order by some chance,
They call that Nature, which is ignorance.
To such a fame let mere town-wits aspire,
And their gay nonsense their own cits admire.
Our poet, could he find forgiveness here,
Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
He owns no crown from those prætorian bands,
But knows that right is in the senate's hands,
Not impudent enough to hope your praise,
Low at the Muses' feet his wreath he lays,
And, where he took it up, resigns his bays.
Kings make their poets whom themselves think fit,
But 'tis your suffrage makes authentic wit.
No poor Dutch peasant, wing'd with all his fear,
Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw
near,
Than we with our poetic train come down,
Heaven for our sins this summer has thought fit
For refuge hither, from th' infected town:
To visit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things in its way;
But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay:
Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
Th' Italian merry-andrews took their place,
And quite debauch'd the stage with lewd grimace:
Instead of wit, and humours, your delight
Was there to see two hobby-horses fight;
Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in,
WHAT Greece, when learning flourish'd, only knew, And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.
Athenian judges, you this day renew.
Here too are annual rites to Pallas done,
And here poetic prizes lost or won.
Methinks I see you, crown'd with olives, sit,
And strike a sacred horrour from the pit.
A day of doom is this of your decree,
Where ev'n the best are but by mercy free: [see.
A day, which none but Jonson durst have wish'd to
Here they, who long have known the useful stage,
Come to be taught themselves to teach the age.
As your commissioners our poets go,
To cultivate the virtue which you sow:
In your Lycæum first themselves refin'd,
And delegated thence to human kind.
But as ambassadors, when long from home,
For new instructions to their princes come;
So poets, who your precepts have forgot,
Return, and beg they may be better taught:
Follies and faults elsewhere by them are shown,
But by your manners they correct their own.
Th' illiterate writer, emp'ric-like, applies
To minds diseas'd, unsafe, chance remedies:
The learn'd in schools, where knowledge first began,
Studies with care th' anatomy of man;
Sees virtue, vice, and passions, in their cause,
And fame from Science, not from Fortune, draws.
So Poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
There haughty dunces, whose unlearned pen
Could ne'er spell granimar, would be reading men.
Such build their poems the Lucretian way;
So many huddled atoms make a play;
For love, you heard how amorous asses bray'd,
And cats in gutters gave their serenade.
Nature was out of countenance, and each day
Some new-born monster shown you for a play.
But when all fail'd, to strike the stage quite dumb,
Those wicked engines call'd machines are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are play'd,
And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid;
Art magic is for poetry profest;
And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Egyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worshipp'd now.
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth and Simon Magus of the town,
Fletcher's despis'd, your Jonson 's out of fashion,
And wit the only drug in all the nation.
In this low ebb our wares to you are shown;
By you those staple authors' worth is known:
For wit's a manufacture of your own.
When you, who only can, their scenes have prais'd,
We'll boldly back, and say, the price is rais'd.
SPOKEN AT OXFORD, BY MRS. MARSHALL.
Orr has our poet wish'd, this happy seat
Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat:
I wonder'd at his wish, but now I find
He sought for quiet, and content of mind;
Which noiseful towns and courts can never know,
And only in the shades, like laurels, grow.
Youth, ere it sees the world, here studies rest,
And age returning thence concludes it best.
What wonder if we court that happiness
Yearly to share, which hourly you possess,
Teaching ev'n you, while the vext world we show,
Your peace to value more, and better know?
'Tis all we can return for favours past,
Whose holy memory shall ever last,
For patronage from him whose care presides
O'er every noble art, and every science guides:
Bathurst, a name the learn'd with reverence know,
And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe;
Whose age enjoys but what his youth deserv'd,
To rule those Muses whom before he serv'd.
His learning, and untainted manners too,
We find, Athenians, are deriv'd to you:
Such ancient hospitality there rests
In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian breasts,
Whose kindness was religion to their guests.
Such modesty did to our sex appear,
As, had there been no laws, we need not fear,
Since each of you was our protector here.
Converse so chaste, and so strict virtue shone,
As might Apollo with the Muses own.
Till our return, we must despair to find
Judges so just, so knowing, and so kind.
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
DISCORD, and plots, which have undone our age,
With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the stage.
Our house has suffer'd in the common woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed,
And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted,
To Edinburgh gone, or coach'd, or carted.
With bonny bluecap there they act all night,
For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence
hight.
One nymph, to whom fat sir John Falstaff's lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decay'd,
Div'd here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty door-keepers of former time
There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit,
And there's a hero made without dispute:
And that, which was a capon's tail before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
Of imitation, go, like Indians, bare:
Lac'd linen there would be a dangerous thing;
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring:
The Scot, who wore it, would be chosen king.
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe?
Teague has been here, and, to this learned pit,
With Irish action slander'd English wit:
You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear,
As merited a second massacre:
Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace,
And had their country stamp'd upon their face.
When strollers durst presume to pick your purse,
We humbly thought car broken troop not worse.
How ill soe'er our action may deserve,
Oxford's a place where Wit can never starve.
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
THOUGH actors cannot much of learning boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most:
We love the praises of a learned pit,
As we remotely are ally'd to Wit.
We speak our poets' wit; and trade in ore,
Like those, who touch upon the golden shore:
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much, and why, our poems take:
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether th' applause be only sound or voice.
When our fop gallants, or our city folly,
Clap over-loud, it makes us melancholy:
We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,
And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
Judge then, if we who act, and they who write,
Should not be proud of giving you delight.
