TIMES out of TUNE; played upon HOWEVER.  
In XX. satyrs.  
By THOMAS BANCROFT  JUVEN. 
Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Gaudia, discurfus, nostri farrago libelli est.  
LONDON, Printed by W. Godbid.  
1658   

TO The nobly minded Gentleman, and intimate friend of the Muses CHARLES COTTON of Berisford, Esquire.  
〈◊〉 Sir,  
THough he that writes as the Porcupine shoots his quills in a passionate mood as I do, cares not much for the frowns of the muddy-pated multitude: yet the number of Censors in our commonwealth being greater than that of all Officers, my Mute would gladly repose under your shadowing laurel, that a flash of fierce displeasure may less dismay her. Yet why should any Reader bend an angry brow at me, that have not spotted one page here (though it may otherwise seem) with any ebullitions of a private spleen; For though I have not seldom been surcharged with injuries, yet have I learned to digest them with my daily bread, and to think it more noble to contemn them, then to confess their power by meditating a revenge. Nor can I approve that bold speech of the sententious Poet, as carrying too venomous a sting in it: {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} 
Great Heaven fall on me with broad roof of  
Brass,  
Which to the Ancients a (just) terror, was  
If I help not my friends, and bring not those  
To sorrow and distress that are my foes.   
It must needs be granted that satyrs are not very seasonable, when all sorts of vices (the foul dregs of war) are settled into an unwonted impudence, and not only some antiquated evil revived, but others also added to their hateful number, that came but lately steaming out of th'infernal Vaporary. I can hardly in times so foully vitiated expect any fair construction of my Poem: nay, rather do I look that some squint eyed Malevolo's, whom I never came within a Bow-length of, will be busily shooting their bolts at me. But I shall lightlier regard such squib-like artillery, if more solid and less censorious men, such as yourself (Sir) are known to be, will but illustrate my lines with the beams of their favour. You are an heir to great Wits as well as to large Revenues, and have made proof thereof in so eminent a manner, that all men behold you as an object of admiration. As others therefore look up at you, be you pleased to look down at me, and to take in good part these tart fruits of my labours, intended for condiments to your sweeter studies. You are furnished (I hope) with as may virtues as here are vices; and I with you as much happiness to crown them, as possibly can be fancied by  
Your officious servant Tho. Bancroft.   


To my learned friend Mr. Tho. Bancorft; on his Book of satyrs.  
AFter your many works of diverse kinds,  
Your Muse to treated th' Auruncan path  
designs.  
'Tis hard to write but satyrs in these days,  
And yet to write good satyrs merits praise;  
And such are yours, and such they will be  
found  
By all clear hearts, or patient with their  
wound:  
May you but understanding Readers meet,  
They'll find you marching upon stodfast feet:  
Although your honest hand seems not to stick  
To search this Nations ulcers to the quick;  
Yet your intent (with your invective strain)  
Is but to lance, and then to cure again,  
When all the putrid matter is drawn forth,  
That poisons precious souls, and clouds their  
worth.  
So old Petronius Arbiter applied  
Corr'sives unto the age he did deride:  
So Horace, Persius, Juvenal (among  
Those ancient Romans) scourged the impious  
throng:  
So Ariosto (in our father's times)  
Reproved his Italy for sundry crimes:  
So learned Barclay let his lashes fall  
Heavy on some, to bring a cure to all:  
So lately Wither (whom thy Muse does far  
Transcend) did strike at things irregular:  
But (all in one t'include) so our prime wit,  
(In the too few short satyrs he hath writ)  
Renowned Donne, hath sorebuked his time,  
That he hath scared Vice-lovers from their  
crimes.  
Attended by your satyrs, mounted on  
Your Muses Pegasus, my friend, be gone,  
As erst the Lictors of the Romans went  
With Rods and Axes (for the punishment  
Of ills born with them) that all vice may fly  
(That dares not stand the cure) when you  
draw nigh.  ASTON COKAIN, Baronet.  

To his quondam Master, and now much honoured friend, Mr. THO. BANCROFT, on his Book of satyrs.  
ALthough the times be out of tune, we see  
They're likely to be tuned again by thee,  
Who on the strings of Discord strikes a strain  
So powerful, Discord sure no more can reign.  
And I commend thy Genius, who couldst choose  
A noble Patron to protect thy Muse:  
For he who 'gainst the rapid stream doth swim  
Of vice, had needt' be held up by the chin.  
Yet, I presume, thy Sayres may do more  
Than twenty such as terribly can roar,  
And thunder Hell; yet when the crack is gone,  
No more can find their Text than we the stone,  
But he who can the depth of thy Book sound,  
Shall there see Vice with its own Deluge drowned;  
So that from Contraries conclude I may  
Thy virtue's much, that chidest all Vice away.  THO. LIGHTWOOD.  

To his ingenious Friend, Mr. Tho. Bancroft; on his Book of satyrs.  
I Praise thy aims, though to an ulcerous: state,  
So rankly gangreen'd ●orr's●●es come too late.  
Can ink-hued Sylvanes from thy Bradley wood  
To cheeks with guilt so hatched, call modest blood?  
Admit their uncouth garb procure some ●●rugs,  
The brawny Giants soon will slight those ●ugg●,  
(Sm●rt Beadles though,) who are improved tothth'  
By Sin●is terrors and Moun●Ebals curse. (worse  
Taketh' warlike verse, whose maiden feet were died  
With blond in quarrel of their Master's Bride:  
Pluck q●il● from th'iron-winged Stymphalides,  
Bold to vie ●afts with mighty H●rcules:  
Make parchment of those living E●gines kins,  
That Darts, bows, Quiver, are, the Porcupines;  
Write Furies 'stead of satyrs, for a Muse  
Invoke Megara, Scorpion-Scourges use:  
Some almanac aspect, Diurnat plot,  
May turn our giddy Santo', Quakers, not  
Thy sharpess style. Yet touch them to the quick.  
The world's a Bedlam, la● the lunatic.  
WILLIAM BOTT.   

To the worthy author of these satyrs.  
BOld and brave Bancroft, that dar'st fearless tell  
The Devil his name, though at the mouth of Hell.  
I crowd into thy Squadrons, bold to greet  
Those hands that are supporters to thy feet.  
But 'tis by these thou conquerest, for 'tis fit  
This Brutish age were kicked, not whipped, to wit.  
No Spartan Mastiff, nor Nicaean Steed  
Can equal thee in courage, or in speed,  
When thy just ire forces the age to drink  
The gall and vinegar of thy whole some ink.  
Whilst from the steam of tainted ulcerous breath  
It belches characters of Hell and death,  
Satyrs and caustics must their Medicines be  
Whom Odes and Unctions cannot remedy.  
Thy Surgery is proper for the Land,  
Oh that thou hadst but physic to thy hand!  
Bear up, thou canst not but victorious stand,  
Where the brave Moreland Prince does lead the Van.  
All's glorious in thy Fate, excepting this,  
Others have done, and thou mayst speed, amiss.  
ANTHONY HARWOOD.    

TIME'S out of TUNE.  

Satire I. Against the deluge of Vice.  
NOw ruffle up thy plumes my Haggard Muse;  
Here's store of game, such as thou canst nor choose  
But make a flight at; and I wish thou mayst  
Use thy bold wings with as auspicious haste,  
As did the sons of Boreas, when from Thrace  
They did the foul Tartarean harpies chase.  
The world's now poisoned with impiety  
Enough to burst it, and to make it fly  
Int' Epicurus atoms; everywhere  
So torrent-like doth wickedness appear,  
As if the mere pretence that in this age  
Manners should be reformed, did vice enrage,  
As in the vaporous air enclouded heat  
Then bustles most, when churlish cold doth threat.  
Hath War so shook the world, that at some chink  
The Fiends have made escape? or is some link  
I'th' chain of order broke, that all do fly  
Our into lewd and lawless liberty?  
Or does the Devil keep his Revel here,  
That men do nought but brawl, drink, whore and swear,  
Rob, and defraud, as if they up would rise  
In arms 'gainst Heaven, and plainly gigantize?  
Vice, when our Wars began, was in the blade,  
But too soon ripened; and doth now invade  
All tribes of men. The very rural Bore,  
(As harmless as his Lambkins heretofore)  
Will at the ●east disgust now seem to whet  
His angry tusks for malice, foam and fret,  
Betray his friend, and cause his brother t' bleed,  
As he were sprung of cadmus' snaky seed.  
Cities are pestered (like Bethesda's pool)  
With sundry maladics; both Knave and Fool  
(Quartering their Arms) are there in chief request:  
And he that would survey a lazy nest  
Of soft Voluptuaries, novelists,  
Proud Fashion-mongers, Cheaters, Mammonists,  
Let him (first having blessed his eyes) repair  
Thither; and venture on their tainted air.  
Rather than of our Academies speak,  
Into a flood of tears my grief should break,  
Could I therewith the Muses springs supply,  
That are through heat of discord almost dry,  
And send few Nurslings forth, save such as sow  
The seeds of schism, that fatally do grow  
In every corner of our bleeding land,  
So heartsick, that the scarce doth understand  
Her own distempers. As for those that were  
Our kingdom's Columns, and their Crests do rear  
Above the Vulgar, as of late they grow  
In fortunes, and in honours slight and low;  
So everywhere they strain the Tenant high,  
And rack him with such torturing cruelty,  
As if they thought the breaking of his strength,  
Would be a means to fortify at length  
Their crazed estates; or as they hoped to raise  
Their honours up by downright wrongful ways.  
Thus vice and error rankly overgrow  
All ranks of men, and play the Tyrants so  
Imperiously, as they would tie each heart  
To lowest villainage, and meant to part  
Mankind betwixt them. O that wickedness  
Were now a Lion, and I Hercules!  
That I might tear its heart out, and uncase  
The Monster that fair Albion doth deface.  
I would not leave so much of 't as might lie  
In the small apple of a Wantons eye,  
Or on the thin tip of a liars tongue;  
But unto Hell dispatch it, whence it sprung.  
Deep discontent orewhelms me every day,  
While childish Gulls (that scarce ere learned to pray)  
Curse like Goliath, impiously let fly  
Contempt at Heaven, make show of valour by  
Their daring to blaspheme, and utter that  
Which the infernal Fiends would tremble at.  
O Juvenal, the Motives were but slight  
(Compared with mine) that caused thee to write  
Such fierce invectives, in a moody rage,  
So to bestorm the manners of that age  
Wherein thou livedst, and thy right-levelled lines  
To sharpen, like the quills of Porcupines.  
Thy age did halt, but ours is downright lamo;  
Thine discomposed, but ours quite out of frame;  
Thine aguish, but ours heart-smitten by  
An hectic, which the Wars phlebotomy  
Did more enrage, as having roused much sin,  
Which till these startling times had dormant been:  
Thy liver was but dried, but mine t' a coal  
Is turned, that fumes into my pensive soul,  
And gives me no more rest than if I backed  
A billow, when with storms the welkin cracked.  
Whether th' Canaries may be styled well  
The Islands fortunate, I scarce can tell:  
But (sure I am) our Isle may termed be  
Unhappy, for our pitied scarcity  
Of goodness; who (as loath to be at loss  
Of mischiefs) greedily all vice engross,  
Suck up the sins of Nations, store up all  
Th'accursed ill that blast this flowery ball.  
The Romans, when they chanced to overcome  
Nations, did still bring their Religion home;  
But we that kill our own, as much do gain,  
As for his brother's slaughter wretched cain.  
The candiots have been infamous for lies,  
The carthaginians for vile treacheries,  
The Syrians for their soft effeminacy,  
The Spaniards for hard hearted cruelty,  
Th' Italians for high pride, for deep excess  
The Dutch, the French for rash fool-hardiness,  
Others for other faults: but we for all  
Are raxt, our crimes within no compass fall,  
We sco●n but to be lewder than the worst,  
And for unhallowed courses more accursed.  
The manners which we frequently ●o use,  
Are (like our Language) borrowed: but we choose  
(Such is our ill fate) only those that be  
The worst, and stained with most impurity.  
How fair a varnish lays hypocrisy  
On rotten stuff, to mock the soundest eye!  
Never did men with wider throats commend  
Virtue then now; such store of sighs they spend  
At their devotions, and so towards the sky  
(Like Geese in rain) turn up the white o' th' eye,  
That you would surely think they walked so  
As Enoch did, and after him would go:  
But should you view their inside, you would start  
To see a Golgotha in every heart,  
Such a cadaverous and loathsome inn  
Of foul corruption, such a sink of sin  
And villainy, that well we wonder may,  
How his revengeful hand just Heaven can stay,  
And not dart thunder at their heads, that throw  
Divine Laws under foot, and on them go  
To deu'lish ends, be clouding thus the face  
Of sunlike sanctity with foul disgrace.  
Surely Religion wears large sleeves, that we  
Do pin thereon so much impiety,  
Make show of sanctimony, preach and pray;  
Yet heretheless calumniate and betray,  
Lay plots of mischief, offer injury  
(The devil's sacr●fice) snap greedily  
At Mammon's baits, take strumpets, turn off wives,  
And with all wickedness debauch our lives.  
We like to Herod are, that seemed to look  
At Heaven devoutly, when in hand he took  
His sword to slay poor Innocents, and in  
His gloomy bosom hid an Hell of sin.  
Some petty vices seem in some degree  
Allied to virtues, and men easily  
May be therein mistook: but those that bear  
Sway in our Nation, like to Witches, wear  
The devil's marks (though plainlier set to view)  
Are fullgrown evils, of high coloured hue,  
And horrid nature, such as seem to call  
For direful vengeance on our heads to fall.  
Ah Britain! 'tis no wonder that thou art  
So sharply plagued, so maimed in every part  
By thyself wounding arms, so fleeced and flayed,  
So crushed with heaviest pressures, and so made  
A scorn to other Nations, when through thee  
Runs a wide stream of all impiety,  
So foul and odious, as if Hell had spewed  
Cocytus up, and with rank poisons brewed  
Th' unblessed flood, that it might far and near  
Blast w●h dire vapours both the earth and air.  
More Monsters pester not the slimy strand  
Of Nile, then strange opinions vex our Land,  
And th' heavenly path into more byways part,  
Then there are lines drawn in the seaman's Chart.  
And as that River by seven mouths is sent  
Into the Ocean, so this Nation went  
Through the seven deadly sins to deep distress,  
That wraps us in the waves of wrerchedness.  
At such times as our kingdom's strength was broke  
Under the Roman, Saxo●, Danish yoke,  
And other force, we surely could not be  
Lost and debauched in such a damned degree,  
As in these days. For like the Crocodile,  
S●n's ever growing, ever bent to spoil;  
Ever since fairest Paradise was lost,  
Has it been winning upon every Coast,  
And by Serpentine subtlety each way  
Itself doth wind, and mischief doth convey.  
We (as Prometheus fire from Heaven did take)  
Dare kindle bra●ds at Hell, and slily make  
The sparks thereof whole Nations to incense  
To furious Wars for shadows of offence,  
That on their substances ourselves may feed,  
And highly triumph while they burn and bleed.  
We wallow in new riots, take delight  
To turn our brains out of their service quite,  
By strong narcotics, and by quaffing deep,  
Lay all our mental faculties asleep,  
Seeming therewith to make the God of Wine  
To blu●h, and under his broad-leaved Vine  
To hide himself for shame. We turn to stews  
Houses of Honour, and sweet love abuse  
To rank pollutions, causing Cupid's bow  
To send forth arrows, just as mad men throw  
Stones both at men and beasts; and that we are  
Too satyr-like, our horned feet declare.  
Which way so ere mine optic balls are thrown,  
Vices are th' objects that they light upon,  
Appearing like to Furies, full of Hell,  
Such as against due Government rebel,  
Are ranked with insolence, and never cease  
To threat our downfall, and disturb our peace.  
Sith only virtue saves us from the jaws  
Of ruin, and secures us by her laws,  
Lending us sunshine in our darkest days  
Of grief, and conduct through our mazy ways,  
How wretched are we to reject it so,  
And with such ardency ourselves to throw  
Into the arms of vice, that doth betray  
Our joys to anguish, fortunes to decay,  
Loads us with shame, and like to Asses drives  
T' untimely sepulchres our galled lives.  
Fair virtue, if thou hence must banished be,  
Deign me the honour to attend on thee  
To th' farthest Indies, where the only sway  
Of Nature holds men in a happy way  
Of harmless carriage, and with ease restrains  
Them from much lewdness that our lives distains.  
Now that we have (poor Issachar's) so long  
Lain couching under cruelty and wrong,  
And have been miserably abused by  
False arts, the pick locks of our treasury,  
'T would be a pleasing spectacle to see  
Fair truth, kind friendship, pure integrity.  
And should I find such treasures now, I should  
Not envy much just Satur's age of gold.   

