TO 〈◊〉 Poet BAVIUS; OCCASIONED BY HIS satire He Writ in his VERSES TO THE KING, UPON THE QUEENS being Delivered OF A SON.  
Permissu Superiorum.  
LONDON, Printed for the Author, M DC LXXX VIII.   

UPON THE POET BAVIUS.  

A Labouring Muse, that full Nine Months had been 
First in Labour and then Pregnant.   
In Painful throes Pregnant at last became.  
Nine Months a Loyal Zeal had Fired my Breast, 
So long Loyal.   
Which for Nine Muses could not be at rest.  
Tell me, vain hardened Scribbler, what Pretence  
Have those two Lines, to Kindred, or to Sense?  
The Luckey jingle of the Nine and Nine,  
Produced 'em without Thinking or Design.  
The first thy Loyalties short date Rehearses:  
The next, how Damnably thou Pump'st for Verses.  
But Duty did my desperate Ray Control: 
But for Duty. he 〈◊〉 been enraged at the Birth of the Prince   
'Tis False, thy Muse was Tame, as is thy Soul:  
Thou hast no Rage, no Fire, no Spirit or Power,  
But Feeble Rancour, for the Happy Hour.  
Some could not Bridle their Officious Rhyme, 
No more could Bavius, who proffered his Poem to Bently two Months before the Prince was born; but had not the Courage to venture it till he saw indeed 'twas a Son   
But must bestow an Heir before the Time.  
While thou dull Faithless Scribbling Infidel,  
Could not Believe till thou couldst See, and Feel:  
We like the Joyful Patriarches of Old,  
Believed the good to Come, when but Fore told.  
But thou, as scanted in thy Faith as Sense,  
Wanted the Courage to Trust Providence.  
It was enough, we saw a Pregnant Queen!  
To Inspire our Muse, tho' we no more had seen.  
Where each wellwisher Honestly intends,  
Good will for Paltry Lines must make amends:  
And why so sharp Squire Bavius on your Friends?  
Thou who hast been this Fifteen Years at least,  
Through all the Town the most Notorious Jest;  
ere (to Increase thy Foppery) thou hadst Writ:  
The Scorn o'th' Boxes, Laughter of the Pit.  
Famous in Julian's Song, till Vile Lampoon  
Discarded thee for a too dull Buffoon.  
But once a Poet, our Diversion failed;  
Thou fellest below, even being Rediculed:  
And had not thy Unlucky Rhyming Spirit,  
Writ satire now, instead of Panygericks:  
Vile Pointless satire, thou mightst still have been  
A poor forgotten Drone without a Sting:  
And without notice followed still the King.  
His Couchees, and his Levies, wait, and get  
As much, as by thy ever failing Wit.   

While with Abortive Lines the Land you fill,  
And make the Consort hear your Nonsense still. 
Then with Abortive Joy the Nation fill, And make the Consort bear the burden still, Bavius Poem.   
Such Saucy Puns, with an Irreverend, She—  
And World of Does makes up thy Poetry:  
Below thy Native Dulness sinks thy Rhimes,  
And are a Woeful Libel on the Times.  
Maces and Furs, their Princes Favour gone, 
On the City   
Neglected, look like Roses after June:  
Or, like Fop Bavius Verse, quite out of Tune.  
Why does the Trading City look so Blue? 
Query, he says the City looks Bleak.   
Unless by Trusting Sharping Bavius like you.  
And why, a Body that no Soul can Boast, 
He calls it a Body without a Soul, and tells 'em they have lost the K's Favour.   
Or why have they their Princes Favour lost?  
The King no Thanks will give your Misplaced Zeal,  
To judge his Sentiments t'th' Commonweal.   

If Roses after June; are Roses still; 
Upon his simile of the Rose confuted.   
Retain their Colour, Beauty, and their Smell:  
The Novelty begets 'em more Esteem,  
Than if they Bloomed the common Month of June.  
So while the City keeps her Loyalty,  
She's still in Favour; and deserves to be,  
Inspite of all thy ill-timed Poetry.  
And who, but Rhyming Bavius, could suppose  
Maces, and Furs, so very like a Rose.  
Or think, because the Judge's Chains is gone, 
His Jerk for the turned on Judges.   
The gaudy Trifle lost, the Man's undone:  
Dull Fool, that ne'er to Merit gave its due,  
But thinks all Virtue to consist of Show:  
As if the Man, once Worth his Prince's Grace,  
Must with his short-lived Frown become an Ass.  
A Prince's Favour, then, by the same Rule,  
Should make him Loved, or Wise that is a Fool.   