London likes grossly; but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot;
Knows what should justly please, and what should Nature herself lies open to your view; You judge by her, what draught of her is true, Where outlines false, and colours seem too faint, Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint. But, by the sacred genius of this place, By every Muse, by each domestic grace, Be kind to Wit, which but endeavours well, And, where you judge, presumes not to excel. As nations sued to be made free of Rome: Our poets hither for adoption come, Not in the suffragating tribes to stand, But in your utmost, last, provincial band. If his ambition may those hopes pursue, Who with religion loves your arts and you, Oxford to him a dearer name shall be, Than his own mother university. Thebes did his green, unknowing, youth engage; He chooses Athens in his riper age.
TO CONSTANTINE THE great.
OUR hero's happy in the play 's conclusion;
The holy rogue at last has met confusion:
Though Arius all along appear'd a saint,
The last act show'd him a true Protestant.
Eusebius (for you know I read Greek authors)
Reports, that, after all these plots and slaughters,
The court of Constantine was full of glory,
And every Trimmer turn'd addressing Tory.
They follow'd him in herds as they were mad:
When Clause was king, then all the world was glad.
Whigs kept the places they possest before,
And most were in a way of getting more;
Which was as much as saying, gentlemen,
Here's power and money to be rogues again.
Indeed, there were a sort of peaking tools,
(Some call them modest, but I call them fools)
Men much more loval, though not half so loud;
But these poor devils were cast behind the crowd.
For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.
Besides all these, there were a sort of wights,
I think my author calls them Teckelites,
Such hearty rogues against the king and laws,
They favour'd ev'n a foreign rebel's cause.
When their own damn'd design was quash'd and aw'd,
At least, they gave it their good word abroad.
As many a man, who, for a quiet life,
Breeds out his bastard, not to nose his wife;
Thus o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry ;
And though they cannot keep it in their eye,
They bind it 'prentice to count Teckeley.
They believe not the last plot; may I be curst,
If I believe they e'er believ'd the first.
No wonder their own plot no plot they think;
The man, that makes it, never smells the stink.
And now it comes into my head, I'll tell
Why these damn'd Trimmers lov'd the Turks so well.
Th' original Trimmer, though a friend to no man,
Yet in his heart ador'd a pretty woman;
He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever
Kind black-ey'd rogues, for every true believer;
And, which was more than mortal man e'er tasted,
One pleasure that for threescore twelvemonths
lasted :
To turn for this, may surely be forgiven:
Who'd not be circumcis'd for such a Heaven?
TO THE DISAPPOINTMENT; OR, THE MOTHER IN FASHION. [BY MR. SOUTHERNE, 1684.]
How comes it, gentlemen, that now a-days,
When all of you so shrewdly judge of plays,
Our poets tax you still with want of sense?
All prologues treat you at your own expense.
Sharp citizens a wiser way can go;
They make you fools, but never call you so.
They, in good-manners, seldom make a slip,
But treat a common whore with ladyship:
But here each saucy wit at random writes,
And uses ladies as he uses knights.
Our author, young and grateful in his nature,
Vows, that from him no nymph deserves a satire:
Nor will he ever draw-I mean his rhyme-
Against the sweet partaker of his crime.
Nor is he yet so bold an undertaker,
To call men fools; 'tis railing at their Maker.
Besides, he fears to split upon that shelf;
He's young enough to be a fop himself:
And, if his praise can bring you all a-bed,
He swears such hopeful youth no nation ever bred.
Your nurses, we presume, in such a case,
Your father chose, because he lik'd the face;
And, often, they supply'd your mother's place.
The dry nurse was your mother's ancient maid,
Who knew some former slip she ne'er betray'd.
Betwixt them both, for milk and sugar-candy,
Your sucking-bottles were well stor'd with brandy.
Your father, to initiate your discourse,
Meant to have taught you first to swear and curse,
But was prevented by each careful nurse:
For, leaving dad and mam, as names too common,
They taught you certain parts of man and woman.
I pass your schools; for there wher first you came,
You would be sure to learn the Latin name.
In colleges you scorn'd the art of thinking,
But learn'd all moods and figures of good drinking:
Thence come to town, you practise play, to know
The virtues of the high dice, and the low.
Each thinks himself a sharper most profound:
He cheats by pence; is cheated by the pound.
With these perfections, and what else he gleans,
The spark sets up for love behind our scenes;
Hot in pursuit of princesses and queens.
There, if they know their man, with cunning carriage,
Twenty to one but it concludes in marriage.
He hires some homely room, love's fruits to gather,
And, garret-high, rebels against his father: .
Brings her in triumph, with her portion, down,
A toilet, dressing-box, and half a crown.
Some marry first, and then they fall to scowering,
Which is, refining marriage into whoring.
Our women batten well on their good-nature;
All they can rap and rend for the dear creature.
But while abroad so liberal the dolt is,
Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is.
Last, some there are, who take their first degrees
Of lewdness in our middle galleries.
The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk,
Invade and grubble one another's punk:
They caterwaul, and make a dismal rout,
Call sons of whores, and strike, but ne'er lug out:
Thus while for paltry punk they roar and stickle,
They make it bawdier than a conventicle.
TO THE KING AND QUEEN', UPON THE UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES IN 1686.
SINCE faction ebbs, and rogues grow out of fashion,
Their penny-scribes take care t' inform the nation,
How well men thrive in this or that plantation:
How Pensylvania's air agrees with Quakers,
And Carolina's with Associators:
Both ev'n too good for madmen and for traitors.
Truth is, our land with saints is so run o'er,
And every age produces such a store,
That now there's need of two New Englands more.
What's this, you'll say, to us and our vocation?
Only thus much, that we have left our station,
And made this theatre our new plantation.
The factious natives never could agree;
But aiming, as they call'd it, to be free,
Those play-house Whigs set up for property.
At the opening of their theatre, 1683.
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