Satire II. Against Sectaries.  
NOt well disposed I was, but neither mad,  
Nor tippled, yet a great desire I had  
Once, when a Learned Sermon had mine ear  
Refined, t' a sordid Cottage to repair,  
Where oft like senseless Puppets on a string  
Did Sectaries appear (but haply cling  
More close together) there to chew the cud,  
And taste more fully some celestial food.  
Thither came I; and after kind salutes  
From some that were demure and stood for Mutes,  
Though o'th' more vocal sex; b●yond a screen,  
(Where I might freely laugh, and not be seen)  
I took my place, to play a while the Spy,  
And use my best art of discovery.  
After the company well mixed was,  
Up stands a fellow with a face of brass,  
And a great wood-land beard; which made me guess  
That he some Hedger was, and did profess  
Rough Husbandry; the marks whereof appeared  
Upon his leathern slops, all scratched, and smeared  
With sullage; he, outstretching now his paws,  
As sunburnt as they had been Cancers claws,  
Thus spoke:' Kind friends, brothers and sisters dear,  
‛ And hopeful as in field full sheaves appear,  
‛ Fit for the Cart; I gladly would preach o'er  
‛ (As 'tis my custom) what you heard before:  
‛ But verily 'twould prove a thankless pain,  
‛ And my lip-labour would be spent in vain,  
‛ As was the Sermon. Did you ever hear  
'A Teacher utter so much learned gear?  
He talked of Jerome, and of Augustine,  
‛ Of this grave Bishop, and that great Divine,  
‛ Of the Original, of radices,  
‛ Of Figures, Dialects, Concordances,  
‛ And other such like stuff, that was to those  
‛ That heard it difficult and dangerous.  
‛ For (mark you) as much rubbish being thrown  
‛ Upon a good soil, hardens it to stone:  
‛ So much rough gibberish may (for aught I know)  
‛ Choke up men's hearts, and make them harder grow.  
‛ And what zeal showed he? he no more did sweat,  
‛ than did the sand i'th' hourglass, and did beat  
‛ The pulpit with his fists no more at all,  
‛ than did the King's Arm●quarrel with the wall.  
‛ I and my neighbour Twizzel can outpreach  
‛ Twenty such doctors; we can soundly teach  
‛ In wholesome Tubs, can make them to run o'er  
‛ With Doctrines, Reasons, Uses by the score;  
‛ Set H●ll before you, shake your hearts with fears,  
‛ Send fierce damnation rattling 'bout your ears,  
‛ Grub up your vice as hog's root up your grain,  
‛ And then with th●oil of comfort ease the pain  
‛ Of wounded souls, and set them in a trice  
‛ Within the freehold of fair Paradise.  
‛ This do we without learning, tell me then  
‛ What goodly fruits yields bookishness to men,  
‛ Unless it be some benefit to walk  
‛ Like statues, and like popinjays to talk;  
to show a forehead like a furrowed land,  
‛ Much to o'erlook, but little t' understand?  
‛ I hate Outlandish Tongues, sith magic spells  
‛ And charms, and many lewd inventions else  
‛ Are writ therein, so that I well may guess  
‛ That very hellhounds bark such Languages:  
‛ Latin is Babylonish, fit for Stews,  
‛ The Greek for Heathens, Hebrew for the Jews.  
Were all Books burnt, (as in th' Apostles days  
‛ Some were) zeal would grow hotter, and more praise  
‛ Devotion crown, that going too much by  
‛ The Book, now halts, and looks contemptibly.  
‛ Two sons I have (that shall be christened, when  
‛ They are grown up to well-discerning men)  
‛ Whom at the Plough I every day employ;  
‛ Whence rather then I would their industry  
‛ And forwardness withdraw, to make them fool  
‛ Away their time with others at the School,  
‛ I to the Spaniards Mines would send the Knaves  
to dig, or sell them to be galley-slaves:  
‛ Yet hope I they will be good Tub-men, and  
‛ Clear up their wits new truths to understand:  
‛ For they're as cross as crab-fish, that move  
‛ Backwards; old ways already they reprove,  
‛ And much respect to parlour-preaching show,  
‛ But slackly to our steeple-houses go;  
‛ Which all men should behold with hatred, since  
‛ Of an high pinnacle th' Infernal Prince  
‛ Made deu'lish use. A multitude that were  
‛ Blinder than Owls, such buildings first did rear;  
‛ And few frequent them now, save th' ignorant  
‛ And superstitious, that true light do want.  
Here at I bustled up, and in a rage,  
Such as Orestes shows upon the Stage,  
When Furies threaten him, I flung away,  
Scarce knowing wh●ther I should curse, or pray  
For such lewd zealots, that abuse the Rites  
Of fair Religion by unhallowed sleights.  
Fie on th' imposture of this graceless age!  
Deserves it not in a satiric rage  
To be with scourges torn, as it doth tear  
Religion's form, and makes it to appear  
Like Lucr●●●, when the poniard was infixed  
In her fair side, and blo●d with tears commixed,  
looked o' th' complexion of the Heavenly Bow,  
Which ruddy beams, and rorid vapours show?  
'Tis time the world should finally be rolled  
Int' darkness, when blind laics are so bold  
To trouble with rude feet the sacred Springs  
Of Knowledge, to lay hold on Heavenly things  
With unwashed hands, and t' measure by their sense,  
What far exceeds their brains circumference.  
The Pagan Priests were mannerly devout,  
And ever wont (before they went about  
To offer sacrifice) to mundify  
Themselves by washing, fasting, chastity:  
But our rash Sciolists, that make a trade  
Of marring Texts, as rudely do invade  
The Priestly Function, as poor soldiers storm  
A wealthy Town; they matter not for form,  
Nor decency therein, but on it fall  
Downright, with motion simply natural,  
Like their conceits. Yet if thou canst enure  
Thy tender sense the wawlings to endure  
Of lust-stung Cats, to hear the ghastly Owl  
Scrietch at thy window, or fierce Wolf to howl;  
Canst brook the filing of hard metalled Sawe●,  
Th' creaking of Carts, or of our mongrel Laws,  
T●e snarling Terms; then boldly mayst thou t●ach  
Thy pricked-up ears to hear these Rusti●ks ●reach.  
Me thinks such Goat-herds (for I were to blame  
To grace them with the harmless shepherd's name)  
Should fear lest that the reverend shades of those  
Old Fathers that did holy Works compose,  
Should terrify, and stop them in their way,  
As sometime a bright Angel did affray  
Balam's rude beast. Those mirrors of that age  
Wherein they lived, their powers did engage  
To sound the depth of truth, and with much pain  
The knowledge both of Tongues and Arts did gain;  
Which shines yet so conspicuously, that it  
Dazzles with excellence each m●dern wit,  
And seems no less miraculous than aught  
That they above the reach of Nature wrought:  
But so rude are our novelists, that all  
Arts they deride save the mechanical,  
And utterly would banish or suppress  
(Like Julian) all the nobler Sciences.  
Had such been with th' Apostles, when from high  
The sacred Dove like rushing wind did fly,  
They surely would have laboured by their wrongs  
To have extinguished all those fiery tongues.  
Yet as in old Rome the chief Pontifies  
Were privileged ('mongst other Liberties)  
From rigid censures: so th●se blundering Swains  
Scorn to be charged with weak erroneous brains,  
But on their auditors impose as Law,  
Whatever from their muddy p●tes they draw.  
Noble Theoso●hy, that from above  
Art graced with thy Serpent and thy Dove;  
Thou Crown of Sciences, divinely clear,  
And rich in beauty, like the Heavenly Sphere,  
How is thy celsitude dishonoured by  
The scum of ignorance and peasantry,  
Rotten Impostors, Hypocrites in grain,  
Whom none can look on with too much disdain!  
Not sons of thunder, but of squibs and fume,  
Such as will stinkingly themselves consume.  
And you fair daughters of Mnemosyne,  
You sacred Muses, that have smoothed the way  
To Sciences, that by your powerful songs  
Disarm the Fates, and disappoint their wrongs,  
And by the sweet enticements of delight  
To civil manners savage minds invite,  
How have your famous Mountains sunk so low  
Int' disrespect! your Springs that erst did flow  
Almost like Seas, how almost are they dry  
With weeping for the world's impiety!  
And your brave bays (that lightning durst not blast)  
How are they scorched and withered now at last  
By the contemptuous and contentious breath  
Of schismatics, Factors for Hell and death,  
Base Miscreants, that brutishness affect,  
As if they would (if well they could) reject  
Their inward forms; and were they once estranged  
So from themselves as Circe sometimes changed  
The wandering Greeks, would scarce endure to be  
Restored to th' state of fair humanity.  
Mean while they would (like gnostics) seem to know  
All things, yet cross to th' ways of knowledge go,  
And laugh down learned works, as gamesome boys  
Puff out their shining bubbles, airy toys.  
The liberal Arts serve nowadays to be  
Matter of rude mirth to their clownery,  
Who neither by safe rules their actions square,'  
Nor others rectify, but simply are  
Like quacking empirics, that profess much skill,  
Yet when they should work cures, do idly kill.  
Now Atlas, thou that dost vast Heaven support,  
Dost thou not shake't with laughter? nor transport  
Thyself with anger? threatning to throw down  
Thy starry load, when thou beholdest that Clown  
Swinkard, who lately wicker Chairs did sell,  
Bestriding many a stile with bonny N●ll,  
Now to usurp a doctor's Chair, and prate  
(I'll ne'er say preach) against the settled State  
Of our Church-Government; his desk to box  
More fiercely then ere Cartwright did or Knox,  
And with hacked sword, charged pistol, wicked smell  
Of Powder and Tobacco (Stuff for Hell)  
Lift towards Heaven his hands besprent with gore,  
And scratched with rapine, its great aid t' implore,  
The precious treasure of sweet peace to send,  
And t' our contentions put a blessed end;  
When 'tis well known that none but such as he  
(Accursed ere born) brought on our misery:  
Yet stand his hearers (like the Mares in Spain,  
That Zeph●res genial blasts would entertain)  
Ready to suck in all the wind he breaks,  
And yield themselves his Captives whilst he speaks;  
Especially when in the face he flies  
Of noble Arts, and rudely vilifies  
Fair Learning, tea●ming it in drunken zeal,  
The noisome Canker of the Common-weal,  
And th' poison of good minds; which if it were  
Such, no infection need such S●e●●ors fear.  
Thus that which hath made Na●●ons eminent,  
Hath modelled out best forms of Government,  
Crowned men with laurel in the stormy days  
Of War, in calm peace won an higher praise,  
And through the world Religions light dispred,  
Is threatened to be damped and banished  
Into sad darkness, by vain vulgar pride  
Is like a worn-out garment cast aside,  
Thrust as a weakling rudely to the wall,  
Daily expecting a black funeral.  
If true it were which th' Ancients have approved,  
That by the Muses (as by souls) are moved  
The shining Spheres, and music by them made,  
The motion of the Heavens would not be stayed,  
And those great Organs of the world become  
Tuneless, as by harsh mischief strucken dumb.  
Those Eulogies that did our Moor advance,  
And learned Bellay in the Realm of France,  
In Spain Alphonsus, and in Germany  
Brave Maximilian, must recanted be,  
At least suppressed, if blind Ignaro's may  
Go stumbling on in their destructive way.  
But in despite of all Hell-hatched plots,  
Damned conjurations, and combined knots  
Of malcontents, fair Science shall not long  
Thus droop, but like the palm resist her wrong;  
And having scattered all the clouds that ere  
The breath of envy raised, more bright appear.   

Satire III. Against the abuse of Poetry.  
AT no time does my gall more overflow,  
Then when I see the Muses undergo  
Hard censures, and into contempt to slide,  
Through the vain lightness and phanrastick pride  
Of some, that at h●gh Poetry do aim,  
But of their mark (to th' undertakers shame)  
Fall short the full length of Apollo's Bow,  
And where they would much Art, mere error show.  
The best and loveliest things, when time betrays  
Their natures to corruption, lose their praise,  
And grow most loathsome: so sweet Poetry  
(Though't has with lofty numbers reached the sky)  
Falls deep into contempt, when 'tis employed  
'Bout vanities, which graver wits deride,  
Or else to public view doth naked set  
Obscenity, like those in Vulcan's net.  
Amphion, Linus, Orpheus, and the rest  
O' th' muse's sons, the ancientest and best  
(Whose souls were full of God, and seemed to be  
Rightly attempered to heaven's harmony)  
Were not with greater honour entertained,  
Than the poetic Tribe is now disdained,  
Because upon base trifles runs their rhyme,  
Scarce touching aught that 's serious or sublime.  
'Tis true, the world owes its civility  
T' old Poets, who by powerful harmony  
Men of most brutish fierceness did subdue,  
And them from wild Woods into Cities drew,  
As into Hives by tinkling sounds are Bees  
Allur'd, whose homes were hollow Rocks or Trees:  
But lately have our wits been bold t' exp●ess  
(Like Pan's Priests) all uncivil wantonness,  
Sug'ring the Cup of Vice, that it with more  
Sweet pleasure might go down then heretofore.  
How many sheets of paper have been stained  
(Whence Wit and Learning are the more disdained)  
With downright ribaldry, foul acts of lust,  
And other trumperies, more fit (like dust)  
To be to th' dunghill swept, then ere to be  
Suffered t' approach the muse's company!  
All kinds of wickedness have in this age  
Played their licentious pranks upon the Stage,  
In such sort, that Spectators few or none  
Have thence sans danger of infection gone:  
Which caused our strict Theosophyes t' accuse  
Of so much lewdness the dramatic Muse,  
And cry plays mainly down, as if they were  
The devil's works, and Hellish marks did bear;  
Sending them (from the Cock Pit, and Blackfriars)  
To th' pit infernal and unpitying fires.  
Thus as vile rust dorh to rich metals stick,  
And as a venomous Canker to the quick  
Eats verdant plants: so on fair poesy  
Creeps foul abuse, and sinks it wretchedly  
Into disgrace, that else might reach by right  
High Fame, and shine with pure Phoeboean light.  
No forms of speech, like strains Poetical,  
Can sound things sacred and celestial,  
Nor high and brave achievements can relate  
With such elation and magnific state  
As gallant Verse, that doth aspire to hit  
The roof of Heaven in noble flights of wit.  
Is it not merely then indign and base,  
This ornament of brave wits to disgrace  
By using pens (as Surgeons do their tools)  
'Bout nasty things, such as great nasty fools  
May loudly laugh at, and by falling on  
Low Themes, the subjects of derision?  
As if divine Jopas had made choice  
With his gilt Harp, and more harmonious voice  
T' have sung of earth-bred Reptiles, when he told  
How the Celestial Orbs in order rolled.  
Not that great Emperor, who much time spent  
In killing saucy flies, nor he that meant  
To gain fame by his great dexterity  
In casting small seeds through a needle's eye;  
Nor yet the soldiers of Caligula,  
Who, marching in bright arms, and battle-ray,  
Scrambled for Cockles on the slimy beach,  
Were so ridiculous as those that reach  
At the brave laurel, and presume to climb  
High Helicon, yet in low spriteless rhyme  
Wiredraw their wits, and taint sweet poesy  
With the rank steams of loathed impurity.  
No short-heeled G●glot falls to lewdness now,  
Nor faithless wife deforms her husband's brow;  
Nor any such licentious prank occurs  
In Town or City, but some Poet stirs  
The mud thereof, and sers his servile rhymes  
On running, to dispread th' infectious crimes.  
And with what Laudatives they interlard  
Their Writings, when they look for great reward  
From brave magnificoes, or would raise high  
Their Verse, another's Muse to fortify  
'Gainst envy's onsets, is to few unknown  
That know the strain of adulation.  
Lately (and squeamishly) I did o'erlook  
A thing presumed to be a witty book,  
And weighty too; for at the least a score  
Of dabbling Rhymers up the work did shore,  
As forked sticks do Vines; men of all trades  
(I think) t'uphold th'invention joined their aids,  
And cried it up extremely; when (alas)  
A low and fragmentary piece it was,  
So poor a trifle, that it well might go  
To beg, and take what others would bestow,  
Yet scarce live to give thanks, but at the age  
Of Ballads or Diurnals, quit the Stage.  
I likewise put mine optics to much pain,  
Whilst the hot firework of another's brain  
I looked on; one, that for a rampant maid  
Of vile dishonour the sly Pandar played;  
And thus with ranting strains of bastard rhyme  
Taught her to court a Gallant of the time:  
‛ Sir, since a green-sick weakness 'tis to veil  
‛ Fair love, and true affection to conceal,  
‛ Mine (in despite of Parents, Aunt, or Uncle)  
‛ Shall sparkle tow'ards you like a bright Carbuncle,  
‛ Or rather like the stout As bestus' stone,  
‛ That once inflamed, fears no extinction.  
‛ Your beauty others praise; I'll say no more,  
‛ Then that your curled locks shine like golden Ore,  
‛ Or like the manes o' th' Horses of the Sun,  
‛ Playing in flames before young Phaeton.  
‛ Your Front's a chalky Mount, wherein are ploughed  
‛ Furrows of love with fruitfulness endowed.  
‛ And like to pretty Bugle horns do bend  
‛ Your brows, from wrongs your dear eyes to defend,  
‛ Eyes that are Orbs, whose motions seldom stop;  
‛ Whence through your gemmy nose seem stars to drop.  
‛ I call your cheeks fresh Rose-cakes, sweet and fair:  
‛ And shreads of soft perfumed Velvet are  
‛ The portals of your voice, which opening wide,  
‛ Blush that they cannot their Pearl-treasures hide;  
‛ Set to immure your tongue, left it should fly  
‛ With Angels, as it strikes their harmony.  
‛ Scarce do I know wherewith to match your chin,  
‛ Whose Down in softness would put down your skin,  
And whose neat dimple (of love's dart the dint)  
‛ Presents a work of excellence in print.  
‛ Thence a Nectarean Alley leads mine eye  
‛ Down to your breasts all-beauteous galaxy,  
‛ That a rich bank of pleasure bord'reth on,  
‛ Whose Centre may be called Cotyledon.  
‛ Fain would I give your other parts their due,  
‛ As of their lineaments I take a view  
‛ In fancies glass; but now (methinks) I feel  
‛ Some formal modesty (like rusty steel)  
to curb my boldness, and withhold me from  
‛ That place whereto I must desire to come.  
‛ O that I had but elbow-room, to tell  
‛ How rumbling love doth in my bowels swell!  
‛ And how the flames thereof like lightning-flashes,  
‛ Will turn my carbonadoed heart to ashes;  
‛ Unless your pitying kindness prove the laurel  
to save me harmless, and compose the quarrel  
‛ Of passions in my breast, that in their strife  
‛ Would run away with th' firebrand of my life,  
‛ Faster than Samson's Foxes, when their tails  
‛ Were singed, or then a frighted Pinnace sails.  
‛ The Sun that breeds such fervours is your grace  
‛ In courtship, and the dog-star is your face:  
‛ Let such an amorous heat then as doth swelled  
‛ My tender breast, your youthful marrow melt,  
‛ And prompt you straight to meet me at the Play●  
‛ House, where we darted glances th' other day;  
‛ And where by strange attraction of your eyes,  
‛ You showed how beauty's force doth magnetize,  
‛ There shall you find me like a flower spread,  
‛ And breathing sweetness to perfume your bed;  
‛ Or rather like a rich unrifled Pack  
‛ Of rarities, such as young Gallants lack:  
‛ Which if you will not buy, I'll prove so kind,  
‛ As 't give you what contents a lover's mind.  
Thus went the Rambler on to praise, applaud,  
Entice; and thus he made his Muse a Bawd,  
T' incense to lewdness those that on a flame  
Already were, nor could wild passion tame:  
Hows'e●e, at Hell-gates must they needs arrive,  
Whom both the Devil and damned Verse did drive.  
Such base blandiloquence is grown as rife  
'Mongst modern Poets, as 'mongst rivals' strife,  
'Mongst soldier's rapine, or 'mongst Gossips lies.  
Few of Apollo's train do Poetize  
Like rich-souled Sallust, who hath justly wrought  
High honour's wreath, for that his Muse he taught  
To pierce the Clouds, like the proud head of Fame,  
And only to pursue the noblest Game,  
Sounding the great Creators lofty praise  
With the loud music of immortal lays.  
But how is't possible the Muses should  
Bear bravely up, when few or none uphold  
Their fainting heads? They may indeed go on  
To climb Parnassus, and steep Helicon,  
To bathe their beauties in their shadowed Springs,  
And entertain their thoughts with specious things,  
And hopes of happiness: but yet in th'end  
All that their states doth commonly attend,  
Is poverty, contempt, and spiteful wrongs,  
Burdens (alas) too heavy for their songs.  
O Age inglorious! when those men that be  
Endowed with nature's rare benignity,  
Born up in hovering ecstasies above  
The world, and all composed of sweetness, love,  
And harmony, are oft with harshest scorn  
Paid home, left succourless, and quite forlorn.  
If they be fed with an applausive air,  
And the gay ornaments of praises wear,  
Be honoured for an highly soaring strain,  
'Tis for the most part all the crop of gain  
They reap; and therefore needsly must they sing  
Sad Notes, whom wants are still importuning.  
Once to Antilochus Lysander brave,  
For's lines an hat-full of pure silver gave;  
But with an heartful now of heavier woe,  
Lightly regarded might the Poet go.  
And Oppian, to whom Severus paid  
So many Crowns as he had Verses made,  
Should he so fish for treasure here, would be  
Sure to take nought but pains and penury.  
Those that are bound in honour to befriend  
The Heliconian Maids, their fortunes spend  
On Hellish Strumpets, pride and gluttony;  
Which (like the three extracts in chemistry)  
Consume a world of wealth, and seem to choke  
The hopes of Artists with a bitter smoke.  
I (sighing) wish all Potentates did bear  
Such minds as did Augustus, so t' endear  
Brave lofty wits, and with their treasure cast  
A lustre on their lines; then would at last  
This Lady of affections, Poetry,  
Raise her depressed fortune, rectify  
Her late deflexion from the nobler ways  
Of Art, and flourish with triumphal bays.   