But now the bitter Robe; the Reverend Gown, 
Witty on the Bishop   
Doomed by his Nation's Scandal, must go down:  
First tell us, that thou art a Renigade,  
ere to thy Mother thou turn Retrograde:  
If of the Primitive Roman Church thou be, 
He pretend● to be of th● Church of England:   
(Heaven guard her from so great an Infamy:)  
Stick to that Point, and then we Pardon Thee.  
But thou who still the Established Faith Professed,  
Like an Ungrateful Bird, Bewrayst thy Nest:  
Or like the Amphibious Bat, that shuns the Light,  
With Beast canst walk, and with the Fowls take flight.   

The next high Jest, is the Discarded stusf; 
A ●ob for the controllers, th● are ●ut.   
Now Bavius hand is in, he claws it off.  
And like Almanzor when Enraged he grows,  
Promiscuously he falls on Friends and Foes.  
Tho' with Substantial Limbs, and brisk in Walking,  
Without your Staff you are but Lame and Halting.  
Oh Luckey hit! what strange Prodigious skill  
Thou hast in Clinching, Quibbling, Doggeril,   

The Colonel's next; but by unhappy Chance, 
The 〈…〉 Colonels   
No Puns the value of these Lines Advance:  
But Dids, and Does, and a quant Simely,  
Which must the Place of smarter Clinch supply.  
He tells you here, That loss of a Commission,  
Is very much like a Deathbed Contrition:  
Nay, what is worse, so wretched is their Fate,  
No Galloon-Coats their Levires now must wait;  
In Bavius Sense, Wit, Honour, Virtue lies 
〈…〉   
In the Lac'd-Coat and Gay-Embroaderies.  
Nor is the Garter from his Rage exempt,  
Turned off, he adds the weight of his Contempt:  
Unhappy Peers, when once you're in Disgrace;  
Your Ribban's Dirty, and your Stars are Brass:  
Worse than Beau Bavius Belt all set with Glass.  
The Suck-Blood Vermin of the Robe alone, 
Here he Civil 〈…〉 o of the R 〈…〉 in Gener.   
Can Smile to see Men every day undone.   

If by Permissu Superiorum, this 
His Book s 〈…〉 Licenced.   
Dull, Saucy Libel, through the Town must pass:  
Where Reverend Bishops, Ravenous Wolves are deemed;  
And all the Judges, Bloody Knaves esteemed:  
White Staves, Blue Garters, all within his reach;  
His Evidence Muse, must of some Crime Impeach.  
Then farewell all good Manners, Sense, and Wit,  
If Superiorums will such Stuff admit.  
But this was slyly meant, like all the rest;  
Upon the Reverend Fathers for a Jest.  
No Order, Honour, or High Place, can be  
From his Immortal Nonsense satire free.   

Hadst thou not better in a few dull Lines,  
Plain Honest Meeter— tagged with gingling Rhimes,  
In thy Coronation Style, and usual Sense,  
Hamered some Hearty welcome to the Prince:  
Kept to thy Theme, and his just Praises Sung;  
And not have took this time for public wrong  
Lybel, this great Occasion, could not bear;  
All Love, and Softness, was the Business here:  
Malice should here be banished from thy Quill,  
Then we'd excused thy barely writing ill;  
And for bad Lines have taken thy good Will.  
We are content thou shouldst in Scoundrel Verse,  
Put into French the Famous Hudebras;  
Or Nobler Boilean into English turn,  
And move at once our Laughter and our Scorn.   

Thy dull Advice too, we with Patience Read,  
Which tells us, how Young Monarches should be Bred;  
('Tis pity but thou wert a Tutor made.)  
And who that see the Politics that shine,  
Through all the Nonsense of each struggling Line: 
See Bavius.   
Thy exact Grammar, and Coherence views,  
With the good Nature of thy Railing Muse:  
Thy Wit, thy Parts, thy Conduct, Mien and Grace,  
Thy Presence, Cringes, and thy Court Grimarce;  
But Swears Heaven meant thee for a perfect— As—   
FINIS.