Satire IV. Against Presumption.  
AWay, fantastic, boast not thine own worth,  
But give fair leave to others to set forth  
The praises thou dost challenge. Well we may  
Measure our virtues, and our merits weigh,  
Give judgement on our own abilities,  
And what therein is laudable, agnize;  
But to be our own trumpets, to proclaim  
Our own endowments, damps the sound of Fame,  
Dims virtue's splendour, and upon the face  
Of a desertful action casts disgrace.  
Then to be swollen up with a tympany  
Of self-conceit, and (cracking) to let fly  
Much glorious Language, where there's little cause,  
Doth mainly violate discretions laws;  
And has th' ●ll fortune, that who so would show  
An height of wit, for downright Dunces go.  
As Fishers spread their nets, so we extend  
Our reasons, thinking all to comprehend;  
Take all things to be previous to our sense,  
And hold opinions with stiff confidence;  
When't is too certain that we rather slit  
The bark of verity with point of wit,  
Then penetrate the pith thereof, that lies  
Centred and wrapped in deep abstrusities.  
Each thing at least with double face presents  
Itself; and when with tedious arguments  
The Thomists and the Scotists have maintained  
Disputes, the sinews of their wits are strained  
So evenly, that scarce you can divine  
To whether side the balance doth incline.  
Opinions, that may fetch their ancestry  
Almost as far as nature's infancy,  
And have been fortified by numerous hosts  
Of Wits, prove now no truer than the boasts  
Of the Arcadians, vainly who aver  
That then the Moon their Nation's ancienter.  
How currently it passed for many an age,  
That no small part of the terrestrial Stage  
Was without Actors in't, where namely, great  
Rigour of cold prevails, or raging heat:  
Whereas 'tis now t'each Navigator known  
That both the Arctic and the Torrid Zone  
May be endured, and many Nations well  
(With some Correctives) in those Regions dwell.  
So thought our Gallants, that they judged aright  
The earth's division to be tripattite,  
When they dismissed Columbus from our Court  
With scoffs, because he boldly made report  
Of a new world: else in the stead of vain  
Drugs, that our bodies taint, and credits stain,  
Our ships (those wooden walls, that do immure  
Our kingdoms, and Commodities secure)  
Had shined with treasures, and our seamen bold  
Had been like Argonauts, that sailed for Gold.  
Man's a presumptuous creature, apt to go  
On heightened hopes, that send him oft below  
His station; blindness doth his soul benight,  
And lame irrectitude deformeth quite  
His life, that (will he, nill he) must confess  
Itself ore-powred by all weaknesses.  
Yet does he stretch himself on tiptoes high,  
And almost dares with great Divinity  
To make compare, puts the almighty's threats  
And promises 'mongst formal slight conceits,  
Values his great works at too mean a rare,  
And seldom for his gifts doth elevate  
A grateful spirit. But if retrograde  
His fortune move, or grievances invade  
His person, presently at such alarms  
He's ready (Giantlike) to take up arms  
Against great Heaven, and sticks not to let fly  
Indignant speeches 'gainst the Deity:  
Just as the Thracians, when fierce thunder tears  
The Clouds, shoot arrows at the Heavenly Spheres.  
Such persons stand upon the slippery brink  
Of ruin, and as ready are to sink  
Into deep mischief, as was Xerxes, when  
Attended with a numerous host of men,  
He to high Athos bold defiance sent,  
As scorning by this lowest element  
To be o'ertopped: he threatened to oppress  
Nature's dominions with his mightiness,  
To make the earth groan, and the Ocean quake;  
Yet straight with wings of fear his flight did take,  
His troops being chased by Leonidas,  
As by a Lion Sylvane Herds, or as  
Thick swarms of Gnats along the dampish shores  
Are by a storm dispersed, when Boreas roars.  
O vain Presumption, that Ix●on-like  
Dost grasp a Cloud, and wouldst with terror strike  
Thine enemies, mockest others with deceits,  
Yet art thyself took with delusive haits!  
As thou threwest Angels from Celestial state,  
So men, by thee raised, dost thou ruinate;  
And as thou humbledst Babel to the ground,  
And didst the Language of the world confound,  
So greatest works thy pride still overthrows,  
And fills whole Kingdoms with confused woes;  
Yet 'tis our fate or folly to run on  
Still in highways of bold presumption,  
Without restraint. We (like poor Prisoners cast  
Into a Dungeon) on this Globe are placed,  
The stair-foot of the world, and sediment  
Of Nature, whither all her dregs are sent,  
Excretions and impurities; yet we  
Think the whole world maintains an harmony  
For our sole sakes, and that the glorious frame  
Of Heaven at our content doth chiefly aim.  
Yea, we pretend to know the Stars so well,  
As if we did i' th' Heavenly houses dwell;  
Vain mortals have we stellified, have all  
Along with Antiques hung th' Olympian Hall,  
And (as Celestials did affect our spor●s)  
Bull, Bear, Dog, Lion, beasts of other sorts,  
And sundry Fowls, have we advanced high,  
And starred therewith the forehead of the sky.  
Some high-flown wits play upon wing, and strive  
To know what plots (forsooth) the stars contrive,  
Consult with them about all great affairs,  
As of Religion, Empire, peace, and wars;  
Presuming that (as in the Book of Fate)  
They read in Heaven the change of every State;  
They calculate nativities, and show  
What Fortunes in the paths of life shall go  
Along with men, and what at last befall,  
(If their star-doctrine prove authentical.)  
But if all grand mutations they foreknow,  
Why did they not with all their art fore-show  
That to th' Religion which we now embrace,  
Both Jewish Ceremonies should give place,  
And Heathenish rites? They did indeed foretell  
(Which their bold rules doth shamefully resell)  
That our Religion (Honoured with the Cross)  
Should fail, and feel an universal loss,  
When once three hundred threescore years were gone  
After that dread world-shaking Passion:  
But their words were as far from truth, as even  
Their arms from fathoming the arch of Heaven;  
For then did Christianism so mainly spread,  
As if th' officious winds had carried  
It on their wings. O the proud dorages  
Of shallow-headed mortals! that profess  
The knowledge of the things they ne'er can reach,  
Such as th' Intelligences scarce can teach.  
Man (wanting wit t'account himself a fool)  
Is by the very Insects set to School;  
Yet looks on's fellow-creatures with as much  
Disdain, as if his haughty brow did touch  
The roof of Heaven; and with such tyranny  
Ore-awes the rest of nature's family,  
As if they served not to adorn the main  
Frame of the world, or did not appertain  
To the same Lord; on whom such injury  
Reflects, and strikes at's awful Majesty.  
But why, poor Earthling, dost thou swell so high?  
Dost thou not see that beasts sagacity  
Puzzles thy reason that exalts thee so,  
And their instinctive powers thy wits outgo?  
So that their operations, though thine eyes  
Frequently meet them, pass for rarities.  
Besides, whereas the changes they fore-show  
Of th' air, and more than man do seem to know  
The mind of Heaven, or with it to maintain  
Some intercourse; it frees them from disdain,  
And such contempt, as commonly (among  
Frothy discourses) is upon them flung.  
No less to their own kind are men unkind,  
Whilst lifted up (like feathers in the wind)  
With fumes of pride, and hatching in their brain  
Misshaped opinions, they would yet constrain  
Others t' embrace their brood, and as decrees  
Or settled laws obtrude their novelties.  
He that upon the Moon had spent his wit,  
And found both Sea and Land enough in it  
To furnish a new world, with what a bold  
Front did he broach th' opinion he did hold!  
Striving on others judgements to put tricks,  
And make them (like himself) all lunatics.  
So he that to the Earth gave motion, and  
Would have the Sun as the world's Centre stand,  
Taught Magisterially, as only he  
Had chewed the Kernel of Philosophy.  
Surely if we could learn of wandering birds  
T' use wings, as we can teach them t' utter words,  
Our curious pride would make a flight more high  
Than Icarus his pitch, th●t it might pry  
Into those wonders which from mortal eyes  
Are set at distance in the awful skies.  
We would try whether th' Elemental fire  
Have the same heat with ours, and would aspire  
To be acquainted with the Selenites  
(If any such there be) and feed our sights  
Upon such objects as young Phaeton  
In his wild wanderings fixed his eyes upon.  
Such fumes of vanity dilate the brain  
Of man, that he conceits it doth contain  
As much as heaven's circumference; though so lame,  
And shrunk's his Knowledge, that the narrow frame  
Of his own body he ignores, much less  
Can pierce int' incorporeal essences.  
You sons of Aesculapius, tell me why  
You falter in your judgements frequently,  
If you can dive into each deep recess  
Of bodies, and know all the offices  
Of Nature there, and of a watch so great.  
Can the distempered wheels in order set:  
But boldly some give hot, as others cold  
Receipts against diseases, that do hold  
Men in an equal thraldom; some again  
Apply moist things to dull the edge of pain;  
Others commend exiccatives: some sluice  
The blood out; others do prefer the use  
Of sweating; 'gainst which others too inveigh,  
Because bad humours do the good betray.  
Thus (like Sea-robbers fastened back to back)  
They look aversely, and poor patient's rack  
By their distractions. But how should they know  
Right cures, that know not whence diseases grow?  
For one says that the cause thereof doth lie  
In atoms which into our bodies fly:  
Another doth derive such maladies  
From blood (Distempered) in our arteries:  
A third affirms our spirits faulty are;  
A fourth accuseth our inspired air;  
A fifth upbraids us with bad nutriment;  
Others there are that from all these dissent:  
Then whom can we believe, that they can tell  
What our diseases are, or where they dwell?  
They make me sick with terms (as Lawyers do  
Their Clients) yet I cannot but laugh too,  
To hear our empirics prate of apepsy,  
Of Hypochondriack pains, of kochexy,  
Of Muscilages, Torchisks, and Errhines,  
Of lohoches, cataplasms, and Anodynes;  
Words that admit no chewing, but are so  
Crabbed and hard, they never down will go.  
But when they can from all infirmities  
Secure themselves, or cure all maladies,  
Or keep their Masterships from (irksome cares  
Unwelcome tokens) wrinkles and grey hairs,  
I shall give them the honour they require,  
And them, as men miraculous, admire.   

Satire V. Against Pride in Apparel.  
SUrely that spiny man i' th' Moon on me  
Wrought at the hour of my Nativity,  
Or on my Cradle let his burden slide,  
So ruggedly I look at Lordly pride,  
Slight all the modes of Gallantry, and lost  
Regard how Courtly Fashionists are dressed.  
Had I of Herod's auditors been one,  
When sitting on his high majestic throne  
In gorgeous robes, the orator he played,  
I should attentively his words have weighed,  
And stood amazed to see him blasted by  
The Messenger of Heaven: but surely I  
Should have as little gazed at his attire,  
As some too much do garish sights admire,  
Muskin was of another mind, for he  
Took leave of his companions solemnly,  
As it he meant a voyage t' undertake,  
Such as sometime did Magellan and Drake:  
But whither do you think the youngster bent  
His course? to Paris with all speed he went,  
To be the first that from that flaunting Court  
A new form fashion hither should transport.  
Now who but Muskin when again he came?  
He walked as in a geometric frame,  
His limbs were set, and looked as if he were  
Taking the altitude o' th' starry Sphere,  
When if a scalding Bath had been in's way,  
His skin had been in danger. Gallants lay  
In wait to court him, that they might thereby  
Be free to learn his dear-bought bravery.  
And as some Grecian beauties, were surveyed,  
That Helen's lineaments might be portrayed:  
So with intent they might resemble him,  
These Zanies viewed each Frenchisied limb  
Of the late Traveller, and copied forth  
That which they took to be his only worth,  
I mean his outside. 'Twas not long before  
Such as profess to swagger, drink and whore,  
Ruffled in's fashion, and he looked most high  
That most expressed his garb and gallantry.  
How toyish, how ridiculous are we  
To trace another Nations vanity!  
And that so closely, that where they precede,  
Upon their heels we ready are to ●●cad.  
We followed them in a far nobler way,  
When through their Coasts we did our Flags display,  
Mowed down with sharpest swords the pride and flower  
of France, and silenced all their threatening power.  
Then Helmets were our Beavers, Gauntlets were  
Our Gloves, in stead of Silks we did appear  
Horrid in Coats of Mail, and these all o'er  
Rudely embroidered with besprinkled gore  
Sluced from their veins, whose offspring now may see  
Those times revenged for our hostility,  
Whilst apelike we are led in ways most vain,  
That melt our courages, and credits stain.  
The French were not at leisure to devise  
Quaint fashions then, nor were we so unwise  
So soon to take them up, so much t' esteem  
Their worthless toys; though nowadays we seem  
To pluck their buds of pride, so soon as ere  
In that too forward Region they appear.  
Now is the Court of France our Gallants School,  
Where all they learn is finely to befool  
Themselves, and at no little charge to be  
Both vain and vicious in an high degree.  
Hast thou not, England, vices of thine own  
More then enough, and those too fully grown,  
But thou must fetch from other Nations more,  
And add them to thine own detested score?  
So of the Germans didst thou learn to drown  
Thy senses in strong liquours, quassing down  
More shame therewith then though canst purge away,  
Though tho shouldst use Abstersives every day,  
And more belave thy same than Pharisees  
Their hands, when innocence they did profess.  
And so great Rome (whose fortitude excelled,  
And where her weapons clashed, the Nations quelled)  
Brought foreign vices home, and seemed to be  
A tower-like pile of all impiety,  
Of such enormous and stupendious height,  
That it must needs be ruined by its weight.  
As an high branch of pride did once confound  
Language, and gave thereby the world a wound:  
So breeds it still confusion in estates,  
That scarce we can distinguish Potentates  
From Peasants. Lately met I on the way  
One of our Nobles habited in grey,  
His man in Scarlet; to whom, being so brave,  
Titles of Honour at each word I gave,  
Showed him my bare head, and informed him too  
By bowing what my better leg could do,  
As taking him (so much I was i' th' wrong)  
For that great Peer to whom he did belong.  
Whereat his Lord said:' Sir, it doth appear  
‛ You chanced to know my servant th' other year,  
‛ When he was Lord of misrule; then (I grant)  
‛ As high and big he looked as John of Gaunt;  
‛ But now he's dwindled to poor Jack. I straight  
Blushed, and craved pardon for my misconceit:  
Saying,' If such respect your man must have,  
‛ Then what must you, my Lord, that keep the Knave?  
Such Vassals heretofore were not allowed  
In shining robes to show themselves so proud:  
Only brave Worthies raised to dignities,  
Marched with bright colours, that do symbolize  
With the most noble element, the fire;  
The very sight whereof might well inspire  
Their breasts with glowing heat of charity,  
And swell their hearts with magnanimity.  
Vestures were veils of shame, not made to lay  
Sin open to the view, that one may say  
There goes a vain fantastic, yonder's a  
Right Luciferian Spark, that doth display  
Pride in its colours; all those ribbons fine,  
Buttons and lace that on his suit do shine,  
Speak him no less. Seest thou yonder female thing  
Of eleven-teen, as gaudy as the Spring,  
Whilst ragged as Winter her poor Parents are?  
She with the bare breasts, and the powdered hair,  
Whose face looks like a syllabub bestrewed  
With currants; note her for a Nymph by lewd  
Vices destowred, and merely lost in vain  
Courses and courtships, that best beauties stain,  
Less sin and trouble do those Indians know,  
And other Nations, that as naked go  
As Nature sent them forth, although they dwell  
Under as cold an Heaven and parallel,  
As many Europaans': All the year  
They sweat not in close shops, as we do here,  
Using as many trades and several arts  
(Illib'ral) as we have external parts;  
All to bedeck a panting lump of clay,  
And all our labours on the back to lay;  
That for our pinching wrong, and proud disdain,  
The belly well may grumble and complain.  
The very excrements of beasts (as are  
Our balls of sweet perfume, silk, wool, and hair)  
And the base earths embrightned parts beside,  
Are the Supporters of our lofty pride,  
Or the materials rather, speaking plain  
That we are follies children, void of brain.  
Were any so ingenuous to confess  
That they no mental treasures do possess,  
And therefore (left they should contemned be)  
Make up that want with golden bravery,  
They for the truth's sake should my pardon have;  
Who haply o'er their guilty backs should wave  
My knotty scourge, but give them leave to go  
Untouched, and all their gallantry to show.  
Surely those persons wretchedly neglect  
Their minds, whose bodies are too bravely decked:  
Their gay clothes are the ensigns of their pride,  
Baits of their lusts, and cousenages beside,  
Who upon suretyship of rich array,  
Do borrow what they need intend to pay.  
Those habits that most nobly do adorn  
The soul, and are with gen'ral liking worn,  
Are meekness, courtesy, humility;  
These harbour not with too high gallantry:  
But where the body shines in richest dress,  
The soul's obscured, and droops in nakedness.  
Some superstitiously have dream that they  
Could not to th' Heavenly kingdom miss the way;  
If in a poor Franciscans hood they died:  
But likelier 'tis that who from courtly pride  
Estrange their lives, and humbly do demean  
Themselves, should high beatitude obtain.  
All birds (safe, Aesop's Daw) have ever wore  
Their native plumes, and coveted no more;  
Beasts are contented with their wool and hair;  
Fishes, their slimy scales and shells to wear;  
And the lowest form of creatures, flies, and all  
Those animals that on the earth do crawl.  
Seem well pleased with those teguments and dyes  
Which Nature gave them, as fit properties  
To act their part in. Whoere knew the Bee  
Traffic for gay wings with the Butterfly?  
Or hath observed the Spider to desire  
The glowworms splendour, which we much admire?  
Or seen the Ant affecting to be dressed  
In Down of Palmer-worms, that fields infest?  
But men, all creatures wronging, from them take  
Such ornaments as for the purpose make  
Of proud desires; they frustrate all the toil  
Of the poor silkworm, Shell fishes despoil  
Of their bright treasures, Ostriches destroy  
For their fair plumes, and kill for ivory  
Huge Elephants. By traffic we uphold  
Th' estate of pride; from Peru comes our gold,  
From Sun-saluting Sera finely wrought  
Silks, from Arabia are sweet odours brought,  
Rich glittering gems from Persia, and from  
Achaia do pure shining linens come;  
Each Nation thus contributes less or more  
To make us proud of their superfluous store.  
'Tis not the least plague of mankind t' addict  
Themselves t'a vanity that doth afflict  
Such as pursue it, and d stubs almost  
The whole world, whilst we ransack every Coast  
For such things as Commodities we call  
Untruly, sith they profit not at all,  
No more than S●nny beams make things to be  
Of more price than in night's obscurity.  
What poor shifts fools do make, that they may go  
In rich at ire, and make a gallant show!  
Like soldiers in a stormed Town, they'll have  
All they can meet with ●l, to make them brave;  
Rings they will wear, though wrung their bowels be  
With hunger, and clung up through penury;  
And gold and silver on their backs must shine,  
Though their domestics (with dark faces) pine.  
Well may our Gallants be supposed to hide  
Deformities, that with great charge provide  
Gay trifles, as therewith themselves t'adorn,  
When the become thereby the common scorn.  
It was not long since Gibbon at our Court  
Made the fastidious Gallants goodly sport:  
His back was broad enough to undergo  
More jests than Poets and buffoons can throw,  
And such his shoulders were, as iatlas  
Are portrayed, when the Pencil would express  
His sufferings under his Celestial load:  
Yet (by the tailor rectified) abroad  
He walked, at Court his comely parts to show,  
With reared-up head like a rained Horse did go,  
Drew in his bunched back, and so did strain  
Himself, that crabbedly for very pain  
He looked, whilst all the youngsters at the Court  
(That knew the knobbed lump) did flour him for't,  
Asked how the Gull became so bravely tricked,  
And what quaint tongue had into fashion licked  
Such a Bear-whelp. Thus in the stead of grace  
And fair respect, derision in his face  
Was flung, and his proud folly so laughed down,  
That I grew sorry for the baffled Clown.  
The like left handed luck have all that so  
Heighten themselves, and make a gallant show  
'Bove their degree. The Ivy does sometime  
Above the Vine with prouder flourish climb,  
As th' Elder doth the balsam-tree outgrow;  
Yet of these Plants do very rustics know  
The different rent worth: no less is th'odds betwixt  
Good souls in humble innocency fixed,  
And such as highly do by pride offend:  
Reproach and infamy on these attend,  
While th'other, that the altitudes neglect  
Of honour, are beheld with high respect.   

Satire VI. Against Lying.  
WHo e'er would view the face of truth, must steer  
His course t' another Coast, sith nothing here  
Save visards, veils, and semblances we see.  
Much faith (I fear) is built on falsity,  
Mere misconstructions, plausible, but vain  
Glosses, the figments of an idle brain.  
Strange Paradoxes in Divinity,  
Which this blood-drenched age prodigiously  
Bring forth, what are they but as hateful lies  
As Hell and heresy could ere devise?  
If thus in things most serious we digress  
From truth, much more i' th' obvious passages  
Of life we deviate, whilst our affairs  
Are wrapped in falsities, as birds in snares.  
The Cretans have been infamous for lies,  
And the Greeks too, though worthy otherwise  
Of fame: but th' English now (whose metals found  
Has been explored by strokes of war) are found  
As full of vanities and lying sleights,  
As any Nation that heavens' splendour lights.  
News in this ruffling age accosts us so  
As villages do in roast waters show  
Themselves, in such a strange shape-shifting sort,  
That it serves only to make wife men sport.  
A warlike tempest crashing th' other day  
About so far off as old stories say  
Bold Robin Hood could shoot, I asked the posts  
And other passengers what news i' th' Coasts,  
What was the upshot of that eager fight,  
And where strong-winged victory did light.  
Some say the royal army drove away  
Their enemies like beasts, and won the day:  
Others affirmed the Royalists turned tail,  
And the more parlying party did prevail:  
Some saw three hundred breathless on the Plain,  
Others durst swear that only nine were slain:  
Some a long List of prisoners did o'erlook,  
Others affirmed that only five were took.  
Thus with their cross reports they did maintain  
A conflict 'mongst themselves, did boldly feign  
Self-pleasing news, and it so promptly tell,  
As they had served a prenticeship in Hell.  
Surely Hell propagates apace by lies  
(The devil's progeny) sith to devise  
Prodigious falsities, is now become  
As frequent as to fornicate at Rome.  
In the fresh air that panted in my face,  
I one day walked, when towards me did pace  
A cast-off Courtier, with a pert and bold  
Aspect, that set some gloss upon his old  
Scarlet and Plush; each step affected state,  
His hands were active, and his head elate,  
His beard puntilioed, with moustaches worn  
Almost in fashion of a Ramkins' horn.  
‛ Accosting me, he asked me how I fared:  
‛ Scarce well, said I, some soldiers lately shared  
‛ My victuals 'mongst them. Nay, sweet Sir, but how's  
‛ Your bodies state? then towards me he bows  
‛ With courtly cringe. Truly, said I, you show  
‛ Courtship too much to one you little know.  
‛ Not know you? he replied; yes surely, I  
‛ Can easily sent your flowers of poesy.  
‛ I have sometime been sweetened with such things  
‛ My self, and haunted all the muse's Springs,  
‛ Though now my Delphic heat be quenchr. I'll tell  
‛ You (if you please) how the mischance befell.  
‛ I (as I had a forward mind to see  
‛ Strange Regions) traveled towards Italy,  
‛ And having climbed the highest ridg of all  
‛ The Alps, stood viewing the terrestrial ball,  
‛ When the Moon coasting towards me apace,  
‛ And smiling on me with a sorked face,  
‛ (Wag that I was) upon her horns begilt  
‛ With beams, I hung my rich embroidered belt,  
‛ Whose lustre caused great Tycho to divine  
‛ That Pallas with her burnished blade did shine  
‛ That night in stead of Phoebe. Suddenly  
‛ She glided from me through the spangled sky,  
‛ And left me shuddering in the stormy cold,  
Till her bright chariot 'bout the world was rolled,  
‛ And brought me what I stayed for. Then (alas)  
‛ With Winters breathe my brain so palsied was,  
‛ And Genius brought so low, that since that time  
‛ I ne'er could reach above poor ballad-rhyme,  
‛ ay quickly measured much Italian ground,  
‛ Rifled proud Rome for rarities, and found  
‛ Some Monumental prizes, that had lain  
‛ Sleeping in rubbish since old Satur's reign.  
‛ With the great Pontise I disputed long,  
‛ And when the truth he did too plainly wrong,  
‛ I said as plainly, Man of sin, thou liest,  
‛ And forthwith spat i'th' face of Autichrist.  
‛ Yet got I off in safety, and removed  
‛ Towards that City which rare Virgil loved;  
‛ Upon whose Urn I did my head repose,  
‛ And dreaming of deep Knowledge, thence arose  
to view Sibylla's gror; wherein mine eyes  
‛ I ru'd in search for hidden prophecies,  
‛ And found some mysteries that are not yet  
‛ Disclouded by the beams of sharpest wit.  
‛ In this samed Region many months I spent,  
‛ But more in China, whose rare Government  
‛ Is celebrated through the world, and stands  
‛ As a fixed pattern for all other Lands.  
‛ Sir, by your leave, said I, I fain would know  
‛ How you so far did into favour grow  
‛ With the Chineses, sith they will maintain  
‛ Commerce with none, nor Strangers entertain,  
'Twas thus; When I had sated my desires  
‛ In viewing of the vast Egyptian spires,  
‛ The Cataracts, and other wonders more,  
‛ I put off from that monster-breeding shore  
‛ Into the Deep; where, near the mouths of Nile,  
‛ Viewing a Dolphin with a Crocodile  
‛ Fiercely engaged, and staying (with delight)  
to see the issue of so strange a fight,  
‛ Comes an huge Ork and overturns my boat,  
‛ Transmits me through a vast distended throat  
‛ Into his bowels, in such sort as he  
‛ Was swallowed up who preached to Niniveh.  
‛ The Monster, as o'erjoyed with such a prey,  
‛ scoured through the surges of the foaming Sea,  
‛ How far I know not; very far to me  
‛ It seemed, engulfed in depth of misery.  
‛ It chanced that in his boisterous way did pass  
'A crazed Vessel, that well freighted was  
‛ With Greekish wine: this Bark he to and fro  
‛ Tossed, till the whole did under water go,  
God-save that three precious Runlets chanced to store,  
‛ But straight slipped down his Acherontic throat,  
‛ Just as by hungry Lions slender bones  
‛ Are swallowed, or by Eagles little stones.  
‛ Pallas inspire me now, said I; I'll try  
‛ What wit and wine can work; then dexterously  
‛ With a stiletto let the liquour flow,  
Which madded presently the Monster so,  
‛ That up and down he wallowed, and at last  
‛ Tumbling to land, on China's strand did cast  
‛ An half-concocted Courtier. Glad (as could  
'A creature be) was I then to behold  
‛ The lightful Heaven, and civil men to see,  
‛ That cured my griefs with fruits of courtesy,  
‛ Enriched my knowledge with rare mysteries,  
‛ And let me down into deep policies  
‛ Of stare (that made me gracious at our Court;)  
‛ showed me inventions of no vulgar sort,  
‛ Such as our happier Bacon did in new  
‛ Atlantis see, whereby he famous grew.  
‛ More could I tell you, but I now must go  
To the Sun-Tavern, though my means be low,  
‛ And money short. But your discourse, said I,  
‛ Is long, and so farewell. He earnestly  
‛ followed and called me, who would neither stay  
‛ Nor yet look back, but laughing paced away.  
Tales as incredible as these are tossed  
In vulgar mouths, so frequent in our Coast,  
That few can promise that they can relate  
A truth, when many do so vainly prate.  
If all that take delight in fables, as  
Did Aesop (though his sense no mockage was)  
Were marked with such deformities as he,  
Monkeys and Apes would prove good company,  
At least fair Ladies would betray this Land  
To strangers, that they might be better manned.  
O Truth, what is thy crime, that thou art so  
Punished by common voice, and brought as low  
As plundered Scots? has thy free speech been bent  
Against some stumbling-blocks of Government?  
Look'st thou at soldiers as at rough and high  
Rocks, that with ruin threat the standers by?  
Hast thou sound fault with Levies and Excise,  
Or siding so at Sessions and assize,  
That slighted are thy plains, although thy state  
Be ne'er so down cast and disconsolate?  
If so, thou'rt lost in judgement of the wise,  
And mayst go hang (with Libra in the skies.)  
How vain and empty are men's fancies! He  
That seeks in Nature a vacuity,  
May find it here. They take delight to throw  
Dust in the eyes of others, and to sow  
Their gulling forgeries in such a sort,  
As Cadmus (whereof Poets make report)  
Did sow Serpentine teeth. Now if their seed  
Like his should grow, this Isle would ever bleed,  
The work of war would forward go in haste,  
Mischief would like Egyptian hail lay waste  
All in its way, and those that are so rough,  
And love dire discord, would have blood enough.  
The Prince of wandering shades, with specious lies  
(Such as some Oracles) doth still disguise  
His black designs, and as his Imps, applauds  
Such as by slippery windings and sly frauds  
Do act the Serpent: double tongues (as well  
As cloven feet) are cursed marks of Hell.  
Whereas clear truth is such an attribute  
As chiefly with Divinity doth suit,  
(Which is all essence, all substantial light,  
And nothing in it shadowy or slight)  
Those that obscure it, and prevaricate  
By misty falsehood, plainly violate  
A form celestial, seeming to defy  
The great Assertor of all verity.  
Base drossy natures blanch with falsity  
Their faults, but noble souls hate forgery,  
Cast scorn on those that gild a rotten cause,  
And look on such as Eagles upon Dawes.  
Those grey beards do deserve Orbili● scourge  
Themselves, who with severity should purge  
These coasts of lewd misgovernment, and yet  
Suffer your youngsters to corrupt their wit  
With vile untruths, and so distort thereby  
Their manners, that they ever look awry.  
Children, before they can articulate  
Their words aright, will lisp our lies, and prate  
Falsely by signs, foreshowing that they will  
Be like the Fiend, and learn their father's skill.  
He hates the truth, because it seems to be  
A beam or stricture of divinity;  
And oft he casts an Hellish mist upon  
The face thereof, that still appeareth one  
As the sun's globe: but falsehood is in show  
As various as the Moon, and spotted so;  
'Tis manifold, and therefore apt to lead  
Many astray, sith few with caution tread.  
Error is only in request; and he  
That keeps the old right way, is sure to be  
Wronged by novelists. The bands of fair  
Society so oft dissolved are  
By falsehood, (when at telling of each lie  
Some link thereof in sunder seems to fly)  
That we may justly fear that harsh and rude  
Disorder will drive on the multitude  
To ruinous designs, defacing quite  
All prints of Government, and civil right.  
Who constantly accords with truth, hath gone  
A good way towards man's perfection,  
And may well hope that he sometime shall see  
The clear wellhead of true felicity.  
Brave Cleopatra's draught of pulverised  
Jewels and wine, that aptly emblemized  
Her dear affection to Mark Anthony,  
Not half so precious was as verity  
Is in our mouths; the rareness of the same  
Makes it of more esteem and greater fame.  
Surely (if still to a corrupted state  
Our manners change, and minds degenerate)  
Plain truth will seem a wonderment, and we  
Shall on it look as at some prodigy.   

Satire VII. Against Vanity.  
BUt that the soul's not subject to decay,  
I almost should have ventured to say  
That men are altogether slight and vain,  
Those at the least that will not entertain  
Virtue, that is the anchorage to stay  
Our Vessels in the worlds turmoiled Sea.  
Such are the most of mortals; here and there  
They're ever hulling, without Compass steer,  
Troubles in stead of treasures do they find,  
Lose their security, and gain the wind.  
'Tis so with men as if a child (whose brain  
Much drowsy phlegm and folly doth contain)  
Should take up Pebbles where rich Pearls lay by,  
Or stoop for straws, and let pure Amber lie.  
Hence wiser judgements have been wont to throw  
Contempt at great'st affairs, and slighted so  
The world, as nothing were indeed therein  
Worthy their cares, although they more should win  
Then all those Kings did lose which Caesar's might  
And Alexander's terror put to flight.  
That grave Philosopher that used to drain  
For the world's follies his grief-wounded brain,  
showed it too much respect: but he whose light  
Humour laughed at it, did it much more right,  
Sith only trifling objects fill its Scene,  
Matters of mere derision and disdain.  
Who can be so austere as not to shake  
His Spleen with laughter, when so many take  
Much pain to be ridiculous? I've known  
Fantastics with the fumes of folly blown  
To such an height, that they in their conceit  
(Though despicably poor) were Princely great,  
Grandees, magnificoes; who then would sign  
What royal equipage they would maintain,  
What counsels they would use, what lands they would  
With war infest, and what in friendship hold.  
Such, like our Burbage are, who when his part  
He acted, sent each passion to his heart;  
Would languish in a scene of love; then look  
Pallid for fear; but when revenge he took,  
Recall his blood; when enemies were nigh,  
Grow big with wrath, and make his buttons fly.  
Or like they are to Dionysius, when  
(Expulsed from the government of men)  
He tutored boys, which he for subjects took,  
And thought he swayed a sceptre when he shook  
A rod, and that his Lectures well might be  
His wonted Laws and rules of policy.  
A great part of our little time we spend  
In airy fancies without aim or end,  
That like to atoms in the Sun, do play  
In lighter brains. Th'illusions of the day  
Do swarm as busily as those of night,  
And waking, dream we in our cares despite,  
As if in mockage our conceptions were  
formed, that our folly wiser heads might jeer.  
How light and vain our cogitations are,  
Whole Reams of brainsick stories may declare,  
Figments and sopperies, which every age  
Puts forth, and makes as public as the Stage,  
As it were not enough to be unwise,  
Unless men did divulge their vanities.  
Agrippa, that did write with eager strain  
'Gainst vanity of Arts, did write in vain  
(After a sort) himself, as one too sure  
That the world's giddiness he ne'er could cure.  
The greater part of books, although they pass  
For currant works, are formed (as Venus was)  
Of froth, and therefore are for Vulcan fit  
(As strangers to the nobler ways of wit)  
Deserving well the fire, for that more light  
Than smoke they are, more noxious to the sight.  
If those that forge the treasure of the brain  
Into such Volumes as are lewd or vain,  
Were but as sharply censured as those  
That lend their arms to draw invasive foes  
Into their Coasts, or spread maliciously  
Infective mischiefs, whereof thousands dye,  
What would become of scribblers, such as dare  
Pass through the mists of fancy, to declare  
What depth of sense in every dream doth lie;  
Or seem t' have read the book of destiny  
By telling fortunes; or their papers stain  
With scurrile jests and passages obscene?  
Who write as Aretine did print, may well  
Think to be Gold-finders i'th' pit of Hell,  
Or turned to harpies, others to torment  
And plague with nastiness and noisome sent.  
So those that write like Machiavel, and be  
Still walking in the mists of policy,  
May look to be made Counsellors of State  
To th' Prince of Shades, and for such honour wait.  
Less danger is in rocks then in such writs;  
Those sometimes split our ships, but these our wits  
Daily corrupt, with fancies vile and vain  
They fill the floating vessel of the brain,  
And though they promise fairly to the sense,  
Yet never pay they for our times expense.  
He that with Tully did himself amuse,  
To find how oft the orator did use  
One kind of ●lose; and wearied out his wit  
In noting whether Terence well did fit  
His lines in measure, did he not almost  
Deserve the shame due to the whipping post,  
For spending precious hours to understand  
Things cheap and fruitless as the highway sand?  
Those Poets likewise that have played the Apes  
In moulding their conceits into the shapes  
Of globes, of eggs, of columns, hatchets, wings,  
Of altars, and of sundry other things,  
Might on their Muses have more pity took,  
And saved them from much torture (by the book.)  
These are quaint vanities, just like some toys,  
Devised by Tailors to please girls and boys.  
If in some humour with the stream I row,  
And write such things, I will withal go plow  
The sandy shore, and my composures carve  
In sheets of ice, poor fancies to preserve.  
But what mean those that make their hearts with care  
Like to Prometheus' liver, hourly are  
Afflicting them with anxious pensiveness  
'Bout future matters? yea, will more than guess  
At blind events, and busily devise  
A chain of things, like that of destinies,  
Linking together causes and effects,  
As their forecasting faculty projects?  
Great Demogorgon, that art said to be  
The Ruler of close-working destiny,  
Thou mayst give up thy government, if so  
Mortals themselves can order things below.  
Beyond the limits of their lives they send  
Their vast desires, to fickle Fame commend  
Their future states, and vainly promise thence  
Some comfort to themselves, when void of sense.  
To hazard lives or fortunes for a blast,  
Or set (as 'twere) all welfare at a cast,  
Is't not a folly, which enough deplore  
We never can, nor cure with Hellebore?  
When vital light is quench●, could busy Fame  
With all her blowing make our ashes flame,  
And fetch our banished vanished lives again,  
There were some reason we should take some pain  
To purchase Fame: but sith we all must lie  
(Urged by an Adamantine destiny)  
As heaps of ruins in our beds of clay;  
To vex ourselves, or trouble Land or Sea,  
That our self-pleasing actions may be tossed  
In vulgar mouths, when all our sense is lost  
In fatal darkness, can at best but be  
Brave-minded folly, splendid vanity.  
'Tis as a wretch that's doomed to lose his eyes  
For some black mischief, should be so unwise  
As to provide gay pictures for delight,  
Against such time as he should lose his sight.  
Old Lumbrick th' Usurer (whose fair and young  
Wife to the chinking of his treasures sung,  
When Coin came in and multiplied apace)  
Of late so courteous was as to give place  
To nature's course, and in good earnest died,  
Binding by Testament his lovely Bride,  
That she should never warm a genial bed  
With other person, never more should wed:  
And though he childless was (as never he  
In aught was fruitful save in Usury,)  
Yet if his harsh desire she disobeyed,  
Straight must she of her wealth be disarraid,  
And left as naked as our Adamites,  
When poorly they perform Religious Rites.  
Was not this Mammonist absurdly vain  
as well as cruel, that would thus restrain  
His wife from comforts, and for such restraint  
Flatter himself with hopes of sweet content,  
When rotting in the grave, the deadly hate  
Of hundreds, whom his rise did ruinate,  
Who belching out black storms of curses, meant  
To shipwreck his pale ghost, when hence it went?  
Virtue (that ever keeps the Conscience clear,  
And the heart light) doth in her bosom bear  
A sweet compensative for all the pain  
Which for her sake her lovers do sustain:  
Yet all the courtship which to her we make,  
Is rather framed for some spectators sake,  
Then for her own desert; thus virtuous we  
Are in relation, not reality.  
So in our learning triflingly we go  
To work, and of much knowledge make a show,  
As we had sounded all the Sciences,  
When to sharp eyes our frothy shallowness  
Plainly appears; who, till our eyes be hoared,  
Smatter in Languages that scarce afford  
A solid notion, childishly with shells  
Of things do play, and look for little else.  
Goddess of Arts and Arms, canst thou endure  
That sordid Clowns should laugh at Literature,  
For some men's faults, that pester it with wrongs,  
And crop the laurel that to it belongs?  
Pallas advance, and with the Gorgon's head  
Convert such blocks to stones, or strike them dead  
With thy keen sauchion, that the Arts thereby  
May rise, and shine with wonted splendency.  
O how do airy fancies crush and shake  
Our mental powers! how deeply do we take  
Light shadowy things to heart! as if no store  
Of real grieavances we had before.  
Poor mortals need no troubles to create,  
Nor with self-caused earthquakes shake the state  
Of life: too fruitful Nature is in woe;  
Out of our essences do sorrows grow,  
The very earth we bear about, doth yield  
Such fruits, and is a never-failing field.  
Yet when Lavisca in a tragic Scene  
Beheld the beautiful Adonis slain,  
(Whose bloods fresh drops on his unblemished skin  
Looked as a Roses blushing leaves had been  
Strewed on a silver statue) with a stoud  
Of tears she matched the current of his blood,  
Poured out her brackish humours, as if she  
Had been a Nymph of Tethis family:  
Yet, that she might be happier than the fair  
Venus, whose Courtship vanished into air,  
The next day after (though another's wife)  
She played with him that acted death to life,  
The Hunter she enjoyed, and what he bare  
To cheer his hounds with, was her husband's share.  
Moreover, sith our threads are quickly spun  
By the great wheel of Heaven, our sands soon run,  
So that before we well know why we came  
Into that Coasts of light, we quit the same;  
All our endeavours to this point should tend,  
That our short time we fruitfully might spend:  
Yet are we prodigal in its expense,  
Whilst in the winding ways of compliments  
We visit, we salute, we entertain,  
As our lives business did consist in vain  
Addresses, or as time with age were grown  
Slow, and required more wastage than his own.  
Just Saturn, thou that for our lives offence  
Threatnest our Land with vengeful influence,  
When hast thou since thou didst a sickle bear,  
Seen falsehood so, in fashion as 'tis here  
'Mongst Gallants? who ne'er meet, but they profess  
More loves than Cupid, and more services  
Than slaves in Turkey, when yet in their mind  
There's nothing of reality designed,  
But from their hearts true friendship is as far  
As low-faln Vulcan from 2 fixed star.  
What pains they take to serve the vanities  
Of pride! how do they counterfeit, disguise,  
Endure stiff cold, and melting heat, that they  
May outgo others in the rising way  
Of high esteem, and with some Potentate  
Whom they admire themselves ingratiate!  
Thus as we see a light quick-moving flame  
On weighty bodies seize, and work the same  
To dissolution: so does vanity  
Lay hold on man's most solid faculty,  
Distracts his intellectuals, makes him start  
From wisdoms bent, from virtue steals his heart.  
Show me the man that in the puzzling throng  
Of businesses, will not engage among  
Some obvious vanities, and neither play  
The Ape nor child with foundlings in his way;  
And Fame shall crown his merits, that he shall  
Live to behold the world's great Funeral.   

Satire VIII: Against Discord.  
SUrely wild Discord, which long since was found  
In lightless Hell, where bloody fillets bound  
Her snaky tresses up, did burst of late  
Her chains, and threats our Realm to ruinate,  
And make our sometime happy Isle to be  
Like her Low-Country in some near degree.  
Will drowsy Chaos (startled with th' affright  
Of clamorous broils) lift from the deeps of night  
His vap'tons' head, and from his shaken tress  
Fling through the world confusive darknesses,  
That we shall ne'er know virtue more, nor see  
The friendly smiles of calm tranquillity?  
It cannot be conceived but that the state  
O' th' Universe ere long will terminate,  
So many parts thereof are wrenched and torn  
By furious strife, or by confusion born  
On heaps so, that small hopes we have to see  
Things in right form and found integrity.  
Much woe distracts us, yet the dismal stage  
Of Heaven doth more calamities presage,  
The dire aspects of Planets seem to twit  
Our lews sedition, sharply point at it,  
And (as our manners are enormous) threat  
To make our plagues prodigiously great,  
Saturn and Mars, malignly posited  
In wrathful Leo, give us cause to dread  
That for our cankered spite and cruel rage,  
Whereby we have been hurried on t' engage  
Ourselves in mischiefs, this weak Realm of ours  
(That erst too highly vaunted of its powers  
And fortunes) will ere long be brought more low,  
And mourn i' th' ashes of an overthrow,  
So great, that Poets will be taxed with lies,  
That shall compile this Ages Tragedies.  
The Moon too (owing a disastrous spite  
To mortals) clips her brother's golden light,  
Flings rust upon his beauties, and from all  
Our Coasts averts his force vivifical,  
Whilst night encroaches on the day, and peeps  
To see what order troubled Nature keeps.  
Great Gallant of the sky, rich-metalled Sun,  
Brave issue of sublime Hyperion,  
Well mayst thou, that art regular and bright,  
At mortals frown, that are disordered quite  
In all their motions, and do only ply  
The works of darkness and impurity.  
Our faults, O Phoebus, are not small, though thou  
Didst lately wink thereat; yet not t' allow  
Their perpetration; no, thou didst but so  
A great abhorrence, no connivance, show,  
And wert abashed to see these wretched times  
O'erflow with foul and execrable crimes,  
That seem a bloody tincture to reflect  
Upon thy beams, as they would Heaven infect.  
You proud earth-awing Potentates, that from  
Indignant eyes dart lightning where you come,  
And when your brows are once beclouded, make  
Whole kingdoms at your voices thunder quake,  
Look to your envied altitudes; ere long  
Some fury-winged storms will try how strong  
Your forces are; and cause you have to doubt  
That some tempestuous terrors are about  
To shake your strengths, when at your height the stars  
Thus point, and threaten to turn Levellers.  
Sweet concord, that (as firmest ligament  
Of all societies) in joint consent  
Did sometimes knit our hearts, is banished far,  
And only now the bloody tract of war  
Do thousands follow, and in acts of spite  
And spoilful violence so much delight,  
That neither mountains, bogs, nor seas can bar  
Them from pursuance of the deadliest war,  
Though never so unjust; but on they will,  
As if they never blood enough could spill,  
Or as their spirits were with others breath  
Refreshed, that issued from the gates of death.  
Mischiefs (like mathematic bodies) rise  
Sometimes from mere points to a mighty size,  
Taking increase of magnitude from all  
Occurrences that in their way befall;  
Fair speeches for mere mockeries are took,  
And for a bold affront a manly look,  
Whispers for plots; thus apt to draw offence  
From every object is malevolence.  
A spark of discord, when inflamed among  
Seditious heads, doth seem to run along  
The ground, and quickly doth itself dilate  
O'er a large Region, all to ruinate.  
Wicked contention, that did once enrage  
All Greece and Asia, moving them t' engage  
In fight about one apple, that among  
Three Goddesses was on Mount Ida flung,  
Has not forgot her old envenomed spite,  
But to embroil whole kingdoms doth delight,  
And never was more apt than now adays,  
Great mischiefs from small principles to raise.  
That which should as a sober curb restrain  
Impetuous motions, serves now as a main  
Incentive to our quarrellings, who fly  
At one another's throats religiously.  
Turpine, that had long since on wine and whores  
Spent all, and in good earnest out of doors  
Had fooled himself, but afterwards did go  
To wars, and patched up his torn fortunes so;  
Meeting with Crash (who likewise had a mass  
Of wealth consumed, and discontented was)  
Did thus bespeak him:' Friend, why walk you so  
‛ With arms across, as if you meant to show  
‛ The world your sorrows, that too little cares  
‛ How ill a man of worth and merit fares?  
‛ When last I saw you, you were fresh as May,  
‛ Acquainted with no symptom of decay,  
‛ Though now you seem like a deflourisht tree,  
‛ That wants the airs or earth's benignity,  
‛ But I'll transplant you bravely, if you'll come  
‛ Along, and follow our auspicious Drum,  
‛ Bear warlike arms, and try the dusty field  
‛ Of Mart, to see what Harvest it will yield.  
‛ He works so on you as Medea's Art  
‛ On Aeson did, refresh your withered heart,  
‛ And by infusions vigorous and strong  
‛ Recall your flourish, make you seem more young.  
Crash smiled hereat, and was so mannerly  
As to return him thanks; but yet, said he,  
‛ I never could affect your ●lashing trade,  
to stand at th' mercy of another's blade,  
‛ Or make myself a mark for every shot;  
‛ The desperate look of danger like I not.  
‛ Nay, said the other, you shall those command  
‛ That will in roughest ways of danger stand,  
‛ And shelter you, who shall be still secure,  
‛ Whilst they the shocks of bloody broils endure;  
‛ Th●i● dangerous exploits shall win you praise,  
‛ They still shall bear the brunt, but you the bays.  
‛ Since first! warlike weapons took in hand,  
‛ And was thought worthy others to command,  
‛ Ever when any hazardous attempt  
‛ Was urged, my wisdom did myself exempt  
' From danger, but thrust others on apace,  
‛ Whose lives, compared with mine, were cheap & base.  
‛ He that rules others, and neglects to save  
‛ Himself, may quickly send a fool to grave.  
Like to a boy that fain would break into  
An Orchard, where eye-pleasing apples grow,  
But fears a mastiff or some other bug,  
Did Crash now stand, began to smack and shrug,  
And framed this answer:' I should promptly go  
to stop the torrent of a ●orrain foe,  
‛ That came with dire destructive purposes,  
‛ As did the Danes most high in outrages:  
‛ But somewhat in my soul (perhaps they call  
‛ It conscience) would not suffer me at all  
‛ Those to offend whom I am bound to love,  
‛ Or once an hand against their safety move.  
‛ Justice and Charity are frighted far,  
‛ Or deadly wounded, in a wrongful war.  
‛ Nay, if you'll preach, said Turpine, you shall have  
'A Tub to talk in: but you rather rave,  
‛ Then speak what doth a man of worth befit,  
‛ That knows the sharper points of war and wit.  
‛ What though we fight not against foreigners?  
‛ We fight 'gainst those that with tempestuous wars  
‛ Would wrack our State, we come within the Lists  
' 'Gainst those that are professed Antagonists  
To our designs, 'gainst those that do deny  
Our rules, nor with our courses will comply,  
‛ Those that old fottish fashions will retain,  
‛ And scorn all new productions of the brain,  
‛ Though ne'er so happy, and though ne'er so well  
‛ Approved by those in judgement that excel.  
‛ What if the conscience be a little strained,  
‛ When some great benefit may thence be gained?  
‛ The fault is venial. Seldom do we see  
‛ More folly then in scrup'lous nicety,  
‛ Nor of sound senses such a man we hold,  
‛ As welcomes not so dear a guest as gold  
‛ On any terms. The chink of treasure will  
‛ The grumblings of the conscience quickly still,  
‛ And cause had thoughts to vanish, as some say  
‛ The Fiends at sound of music fly away.  
‛ Though your pay haply may sometime be slack,  
‛ The sinews yet of war you shall not lack,  
‛ Moneys I mean. The Hobbinols shall bring  
‛ Coin, corn, and cattle, every needful thing;  
‛ Their very wives and daughters shall be free  
To us, that hold a kind community;  
‛ we'll spoil their usury, and make them more  
‛ Free from foul gluttony then heretofore;  
‛ we'll keep them tame within the slender pail  
‛ Of diet, whilst we quaff their strongest al●;  
‛ we'll teach them sounder rules of life, and they  
‛ For our instructive pains shall soundly pay;  
‛ we'll beat Religion into them (unclean  
‛ Beasts that they are) and they shall entertain  
‛ Us as their Masters, shall endure our yokes  
‛ Though heavy, and endear our very strokes.  
These words the makeshift stirred (as winds do move  
A frigate) swelled his hopes, and forwards drove  
Him to the wars, where quickly he became  
(For his long sword, his feather, and his fame)  
A man of special note, in boldest sort  
Broke houses, robbed, and forged Warrants for't,  
Whored (as blind Cupid shoots) he cared not where,  
A dozen desperate Gamesters would out-swear,  
Brag like a Span'sh Don, drink as he had  
A sand-pit in his bowels, or were mad  
With a dry Calenture: yet now and then  
He would consort with grave Religious men,  
Speak Scripture purely, seem all sin t'abhor,  
Look as he were some fiery Meteor  
Of flashing zeal, much sanctity profess;  
And thus he thought to blanch his wickedness,  
Expunge his guilt, and plainly warrantise  
His lawless pranks and lewder villainies.  
O the corruption of these times I that breeds  
Such noisome vermin, such unblessed weeds,  
That for the black banks of the Stygian pit,  
Rather than Regions of the light, are fit.  
Brute creatures find more reason to agree  
Then men, and less do break society;  
The Woods can witness that nor Wolves, nor Bears,  
Lions, nor any such wild foresters,  
Do ever march in bands to bloody wars  
Amongst themselves, or fall to furious jars,  
Much less by thousands in tumultuous fights  
Kill their own kind, or force them from their rights:  
But men (as if they shut the raging fire  
Of Hell within their bowels) burn with ire  
Each against other, snatch up clashing arms  
(The direful instruments of deadly harms)  
To work revenge withal, conspire with fate  
T'unpeople kingdoms, slay, burn, ruinate,  
Men, houses, temples, trample fields to dirt,  
And at sad mischiefs make triumphal sport.  
Besides, we see that savage beasts before  
They Passengers assail, grunt, bark, or roar,  
Or other warning give; so here and there  
The winds do bustle, ere they trees up tear;  
And angry floods do foamy faces show,  
Before the beaten banks they overflow:  
But men (as false as fierce) not seldom will  
I' th' very closure of embraces kill,  
In a deep calmness rocks and quicksands hide,  
The ruggedest mischiefs, where the brow is void  
Of threatful wrinkles; seldom shall you know,  
Before you feel his hatred, who's your foe.  
Proud lump of lewdness, man, that so dost swell  
As if thou didst transcendently excel  
All sublunary things, or didst comprise  
Their ornaments and nobler qualities;  
Thy follies do thy fancies contradict,  
Thy lawless courses thy conceits evict  
In plainest manner; and thou mayst a new  
Account begin, the old one proves untrue.   

Satire ix.. Against Weakness.  
WHat means Verruco at such rates to boast?  
Shall a mere Ignis fatuus rule the roast?  
He talks as if he were with strength endued  
Able to challenge a whole multitude,  
Or had the happy power t'impose a Law  
On his affections, and their forces awe,  
Whereas the ablest men ('mongst whom (alas)  
This Braggart for a Pigmy scarce may pass)  
Find themselves very weaklings, wounded by  
Their passions oft, and bleeding inwardly.  
The vaporous Clouds are not more often chased  
By puffing winds, that move with winged haste,  
Then human bodies are ore-mastered by  
The forces of their own infirmity.  
One with the Gout i● fettered fast and lamed,  
Another with the Gonorrhaea tamed,  
A third is with an heavy Spleen oppressed,  
Another pants with an asthmatic breast,  
This man's scorched with a Fever, and that groans  
Feeling an aguish earth quake in his bones,  
This with a Dropsie drowned, whilst that is sore  
Racked with the Cramp, that hath his sinews tore.  
We language want all Languors to express,  
That sink our frail Barks with much heaviness;  
Yet the most of those maladies do we  
Owe to a course of lust or gluttony,  
Or other vices; that we now are grown  
so feeble and short lived, the fault's our own,  
Not Natures, which in friendly sort bestows  
Her favours still, and wonted bounty shows.  
But the minds weaknesses give strength unto  
Our miseries, and all our States undo,  
They make our better parts the worse, and throw  
Thorns in our ways, where flowers well might grow.  
Wisdom would have us (like a Corps-du-gard)  
Ever to stand 'gainst enemies prepared,  
And though false vice in ne'er so brave a dress  
Present herself, like some fair Sorceress,  
Her golden pro●fers stoutly to repel,  
And send her (whence she came) to deepest Hell:  
But we are soft as oil, and weak as air,  
That yields to every motion; we can bear  
No pressing ex●gent, but either lie  
Like I●●achar his Ass, or droop and die.  
He that could bear a Bull, had not a hack  
More st●●● and strong, than we are faint and slack  
In spirit, yielding to each injury  
O● Fortune, with as blind facility.  
If (as we boast) our pedigree we draw  
From Trojans, whom no terrors ere could awe,  
We are a brood degenerate and base,  
That suffer each misfortune to ourface  
Our courages, and send us on our way  
Puling, like boys disturbed in their play.  
Rather like sour unkindly grapes we weep  
Under each pressure, and neglect to keep  
Such a fit tenor and fair evenness,  
As is required in persons that profess  
A love to virtue, which in Symmetry  
Consists, and keeps all forms of decency.  
Surely to one with store of wisdom fraught  
No great afflictive thing it could be thought,  
That Hodget from his old accustomed air,  
Was 〈◊〉 ●'another Mansion to repair,  
Whereto the Clown (as pursy as he was)  
In half a summer's day on foot might pass.  
He knew he could not want entreasured gold,  
Nor home-brought fatlings from the shepherds sold,  
Nor barrels of strong Ale, nor tubs of Beef,  
Nor any such good rustical relief:  
Yet the fond weakling suffered grief to lay  
Load on his heart, when he did part away  
From his warm seat; like a poor babe he cried  
Plucked from the dug, and shortly after died.  
O what a brave man this had been ●' have gone  
Upon an embassy to Prester John!  
How rarely fit t' have been employed about  
The finding of the northwest passage out!  
Rather how unfit for great services  
Are all such persons? whose weak tenderness  
Will not such change endure, but (like some trees)  
Transplan●ed, lose their hopefullest qualities.  
Who to one station are affected thus  
(As if affixed like Prometheus)  
May thank their folly for much discontent,  
Sith nothing in this world is permanent.  
Poor dreaming fools! they fancy that they can  
Slumber the waves of this world's Ocean,  
And charm all troubles, that they may at ease  
Pass to what point of happiness they please:  
But when they find the cozenage of conceit,  
Themselves raise tempests, or contribute great  
Winds to a little storm, while sighs they vent  
In volleys for some lighter accident.  
Crispus, that plods on in his formal way,  
That eats and drinks by method every day,  
Points his moustaches with one single hair,  
And washes after meals with cleanly care,  
Looks like a Lady sitting to be limned,  
And speaks as comptly as his head is trimmed;  
When once he comes among the common rout,  
Is fain to traverse and to tack about  
With such deformity, as makes him be  
Ridiculous to all his company;  
Troubled whereat, he (angry) goes anon  
Home like a Wasp, that came forth like a Drone.  
What thing in man can seem unmanlyer,  
Then in his carriage to be singular?  
Or what more weak than not to dare to take  
Such ways, as others common roads to make?  
Especially when nothing lies therein  
For virtue t' stumble at, no rub of sin.  
The force of virtue did sometime appear  
In sharp reproofs of those we did endear,  
When men did boldly (as by verbal war)  
Oppose their friends that were irregular,  
And by close Monitory charges sought  
To have their erring lives int' order brought:  
But who now if his friend do chance to prove  
Lewdly exorbitant, will show his love  
By casting (as it were) in's harmful way  
Rough reprehensions his career to stay,  
And to divert him to the happier path  
Of virtue, that no ground of danger hath?  
That sweet Psalmographer and warlike King,  
Whose acts of honour were past equalling,  
A wholesome reprehension took to be  
Like Balm upon the head of Majesty:  
But as this precious unguent of the East  
Is either quite lost, or impaired at least,  
So is the friendly office of reproof  
(Which to good natures is of great behoof)  
Turned out of service, out of fashion grown,  
Like garments which our Ancestors did own.  
Men are of vile ill-fashioned courtesy  
So full, as rather to keep company  
With lewdest Russians, then to strive to stay  
Their sliding steps in a declining way,  
Rather than chide them from their vices, and  
Cause them their downhill danger t' understand.  
Nor will men suffer it; the skin of vice  
So tender seems, that they are very nice  
To have it touched. I did but lately tell  
A thristless Kinsman that he did not well  
To stumble in the night so oft upon  
The youngsters crime, called fornication,  
That he would work his ruin by his play,  
And by carouzing drink his health away;  
I did but mildly thus admonish him,  
When straight he looked with countenance as grim  
As Savage ready to have killed our Queen,  
Or Faux when in the fatal cavern seen;  
The man grew strangely brutish, quite destroyed  
All force of kindred, and of love beside,  
And no less hatred unto me did show,  
Then unto Parricides did Romans owe.  
How dear do men destructive vices hold!  
Looking with hatred on their friends that would  
Deter them from the same, and to that end  
Their tongue's artillery upon them spend.  
Men of infected manners rather should  
Value such friends above their weight in gold,  
Endear their warnings, and in treasuries  
Of grateful minds repose such courtesies;  
No less than if they had with friendly cares  
Rescued their lives from the Gemonian stairs,  
Or the Tarpeian rock, when most they were  
Aghast with terror, deepest in despair.  
Our weakness here looks wretchedly; and he  
That slights these goodly fruits of amity,  
And so (not brooking of well-aiming tongues  
The wholesome hits) his sickly manners wrongs,  
May well be noted for the apparent heir  
Of folly, and her Coat may justly bear.  
What else may those that seek with busy quest  
For knowledge, yet on others judgements rest,  
Seldom bestir their faculties to shake  
This or that point, but all on trust do take,  
Ranging through Authors, as beasts through a Wood?  
Which when they think they once have understood,  
Their work is done, great things they have archieved,  
And as Apollo's sons must be believed?  
Learning is like a tree (Infixed in ground  
So far, that none the depth of it have found)  
The softer leaves whereof most wits do seem  
T' affect, but little do its pitch esteem,  
Admire its beauty, but no farther go,  
Nor strive its inward excellence to know.  
Opinions, when they vulgarly are tossed,  
Seem like rude streams disdaining to be crossed;  
They pass unquestioned, none dares go about  
To censure them, or of their truth to doubt,  
Though falsely they inform us: those that said  
This earthly Globe was not inhabited  
Near the world's hinges, and the torrid Zone,  
Did gain belief, till Navigation  
Showed their mistakes: so whatsoever a fair  
Semblance and face of likelihood doth bear,  
Doth pass for verity without control,  
Though it involve an error ne'er so foul.  
Man that of causes and effects pretends  
To frame a subtle chain, whose utmost ends  
Touch the world's Centre and circumference;  
He that with optics of intelligence  
May clearly see, goes blindly yet by guess,  
Grounds has conceits on mere apparences,  
And rather than he will by weighing learn  
The truth of things, the Scales will over-turn.  
Thus we forgo our privilege, divest  
(That which becomes man's eminency best)  
The spirits liberty; thus we degrade  
Our natures, and a mockery are made  
To nobler wits, that dare Philosophize  
More freely, and maintain their dignities.  
Longer than Virgil was about the frame  
Of his grand Poem, accented by Fame,  
Did Bibliack lead an academic life,  
Wearied old authors with a plodding strife,  
Hammered his brainpan, spent as many lights  
As those that solemnised Minerva's rites  
With kindled brands; yet by his watchful pains  
All that he purchased, th' upshot of his gains  
Was, when he did with country Ladies dine,  
To pour out Greek and Latin with their wine,  
To tell them (who his meaning took by guess)  
What knowledge Aristotle did profess,  
What causes of the thunder, hail, and wind,  
Earthquakes, and other Meteors, he assigned,  
And to maintain discourse with many more  
Raw fruits of study, fetched from others store.  
Nothing would he examine save how much  
The Flagon did contain, did nothing touch  
That relished of wit, nor ought produce  
That served or moral ends, or civil use.  
Was not this time spent vainly, that brought forth  
Nothing but froth, nothing of solid worth,  
Nothing but dull opinions, that require  
(To clear their darksome doubts) Apollo fire?  
As weakly do our sons of Levi go  
To work, who 'mongst poor laics do bestow  
Their breath in quarrelling with Bellarmine,  
Campion, and others, that with many a line  
Laboured to draw us to the Romish side:  
Such Preachers shoot their wooden bolts as wide,  
As he that thought to teach an Oyster-wife  
T' make Verses, by expressing to the life  
What Sapph was, and from her sugared pen  
What lines distilled, admired by learned men.  
What gain the Vulgar by th' Pope's Vicarage  
So often preached down, or Rome's privilege?  
Let those that study not exotic tongues,  
Nor puz ling terms, hear only what belongs  
To the soul's safety; what is more than that  
Goes in my reckoning but for fruitless chat.   

Satire X. Against falsehood in Friendship.  
WHether in wild Arabian woods there be  
A Phoenix found by true discovery,  
griffons or Unicorns elsewhere, I may  
With others doubt: but I doubt not to say,  
That scarcely now can in our Coast be found  
(A tamer thing) a friend entirely sound,  
Such as whereof wise Moralists relate  
Wonders of love, for all to imitate.  
In times of peace our vices seemed to lie  
In a dull slumber of security,  
Less active were, and did (though to their pain)  
Their poisonous rancour to themselves retain:  
But the wars thunder caused them to start  
Int' a wild fury, fly int' every part  
Of this full Coast, like harpies to the prey,  
Show without blushing to the view of day  
Their black deformities, and still profess  
All rude miscarriage, rank licentiousness.  
All that was good and laudable was sent  
Bleeding away, and suffers banishment,  
Or like an half-devoured prey doth lie  
I' th' mouth of bloody toothed tyranny.  
But nothing (in this reign of vice) hath more  
Suffered then friendship, all her bands are tore  
By impious hands, her solemn rites despised,  
And with fair smiles foul purposes disguised.  
Talk not to me of friends; I know not where  
Any such Angels move; they do appear  
Rarely on earth as Comets in the sky:  
Some may perchance affect my company,  
And (if I could like Nestor speak) would be  
Delighted with my vocal melody:  
But if a cross befall me, they'll be gone,  
And shun me as I breathed infection  
Like to the Basilisk; they'll sneak away  
Forthwith, like fiddlers when they have their pay.  
I felt no inward blows for any crimes  
That punishable are i' th' cruelest times,  
Nor needed I stern Rhadamant to fear,  
Nor Draco's Laws, my Conscience was so clear;  
No treason in my breast was harboured,  
Nor had I whored, or robbed, or murdered,  
Or for weak souls set snares of heresy;  
Yet was (not long since) barred my liberty,  
And like a bird did fare, that had forgot  
In the dull sullen cage her pleasant note:  
Mean while I shamed not my friends, yet they  
(As I had been some hopeless castaway,  
Or as my Prison had a Pest-house been)  
Kept off aloof, nor scarce would come within  
My prospect, punishing me more thereby  
Then all the wrongs of rude hostility.  
At the heart-root unkindness seems to smite,  
And wounds more deadly than the cankered spite  
Of cruel foes, sith it so deeply dies  
Falsehood, and inbred rottenness implies,  
Frustrates the expectation, breaks the stay  
Of trust, and sends disheartened hope away.  
Like to a Prop that should an house sustain,  
But fails the fabric that thereon doth lean,  
And makes it do rude homage to the ground,  
Is common friendship, faithless and unsound,  
Apt in each urgency of fate to start  
From truth, and show a falsehood hiding heart.  
I sometime took fly Guilmer for my friend,  
Who did the motions of my life attend,  
And sought my love as moved by sympathy,  
Seeming affixed to my society  
As strictly as Ulysses to his mast,  
Into my bosom all his cares he cast,  
And showed me (as his breast were crystalline)  
The close recesses of his deepest design,  
Fed me with such discourse as I did like,  
And on the string of friendship still did strike:  
Yet in a rustling whimsy did he quite  
Shatter the instrument of my delight,  
And (for a small sum which he should have paid)  
All his professed love aside was laid,  
Sooner than tepid water in a frost  
Will turn to ice, his amity was lost;  
Back went he like a Bear, and me at stake  
Left, to discharge what he did undertake,  
Rude spoilful Avarice! thou in an hour  
The sweet delights of friendship dost devour,  
With an Hell-heated vapour dost thou blast  
The flower of love, layest all its beauty's waste,  
And (rending with sharp claws thy way to gold)  
Dost make the hands of concord lose their hold.  
Those mazy Vaults in Crect and Egypt too  
(Rare proofs of what inventive art can do)  
Were not so intricate, so angular,  
So full of windings, as men's bosoms are,  
Though ne'er so zealously they do profess  
Friendship, and boast of candid openness.  
Some Humorists, like Saturn in the sky,  
Look upon all with crabbed austerity,  
And in their breasts a poisonous rancour bear,  
That makes them hate whom most they should endear,  
And the more that they courted are, the less  
Of love and civil kindness to express.  
Others with kindnesses will bait awhile  
Their hooks, till they have caught you with a wile;  
But then (as Apes learn tricks) you are with pain  
Taught wit, not easily to trust again.  
Others again are sordid, and will be  
At no charge of a real courtesy,  
But feed you with fine language, soft as oil  
Distil their words, and every word a wile,  
Uttered like Sinon's at the Siege of Troy,  
To smooth the ways of wickedness thereby.  
That friendship's rare that is not measured by,  
The drawing line of self-commodity,  
Nor sells a kindness (as we use to say)  
By a false light, nor doth a trust betray,  
But really is what it doth profess,  
And carries love along with faithfulness.  
Needs must that man break friendship off with shame,  
Who upon casual profit grounds the same:  
It is a building on a bog to raise,  
That unto greedy fate the work betrays;  
It is a bundle with a straw to bind,  
That (quickly breaking) to the careless wind  
Commits its charge; it is in dust to lay  
A jewel brighter than the eye of day;  
And to expose the sweetnesses of life  
To the harsh wrongs of falsity and strife.  
The gifts of Fortune by her slippery wheel  
Are ruled, and do like revolutions feel,  
Suffer like changes: therefore he whose love  
At riches looks, must needs inconstant prove,  
And as another's wealth doth ebb or flow,  
So must by fits his Feverous friendship go.  
What choice of friends had Harpan, when he was  
In league with Fortune, and did others pass  
In her blind favours! many than were glad  
To his proud store of riches more to add,  
Plied him with Presents, as they meant his ●●ate  
To an excessive height to elevate,  
Just as the Giants hills on hills did pile:  
But when the soldiers (bent to sack and spoil)  
His lands had shared, and treasures had dispersed,  
All kindness on a sudden was reversed,  
Those that had lately fawned on him, began  
To look ask ance, and boggle at the man,  
None cared for to recruit him, but he might,  
Like a fallen Meteor, vanish out of sight.  
Virtue (though lovelier than the lightful day's  
Beauty, when smiling with Meridian rays)  
Is seldom looked at in the choice of friends,  
But rather sordid and sinister ends,  
Whilst we turmoil our spirits to acquire  
Base gains, to fuel an inflamed desire.  
Herquin did otherwise, (as fools will run  
Int' one extreme, whilst they another shun,)  
He languished for the love of such a Lass,  
As nor well-moneyed, nor well-mannered was,  
Nor yet of good extraction (though that she  
Drew gold out of his pockets dexterously;)  
But being fair, and full of pleasant chat,  
And free in the delights of you know what,  
She his affections strangely did enchain,  
And a close amity they did maintain,  
Till age into their veins a chilling dart  
Had shot; but then asunder soon did start  
Their pleasure-fastned friendship, like a Snake  
Severed in twain, when either part doth take  
A several way; when once the slippery ends  
Of lust did fail, they were no longer friends.  
Friendships that are like Samson's Foxes tied  
Together, as they basely are applied,  
So when the smoky brand of lust is spent,  
They forthwith fail with like extinguishment.  
Gross sensual pleasures like a sudden flow  
Of muddy water, that doth soon forgo  
The channel; 'tis a trust-betraying thing,  
That ever mocks our hopes in promising  
More than it gives, and ere we well enjoy  
Our poor acquists, begets satiety.  
Needs must that love then play at fast and loose,  
That is contracted by so slack a noose  
As pleasure draws, nor will it ever be  
Graced with the crown of friendship, constancy.  
Yet those that entertain men's fantasies  
With rude insipid jests and flatteries,  
buffoons and Parasites, are in request  
Far more than faithful hearts, that do their best  
By the sweet force of good advice to draw  
Others from vices lure to virtue's law.  
Licentious outlaws are (as Sylvane Bears)  
Savage, intractable, obstruct their ears  
'Gainst sober counsels, kick with much disdain  
At those that would their wickedness restrain,  
And (like the gad'rens' Swine) with Hellish haste  
Themselves downright to deep destruction cast.  
If they will needs be ruined, let them run  
On swallowing quicksands, which they well might shun;  
At least upon bare rocks of penury  
Their fortunes split, and die contemptibly.  
Nor blood, nor sworn allegiance serve for bands  
Of force to knit men's hearts, or hold their hands  
From wrongs and mischiefs. 'Twill not be forgot  
(While there's an English Islander or Scot)  
How in our late broils, most unnatural,  
Brother on brother furiously did fall,  
And Sire and Son ingloriously oppose  
Each other, dealing ill-directed blows.  
Friends were no longer friends then housed they were,  
When once in field, did angry foes appear;  
As arms went on was amity thrown off,  
At terms of peace did the lewd rabbi scoff,  
Broke off all social leagues, each ligament  
Of love with bloody hands asunder rent,  
Whilst angry blows and terms of insolence  
For thefts and rapes were all their recompense.  
Nature, astonished, might have said;' O God,  
‛ That sometimes shak'st a sharp revengeful rod!  
‛ How hold'st thou now thy high inflamed hand,  
‛ And with dire Engine shiverest not a land  
That insulphured dust, that seemeth to defy  
‛ The terrors of thy great Artillery;  
'Slights equally thy judgements and commands,  
‛ Ready 'gainst Heaven to lift gigantic hands,  
‛ And scale th' Olympian towers? O thou that hast  
‛ Set bounds to all things not to be displaced,  
‛ And harmonized by Laws this Mundane State!  
‛ Why sufferest thou vile worms to violate  
‛ Thy sanctions, and disperse more poisons than  
‛ An hundred Hydra's, or swollen Pythons can,  
‛ Causing fair virtue t' hide her head like Nile,  
‛ Left Hellish steams her beauties should defile?  
Of such a feigned complaints as this the cause  
Is yet too real, when the sacred laws  
Of God and Nature (broken as they were)  
Are cast aside, neglected everywhere,  
Whilst wretched Male contents with angry jars  
Distune their lives, and blow the coals of wars,  
Cease, Moralists, of perfect amity  
To treat, whereby two souls confusedly  
United are, like flowing waters, met;  
The vulgar friendship (scarce the counterfeit  
Of such communion) never was more rare,  
At such strange distance men's affections are.  
The Incheumon and the Asp from angry eyes  
Dart not more death, nor are worse enemies  
Than brother's are to brothers now and then,  
Most deadly-hating, mischief-acting men,  
Nor will the world be e'er at better pass,  
When Princes (on whose lives, as in a glass,  
Inferiors look, and steer their course thereby)  
Though in degree of kindred ne'er so nigh,  
For trifles yet do kingdoms oft engaged,  
And sacrifice whole Nations to their rage.  
Thus do poor subjects fall by heaps, because  
Ambitious sovereigns climb above the laws  
Of Government; thus upon those that be  
Of lowest state lights mischief heavily.  
Great persons, having raised storms, make sure  
Of shelter; but the poor all blasts endure.   

Satire XI. Against Gluttony.  
WHo's this that like a walking Tun appears,  
That such a mass of flesh about him bears,  
And puffs as if the air would scarce suffice  
To cool him? O! I know him by his size;  
'Tis Olbiogator, that stour Trencher-Knight,  
Who by full meals doth measure all delight,  
And spends almost as much in sacrifice  
To his vast belly, as did Bell suffice,  
That hungry Idol. This is he whose great  
Stomach (though not to fight) maintains an heat  
Like that of Vulcan's forge; and if that men  
Be Microcosomes, this Gluttons maw is then  
His torrid Zone. It is a Scene of Sport  
To see how he preludes in eager sport  
To every meal, how he his eyes doth fix  
Upon each dish, and how his lips he licks,  
And smacks, and shrugs: but when he once doth fall  
Aboard, then laugh and look about you all  
My friends, than Pork and powdered Beef beware,  
Mutton, Veal, Capon, and all daintier fare,  
Weep your own fawces, sith much woe doth wait  
Upon you, and your punishment is great,  
To be thrown down not into Tiber, but  
A gulf as deep, and in dark prison shut.  
This Sensualist (as Gluttony, though dull  
For the most part, is of inventions full)  
Would not accept things in their Primitive  
Condition, as free Nature did them give,  
But quaintly did compound them, that they m'ght  
Into the Gullet melt with more delight.  
His liquorish humour prompted him t' invent  
(So much did cost his palates blandishment)  
Quaint candyings, and preservings, to devise  
T' make Suckets, Marmalets, and Quidinies,  
Jellies, Conserves, Leach, Marchpans, Coolisses,  
Syrups, and many such Compounds as these.  
Nor stayed he here, but by God Vulcan's aid  
Of spices, wines and flowers, distilled, made  
Incentive liquours, by whose help he might  
Sooner concoct the baits o'th' appetite;  
liquours, that (like fall Cupid's shafts) inspire  
The veins with pleasing, but pernicious fire.  
For to their charge do men their stomachs cheat  
By such confections, whose excessive heat  
Preys on the oily aliment of life,  
And lets their principles at eager strife.  
It is a mild benigner temperature  
Of heat, that to the body doth procure  
Health and longevity. As near to air  
As fire our spirits of alliance are,  
(Those subtle instruments of life I mean,  
Which Nature doth with purest blood maintain:)  
To turn these therefore merely to a flame,  
Is so distune the most harmonious frame,  
And to betray a life to the surprise  
Of the severe dead-handed destinies.  
But what cares Gultch the Alderman for this?  
Will he for future life lose present bliss?  
Abridge his meals, abate his costly cheer?  
Or draughts of Wine or whisky forbear?  
No, for mere empty words he matters not;  
A short life and a merry is his Mot;  
He's wedded unto pleasure so, as ne'er  
To be divorced, but hold it ever dear.  
Yet his delight deludes him still, who stuffs  
His gorge all day, and swells, and sweats, and puffs;  
But then at night doth belch, spew, snott, and toss  
His limbs, as if his life were at a loss,  
Or loathsome fumes were ready forth to drive  
His soul, as Bees are banished from their Hive.  
Look how his teeth are blackened! how his eyes  
Bleared and suffused in quest of novelties!  
How both his feet and hands to th' peace are bound  
With knotty Gouts! How with the dropsy drowned  
Some other parts are! and all (ill at ease)  
Untowardly perform their offices.  
Like a great Globe of earth and water placed  
Upon a frame, fits he in's chair, to taste  
The choicest liquours, and the cud to chew,  
But nothing fair of laudable to do.  
As for his brain, an anvil that is hit  
And hammered still, is not more dull than it:  
His apprehensive faculties as flow  
As a tired beast, and so to work doth go:  
His memory is ever wont to play  
At fast and loose, and dearest trusts betray:  
Then such a judgement does he pass on things,  
As sometime was that foolish Phrygian Kings,  
Who ●ans rude Pipe preferred to the Lyre  
Of Phoebus, Master of the Mules choir.  
These are thy fatal fruits, damned Gluttony!  
Foul loathsome fly of all impurity!  
Deep gulf of greatest fortunes! that dost draw  
Whole kingdoms into thy distended jaw;  
Black mud of Hell! that art so apt to boil  
Up to the stomach, and all parts defile;  
What thundering force of eloquence can throw  
Three down so deep, as thou deserv'st to go?  
That eatest into this age as rust doth waste  
Iron, and wilt consume it (sure) at last.  
That Northern beast, the Gulon, said to be  
A creature of a wild rapacity,  
And so insatiate, that when he hath once  
Devoured and gnawn a carcase to the bones,  
And swells with his surcharge, betwixt two trees  
His loads of crudities he forth doth squeeze,  
Then seeks new preys whereon to gluttonize,  
The Gormonds' of this age doth emblemise,  
That daily raven after dainty cheer,  
As if they deemed that only born they were  
To fill, and to evacuate, and so  
To make their bellies like to bellows go,  
And to take care such Ballast to provide  
As weightyer is then all the Ship beside.  
Such greedy Gulls are bold to deify  
Their bellies with a gross idolarry;  
Their kitchens are their only Temples; where  
The sacrifices (Offered all the year)  
Are sundry sorts of fatted fowls and beasts;  
Their Cooks (while sober) may well stand for Priests;  
Tables for Altars; and the steams that rise  
From meats, for incense fuming to the skies:  
Then in the stead of Hymns about do go  
Their Catches, heightened as their cups do flow.  
‛ O, said Gorgony, that gross Parasite,  
‛ I was at th' house of bounty yesternight!  
‛ My Lord's a royal-minded man! we were  
‛ Almost three hours at Supper, I dare swear,  
‛ Where both the Shambles and the Poultry too  
‛ You might at once upon the Table view,  
‛ Besides Italian and French dishes, such  
‛ As you would think it almost sin to touch,  
‛ They were so pleasing both to sight and sent,  
‛ And to the palate gave so rich content.  
‛ So farse, larded, seasoned with the meat,  
‛ That the most qual mish could not choose but eat,  
‛ And fill their bellies, though their eyes they ne'er  
‛ Could fill with those delightful objects there.  
‛ When now with grinding-work our chaps were tired,  
‛ Of all the dainties that could be desired  
'A banquet came, such junkets were brought in,  
‛ As (more than goodliest apples) might to sin  
‛ Another Eve entice, and straight excite  
‛ The drowziest sense, and deadest appetite,  
‛ I' th' close of all, the Master of the Feast  
‛ Began a health in Sack, a quart at least,  
‛ And round it 'mongst us went, who certainly  
‛ Nere dreamed this last night of sobreity.  
‛ For my part, I (who have spun a fair thread)  
‛ Went reeling home, and slipped so into bed  
‛ As a blind man into a ditch should fall,  
‛ Wallowed in sleep; but when I wakened, all  
‛ My bowels seemed on fire, my throat was dry,  
‛ And still the headache pains me wickedly.  
Base fawnings Smell-feast, I believe thou art  
Shrewdly distempered both in head and heart;  
Thy wits are dreggish, and thy spirits dull  
And restive, c'ause thy belly's always full;  
While such diseases as ere long to feed  
The worms will send thee, in thy bowels breed.  
'Tis not great wonder that so little cause  
We have to boast of policies, or laws,  
Manners, or Sciences, sith oft we be  
So full-fed, so engulft in Gluttony,  
That with its muddy fumes our brains are quite  
O'er clouded, and afford us little light.  
Yet may we see how much the English man  
Is still outwitted by th' Italian,  
The Spaniard, and the French, who (as they say)  
Do feed like Simulus and Cybale  
For the most part, chiefly beholden are  
To Orchards and to Gardens for their fare:  
But if sometimes on costlyer meats they feed,  
They seldom pass the bound of nature's need,  
But take delight sweet temperance to show,  
As we in fulsome gluttony to flow.  
As men at first in skins of beasts attired  
Themselves, but afterwards (more proud) desired  
Quaint costly ornaments, and so in gay  
Purple and Scarlet did themselves away,  
Wrought up the Webs of silkworms, and made bold  
To rob the Elements for Pearls and Gold:  
So the first mortals did their hunger stake  
With bread and water, and of fruits did make  
Some frugal use; but th' ill-ruled appetite  
Would taste some delicates, that might delight  
As well as nourish; so both Land and Sea  
Ere long were searched their longings to allay;  
By th' deaths of other creatures did they live,  
And the full reins to ranging humours give:  
Whence the just Fates have made our threads of life  
More short, and fretted them with care and strife.  
Our dreadful wars that set a bloody stain  
Upon this Land, as in prodigious rain  
The Heavens had wept; the direful pestilence,  
That with lean bloudless hand plucked thousands hence;  
Nay, the distempers and diseases all  
For which Physicians shake the Urinal,  
Empirics and Mountebanks do boldly quack,  
And which old mumbling Beldames undertake  
To cure, have not such numbers (infinite)  
Sent to the solitary Coasts of night,  
As gluttony from time to time hath done.  
(That cramming Nurse of inconcotion)  
That quells the force of Nature, dampeth quite  
(As with a Stygian mist) the vital light,  
Or in the bowels leaves the feeds of death,  
That fail not to grow up, and stop the breath.  
The Romans, on whose Tables did appear  
Sometimes whole Hogs and Goats, whose ballies were  
With Fowls and rabbits filled, (which great excess  
The sumptuary laws did well repress,)  
Are yet excused, because they sacrificed  
Much to their gods, and now and then devised  
Great pompous Shows, whereto they did invite  
All Tribes of people, that thereby they might  
Procure a fuller suffrage, when they went  
About to reach some height of Government:  
But 'tis our Islanders protected trade  
To gluttonize; and custom hath so swayed,  
That when they oft have like Silenus lain  
Full-gorged, and pusst up in every vein,  
With supled throats, and bowels all distent,  
They think themselves out of their element  
When such effects they feel not, when they are  
Not big with riot, dulled with dainty fare,  
And have not their intestine vessels strained  
To such a measure, as they erst attained.  
Thus does the stomach, though of size not great,  
Seem monstrous in extension and receipt,  
And for more choice of viands oft doth call,  
Than th' other parts can furnish it withal.  
Though France and Spain spoil all with deadly sewd,  
It must have Wines fetched thence, & have them brewed  
With Spices brought from th' Indies of the East,  
And Sugars from those Regions of the West:  
It longs for meats aerial, fine and light,  
That (swimming) may keep up the appetite;  
And scarcely 'tis content to sup or dine  
Without some cares far-fetch and transmarine,  
Which as they are with peril purchased,  
So have they strongest healths endangered.  
O temperance, didst thou as a daily guest  
Our table's grace, we surely should be blessed  
From sundry griefs, that, whilst we drink and eat,  
Not at our backs, but on our bellies, wait.   

Satire XII. Against Excessive Drinking.  
NOt oft hath Cynthia of her brother's face  
Took a full view, and finished her race,  
Since the well-known Sir Baudwin of the West,  
spir't the Divine, and Meladine, whose breast  
Glows with poetic ardours, in the street  
Did (as terrestrial Planets) chance to meet,  
And after such conjunction, made a fair  
Motion to th' nearest Tavern to repair,  
That (there concentered) they might lose awhile  
The reins to pleasure, and the time beguile,  
The match held; and in shadow (as it were)  
O' th' pleasant Vine, which Bacchus doth endear,  
Their mirth began to swell above the bank,  
As they drank and discoursed, discourt and drank;  
Still as the Wine did work, their wits did play,  
Yet without breach of friendship spent the day,  
Till the free jovial Poet (partly as  
The Queen of carthage dealt with Bitias)  
Would have enforced upon the pert Divine  
An Health, who only did such terms decline,  
No Healths could brook, but else of every cup  
(How deep so e'er) did turn the bottom up.  
Whence now (with liquour, as with choler, hot)  
He thus broke forth;' Thou rude imperious Sot,  
‛ Parnassian spendthrift, Hellconian Gull,  
‛ Canst thou not fall, but thou must others pull  
‛ Upon thy back● Canst thou not bear thy vice  
‛ With head and heart, but thou must needs entice  
‛ Others to folly? Thy prime pleasure 'tis,  
‛ Thy dear delight, and sublunary bliss,  
to toss the bowzing tankard night and day,  
‛ And so the sottish Libertine to play,  
‛ As if, because thou hast the trick of rhyme,  
‛ And readily canst teach thy words to chime  
'A kind of music, therefore thou didst think  
‛ (Vain man I) thou hadst a privilege to drink,  
‛ And rudely swagger before men of place  
‛ And worth, such as this Knight of ancient race,  
To whom (I see) thy lewdness gives offence,  
‛ And strains too far his gentle patience.  
' 'Tis true, it does so, said Sir Baudwin then;  
‛ But a poor Play-wright must not think that men  
‛ Of worship, though they give him leave to fit  
‛ With them, and steal the flashes of their wit,  
‛ (As once Prometheus filched celestial fire,)  
‛ Will suffer him t' explete a Fools desire  
‛ In playing vile licentious pranks. I have  
‛ An hundred tenants (some whereof are brave  
‛ Gay wealthy fellows, if compared to this)  
‛ Who cap, and crouch to me, as they would kiss  
‛ The ground I tread on, and dare scarcely draw  
‛ Near me, so much I keep the slaves in awe:  
‛ Yet this vile Ranter's jogging of me still,  
‛ Upon my Scarlet did his liquour spill,  
‛ And with a soul pipe bored me in the ear.  
‛ But if such rudenesses he'll not forbear,  
‛ He beat him into fashion, (as they use  
‛ With a rough Colt to deal, that doth refuse  
to know his Master,) I shall make him quake,  
‛ (As once Sir Lancelot did the burning Drake,)  
‛ And send him cudgelled to the muse's Springs,  
to cry for help, who now so pertly sings.  
As the Cumaean Sibyl in her Cave,  
When wild with rapture, the began to rave,  
And to the Trojan Knight would secrets tell,  
Did oft change countenance, and pant and swell:  
So fared the Poet now, such signs of high  
Fury he showed, and made this quick reply:  
‛ By Lordly Phoebus, and those Ladies fair  
‛ Of Learning, I protest, Sir Knight, you are  
'A most fulmineous threatener; but your tongue,  
‛ That breaks a double sense to do me wrong,  
‛ shows (by your leave) your baseness, though you be  
‛ Still boasting of a long-tailed pedigree,  
‛ And some great Ancestors, that lived before  
‛ The Roman Eagle perched on th' English Shore.  
‛ Though they were men of honour, you have made  
‛ Forfeit thereof by setting up a trade  
‛ Of vile miscarriage, seeming to profess  
‛ The ignominious arts of wickedness,  
‛ I drink as wise men laugh, but now and then;  
‛ But you (like to a Fox that keeps his den)  
‛ Are daily in the Tavern, and brought thence  
‛ Cracked (with too full a charge) in every sense,  
‛ soiled like a tumbled snowball, able t' fright  
‛ Your Lady into wildness at the fight.  
‛ Those tenants that you boast of, serve you so  
‛ As Slaves do Turks, all with your overthrow;  
‛ And when they send you treasures, which you spend  
‛ On Drunkards, panders, Punks, therewith they send  
‛ volleys of curses, that may seem to hit  
‛ Your wine-pufft face, and leave their marks in it.  
‛ These Vassals to your fortune on the rack  
‛ Are stretched and tortured till their sinews crack,  
‛ Led by your Leases (like your Dogs) to all  
‛ Wants and hard exigents that may befall,  
‛ Coursely they feed, and almost naked go,  
‛ (Like swart Pyracmon, when at every blow  
‛ His forge resounds) and in laborious strife  
‛ Draw out the course thread of a careful life,  
‛ Still sweating out their spirits, to foment  
‛ Your riots, that your riches have misspent,  
‛ Whilst Owls and Daws possess your country Hall,  
‛ And for its Master (as their fellow) call,  
‛ Who spoils the Farmor, that every he may  
‛ The Citizen, and yield his purse a prey.  
‛ Now for his fresh Divine (whom, when I see  
‛ His beard more grown, I more respectively  
‛ Shall look upon;) though now he does refuse  
to drink that I proposed, I cannot choose  
‛ But say I lately saw his brain so blown  
‛ Up with strong liquour, that his wits were flown  
‛ Out of their hothouse, and soon after went  
‛ His tongue (to seek them in their banishment:)  
‛ When from his Chair, where Doctor-like he sat,  
‛ Stooping to take up his too humble hat,  
‛ He fell, and lay with legs and arms so spread,  
‛ As he had been a swimming to his bed  
‛ In liquour that was spilled upon the ground,  
‛ Almost enough a Drunkard to have drowned.  
‛ The alewife seriercht out like an Owl, and swore  
‛ Her Guest was dead, and had not paid his score;  
‛ Then puffed mine Host, and chased with ale and oil  
‛ His temples, till his spirits did recoil,  
‛ Who rolling's tongue, and opening half an eye,  
‛ Said, you are much mistook, I shall not die  
‛ Of thirst yet, reach the tankard, I will strain  
‛ My pipes, and merrily carouse again.  
‛ This is no fiction, Sir, you know it well;  
‛ Nor this, which with like confidence I tell:  
‛ Such shrewd effects of drunkness you feel,  
‛ That you ne'er preach, but from your Text you reel,  
‛ And vomit forth your malice upon those  
‛ Whom your misgovernment hath made your foes.  
‛ With such as talk demurely, seem to chew  
‛ Religion in their mouths, you'll quast, and do  
‛ Bold lawless things; 'gainst drunkenness you will  
‛ Be still inveighing, and yet drink on still,  
till first your heart and then your head so light  
‛ Be grown, that Reason often takes her flight.  
‛ Clerkship and Drunkenness together dwell  
‛ Now, as the Dragon and the Idol Bell:  
‛ They, whose examples (dumbly) should exhort  
‛ Others to temperance, tempt the vulgar sort  
‛ By their loose lives to riot and excess,  
‛ Thus seeming to support their drunkenness.  
‛ As when the Unicorn has drunk, 'tis said,  
‛ That forthwith other beasts incline the head  
To th' brook: so when the Corner-cap is soak  
‛ Oft with strong liquour, others are provoked  
To th' like intemperance, taking leave to be  
‛ Debauched, as liceneed by Authority.  
‛ Now, Knight, and clergyman, I think I have  
‛ Pinched you; but if you think yet to outbrave  
‛ My courage, here I do you both defy.  
With that, pots, glasses, candlesticks did fly  
At one another's heads, the table crasht,  
The joynt-stools clattered, as they had been dashed  
With a metalline storm; they tugged and tore,  
Groaned with their falls, and scuffled on the floor,  
Tumbled out threats and curses, with their hair  
Bloody and ruffled did like Comets stare:  
The tumult drew the Drawers up; who, when  
They saw they could not see, ran down again  
For lights and Sticklers; and so these at length  
Loosed their strict hold with many-handed strength,  
Kept them at distance, gave them time to pant,  
And send for Surgeons, whom they most did want:  
For the knight's skull was battered so, that 'twill  
Be ever soft, and seems contused still:  
The Chaplains brow was strucken up, and he  
Hath ever since looked superciliously:  
The Poet had the hinder part of's head  
So dulled with knocks, that ever since ('tis said)  
His memory has faulter'd, thought his wit,  
That elsewhere lies, be quick and expedite,  
All had their hurts; and so will all that be  
Foiled by this potent vice, cbriety,  
That flies with furious boldness at the head,  
And has thereby great Princes captive led.  
If of all evils avarice be th' root,  
The sap is drunkenness, that forth doth shoot  
With ceaseless growth; the heat of Hell and Ale  
Does to the germination much avail,  
And sure a slabby Drunkard is a soil  
More fat and fruitful than the mud of Nile.  
Strange to the world was drunkenness, till Not  
Planted it with his Vines, then did it grow  
With rank profusion, strove to discreate  
Mankind, and change it to a brutish state,  
Turned wit to folly, reason into rage;  
And still so revels it upon our stage,  
As (having quelled Religions force) it quite  
Would bear down Nature with oppressive might,  
Stagger with impudence int' every place,  
And cast thereon the foulness of disgrace.  
Rude vice! how boldly dost thou domineer!  
How dost thou almost in each face appear  
With thy blood-guilty marks! how dost thou make  
Bellies like bogs! the head and hands to shake!  
The feet to falter! and all parts beside  
Of lively force, or lovely feature void!  
We surely for our traffic with the Dutch  
Paid dearly, who amongst them got a touch  
Of quassing; such a touch as hath almost  
Tainted all persons, spread through every Coast  
O' th' kingdom; which as Neptune doth enclose,  
So in it of excess an Ocean flows.  
We take our bane so greedily, as we  
Scorned to be less debauched with luxury  
Then any Nation. Those beyond the Seas  
Go not beyond us in excess, not please  
Their Gullets more with quassing than we do;  
'tis some men's work and recreation too;  
They carry't to their graves, as those of old  
In their dead mouths did wastage-money hold,  
To pay th' infernal ferryman. Not all  
Th' oppressive plagues incensed Heaven lets fall  
Upon our backs, can make us bear a less  
Love to that loathsome High, Voluptuousness.  
In dark eclipses may we something see  
To tax our blindness and debility;  
Terrors of thunder twit us with our late  
Dire wars, that threatened all to minute;  
Fevers upbraid us with our thirsty heat,  
Not to be quenched; and Agues with as great  
Unstableness in ways of happy choice:  
Yet closely follow we our headstrong vice,  
In wildest ways, and make the night to bear  
Witness of what we did all day endear.  
Some vices with their Vassals do decay,  
And seem to wither almost quite away,  
Like tender Plants that fresh in Summer grow,  
But live not to be blanched with winter's Snow;  
Thus pride and lust in youthful years do bear  
Themselves aloft, then sink and disappear:  
But drunkenness, when most exhaust and dry  
The carcase is, goes down most pleasingly;  
Leads the old Captive as with wandering fire  
To mischiefs, punishing his lewd desire;  
Buds in stale faces where all beauty's gone,  
And rudely grounds a new complexion.  
You that your forms would like Vertumnus change,  
Would from humanity yourselves estrange,  
And try what things Ulysses followers were,  
After they were transformed by that fair  
But false Enchantress, do you to excess  
And sordid gluttony your minds depress,  
Darken there with your intellectual eye;  
Which when it shall clear up, and you descry  
The truth of things, if then you chance to find  
Just cause to be so brutishly inclined,  
Turn altogether Swinish, and in deep  
Mire of excess your groveling senses steep,  
Wallow with Gyryllus, and ne'er care to be  
Advanced again to human dignity.   

Satire XIII. Against Ambition.  
IF man be aptly styled a Bubble, why  
Desires he to be rossed up on high  
With blasts of Fame, sith scarcely we admire  
A thing that does more suddenly expire?  
A wandering fire may last perhaps a night,  
And the brave Bow of Heaven delight our fight  
A pretty space: but Bubbles, if up blown,  
Make haste to vanish, instantly are gone.  
Men, raised to honour, many times decay  
In reputation, of some sadder way,  
Almost as soon; those that like Sunny rays  
Did shine, and wear all ornaments of praise,  
Have shortly in an Ocean of disgrace  
Quenched their gay pride, and given others place;  
Or (Undermined by envy) fallen from high,  
And in a dead Sea sunk more fatally.  
Yet, vain Ambition, honour-blasting fume,  
Canker of greatness that dost all consume,  
Dire curse of kingdoms, pestilence of States,  
Meteor of power whereon mischief waits,  
How (wicked as thou art) do mortals love  
Thy fair pretexts! thy flatteries approve!  
That promisest brave honours high ascent,  
But tenderest nought save downright discontent,  
Feedest us with wind, and seem'st with tympanies  
T' afflict us, whilst we gape for dignities.  
Those whom the love of lucre cannot sway,  
Nor luxury with sweetest baits betray,  
Nor other vices move, are wooed and won  
By th' quaint address of bold Ambition,  
That (as from airy Castles) doth distil,  
And greatest minds with noisome humours fill,  
Slips readily to th' centre of the heart,  
And there once rooted, never will depart.  
It looks not back like Janus, when it goes  
Forward, nor in its course much time doth lose,  
But like bestormed dust flies smoking on,  
As all preferment would be shortly gone,  
And nothing left whereon to lay a ground  
Of greatness, which full-mouthed Fame may sound.  
When Tuskin did affect an higher state,  
What huge pains took he to ingratiate  
Himself at Court! no Spaniel that bestirs  
Himself all day amongst the brakes and Sirs,  
In quest of Game whereat the Hawk may fly,  
Can labour with more strains of industry  
Then did this Gallant. Every day among  
The French he went, to learn their courtly tongue;  
With gold and purer wine he Poets fed,  
That might (in due requital) fill his head  
With rich conceits, with nimble fancies prime  
His brainpan, that it might send forth in rhyme  
Fine flashes, which fair Ladies might admire,  
Warming their wits at his poetic fire.  
No Play could scape him, but from every Scene  
He (or it should go hard) some toy would glean;  
Whence (as a mimic Ape learns here and there  
Some tricks) at every stage he did appear.  
O how the Courtiers jeered him when he sent  
Presents to them, and when by flocks they went  
(Invited) to his high and gallant cheer!  
Whereat (besides their mocks) his back did bear  
More wealth, than all his family before  
For fifteen generations ever wore.  
He shined as he had been a Selenite,  
Sent hither in a livery of light,  
To treat with our grand lunatics about  
State-models, and to clear each present doubt.  
When now he was fantastical enough,  
Had filched from choicer wits poetic stuff  
To patch up his discourse, could drink and swear  
Like a great Don, look big and domineer;  
He got (who could deny't?) a Lordly place  
At Court, went winding up int' higher grace  
By th' ways of impudence and flattery;  
Was thronged with Suitors, that continually  
Kept his hands supple with their Angle-oil;  
Strange plots he laid, and made a mighty coil,  
Looking like Typhon when his arms were spread,  
As this whole Globe he would have fathomed.  
But as a venturous bark that climbs an high  
Mountain of water, menacing the sky,  
Stra'ght with the slippery billow down doth slide  
Into a vast depth, tossed and terrified:  
So when this Gallant stood upon the spire  
Of dignity, which vulgar eyes admire,  
Down (as the Fates had spurned him) was he sent,  
And humbled to his mother-element;  
Fovy, that oft shakes greatness at the root  
With bitter blasts, soon brought him under foot.  
Such as had praised him with full mouths before,  
Now blurred his fame, his reputation tore  
With sharp invectives, did with libels sow  
The Court, that to his more contempt might grow,  
Made haste to tread his snuff of honour out,  
And the poor dwindled Courtier so did flout,  
That so much pity on himself he took  
As to retire, and in the country look  
For more secure content; where now (they say)  
He a Promoters part hath learned to play,  
As in despite of destiny he meant  
Some kind of Court however to frequent.  
So Dionysius for a sceptre shook  
A rod, and in the same some pleasure took;  
As when contentment fails, 'tis not amiss  
To dally with a feigned fantastic bliss.  
This vaporous vanity, this proud desire,  
That's always pointing upwards like the fire,  
As it threw th' Angels from their heavenly state,  
Our high-graced Parents did exterminate  
From earthly Paradise, and quickly brought  
Confusion upon those that folly wrought  
In rearing Babel, to confront the skies;  
So has it plagued with dire calamities  
All ages of the world; the fruits it bears,  
Seem (like the mandrake) heavy hung with tears,  
Bestormed with sighs; and when they chance to fall,  
None rescues them from greedy Funeral.  
Lend me, thou God of wit, thy Snaky wand,  
To strike therewith this Centre, and command  
Great Alexander's ghost to leave the pale  
And shady horrors of the Stygian Vale,  
And in these Regions of the light to say  
What benefit he reaped i' th' dusty way  
Of his ambition; where with blood besprent,  
And cumbered with unwieldy arms, he went,  
Making th' affrighted Nations fly before  
His threatning troops, like clouds when tempests roar.  
Th' answer will be; that, as he wracked the world  
In Seas of blood, and mighty kingdoms hurled  
On heaps; so was his mind with furies tossed,  
And gaining Empire, sweeter rest he lost;  
As bold incursions int' all Coasts he made,  
So hosts of irksome cares did him invade;  
Yea, daily were his manners more depraved,  
Still as he conquered was he more enslaved;  
Pride, cruelty, and drunkenness did quite  
Of all true nobleness obscure the Light  
That in him shined, and made him (where he came)  
A scorn to Princes, and the soldier's shame.  
More happiness had crowned him, had he took  
Not a sharp sword in hand, but shepherd's crook,  
And whilst on Fifes and Trumpets others played,  
Had on a slender reed weak music made,  
Taking more pleasure in its harmless tones,  
Then in the clash of arms, or dying groans:  
On Macedonian Mountains than he might  
Have found as high content, and not have quite  
Ranged through the world a worthless same to gain,  
Nor sorrowed that there did not yet remain  
Another such a globe (for him to paint  
With human blood, and with foul vices taint.)  
O what concussions wild ambition makes  
In kingdoms! and what rugged ways it takes  
To reach up to its high proposed ends,  
Treading upon the necks of dearest friends!  
Is it not this that mainly doth incite  
The Persians and Mahometans to fight?  
That sent the fierce Swedes o'er the surging flood,  
To make the bousing Germans drunk with blood?  
And that still makes the French and Spaniards jar,  
And spend their vitals in a mortal war?  
No doubt some itch of honour too, as welll  
As hope of fortunes, did the Scots impel  
In tattered Regiments to cross the Tweed,  
And try how well their Engl'sh neighbours feed:  
But for their diet have they dearly paid,  
And henceforth of our Shots will be afraid;  
Their stomachs that were lofty, now are low,  
And deadly qualmish since their overthrow.  
Be warned, vain Confidents, be warned in time  
T' embrace an humble lot, and fear to climb  
The stairs of State, left as the Bull and Snake,  
And other forms, made Phaeton to quake,  
And headlong slide; so (when you meet on high  
With objects that distract and terrify  
More than content you) fearfully you fall,  
A scorn to some, a wonderment to all.  
What if the Stars incline our hearts to pride,  
Treason, Sedition? wisdom is a Guide  
That balks the ways of vice, and (in some sense)  
Is said to overrule the influence  
Of Heavenly bodies. But the world (I fear)  
Does into dotage fall, sith everywhere  
Windy Ambition blows into a flame  
The sparks of discord, and dispreads the same  
With such a fury, that no Region's free  
From wild combustion, rapine, cruelty.  
For as when Meleager had to ground  
Brought an huge Bore with a bloud-gushing wound,  
His uncles, Toxeus and Plexippus, strove  
With him for th' horrid skin, and so did move  
His manhood that had tamed the beast, to send  
Them to the Fates, that all contention's end:  
So for mere trifles (light as wind or smoke)  
Do Princes oft engage, and so provoke  
And stir up mischief, that themselves thereby  
With thousands fall amassed in misery:  
The higher that they fall, the greater blow  
They lastly feel, and heavier is their woe.  
Vices are follies, (Wisdom styles them so)  
Because from a weak Principle they flow,  
A mind that's much depraved and depressed;  
And surely this inflation 'bove the rest  
I' th' Court of fools deserves preeminence,  
For that it follows a deluded sense,  
And little cares to listen to a well-  
Informed judgement, that the truth would tell.  
Would not that man seem impotent in brain,  
Who, seated in a safe and quiet Plain,  
Neighboured with plainer truth and honesty,  
Should seek new harbour in a Mountain high,  
Haunted with Robbers, beaten with all kinds  
Of storms, and shaken with imprisoned winds?  
No wiser's he that from an humble state  
Of life, whereon security doth wait,  
(And where Astraea, when to Heaven she flew,  
Seemed from her labouring wings to shake some dew  
Of goodness,) int' a Princes Court will press,  
With hope to find the flower of happiness  
In a Sun-shiny palace; where indeed  
There's little growing save th' envenomed weed  
Of Envy, bordering upon Pride and Strife,  
The baneful enemies t' a blessed life.  
'Twere well this haughty humour did but flow  
In Courts and commonwealths, and did not grow  
Too strong elsewhere: but as in Paradise  
The Serpent mischief wrought, so breeds this vice  
Distempers in the Church, divides her friends,  
Mere rustics into Oratories sends,  
And arms them with fool-hardiness to preach  
Of points as far beyond their dwarfish reach,  
As Aries and Taurus' are above  
The Sheep and Oxen which they lately drove.  
Not only with unwashen hands they dare  
Lay hold on holy things, but do not spare  
With bloody fingers to defile the same;  
And all to gain a little smoky same  
'Mongst fellows of the hobnailed stamp, whose wit  
Scarce knows pure Manna from the devil's bit.  
Were such men's bodies but so diered  
As they feed others souls, those people bred  
In Aethiope, that a kind of flies do eat,  
Would hate their sordidness, and loath their meat.  
When once into an Upland shed they get  
'Mongst women now, where beasts were lately set,  
O then the tub resounds! they pant and swear,  
And so divide a Text as Scots do meat  
After a long march, fall with boisterous force  
Upon a Theme, and tear't without remorse,  
Whilst with long-listning ears the Rabble sits  
Like Buzzards in a nest, and gapes for bits.  
Now much good do 't you with your slubbered fare,  
Feed fervently, beshrew you if you spare;  
You cannot move his envy, whose free love  
In purer objects rests, and dwells above.   

Satire XIV. Against whoredom.  
WHen justice (Vexed at men's impetuous wrong)  
Fled hence, and in the skies her balance hung.  
Did not pure Chastity upon her wait,  
(Holding her Zone indissolubly strait,  
Lest haply once again Orion should  
Grow rudely wanton, dissolutely bold?)  
'Tis credible enough, sith we, no doubt,  
May sooner find the northwest passage out,  
Out of a chemist's Furnace fetch the great  
elixir, or the ring of Gyges get,  
Then amongst all the race of human kind  
A truly chaste affection we can find.  
Although young beauties, shaded and immured  
In cloisters, seem from lawless heat secured:  
Yet if such Votaries will but sincere  
Confessions make, themselves they will not clear.  
In things prohibited we think there lies  
Some sweetness, and thereto our nature flies  
As fire to Naphtha, or to Amber straws;  
Nor are we stopped with bars of strictest laws.  
Now as that man that but intends kill  
His Prince, is said his royal blood to spill,  
And suffers for the crime, as if indeed  
His ruthless sword had made his sovereign bleed:  
So those that yield no more than mere consent  
To lust, nor are in act incontinent,  
May yet be said to crack the shining ice  
Of chastity, and trench too deep on vice.  
A grave Divine that sometime use did make  
Of a fair Lady's Closet, and did take  
Occasion there her godly books to to toss,  
Who did pretend all virtues to engross,  
Found in a corner of her seeming Shrine  
The pictures of foul fingered Aretine  
Laid closely up; whereat he could not choose  
But startle as affrighted creatures use,  
And frowning, said:' Now, Madam, (by your leave)  
‛ I by these slubbered papers may perceive  
‛ That somewhat besides sanctity you mind,  
‛ And that some fairness is with falsehood lined.  
‛ So that old Serpent whose foul breath doth blast  
‛ Pure virtue, may be said sometime to cast  
‛ His Hellish slough, and to appear so bright,  
‛ That he seems gilded with celestial light.  
She, much abashed (like Venus, when she lay  
In Vulcan's network) did her guilt betray  
By blushing; yet no colourable excuse  
To save her questioned credit could produce,  
Nor yet for anger would she longer stay,  
But (halting in her carriage) flung away.  
The lusts of living creatures ranked below  
Mankind, are less importunate (we know)  
Then those of men; dull hests do merely stir  
As Nature bids, and answer to her spur;  
Only because no shame their rudeness knows,  
We take their lusts to be most furious.  
But surely we mistake, with flattering eyes  
Ore-looking our more vile enormities,  
Sith human fancies and opinions so  
Our objects change, and make mean beauty show  
So rarely amiable, that t' enjoy  
The same, we hazard life and liberty.  
For (sooth to say) what freedom can they have  
Who to coy Mistresses themselves enslave,  
Observe their eyes as Load-stars to direct  
Their course, and only steer by their aspect?  
What savage beasts have so disquieted  
Both Sea and Land, or such wild tumults bred,  
As Priam's one son did? was't not alone  
His lust that made th' Aegaean waters groan  
Under black-bottomed Ships? that Phrygia filled  
With vengeful instruments, whereby was spilled  
The blood of thousands, and the sceptre wrung  
Out of his just hand that had swayed it long?  
So thou, proud Spain, for a licentious trick  
Of Gothish (rather Goatish) Roderick  
Didst dearly pay; the foul same-staining rape  
Of a fair Lady could not vengeance scape,  
But shortly did the Saracens and Moors  
Come (like the black Seas billows to the shores)  
With terror in their face, and sword in hand,  
T' o'er whelm the King in ruins of his land.  
He that but hears how th' Indians of the new  
World for such lewdness their Invaders slew,  
Havocked the fortunes, which they had acquired,  
Burnt up their houses as their hearts were fired  
With lusts, their pictures under foot did tread,  
Their Churches razed that had unhallowed  
Their body's Temples, banned and beat the soil  
That nourished Caitiss so extremely vile,  
Cannot but wonder that mere Pagans should  
So damn th' unruly motions of the blood,  
Whilst we that strictest sanctity profess,  
Run riot into wild licentiousness,  
Like to benighted Travellers we go  
In the impurest ways, defiling so  
With sin the beauty of the soul, with shame  
The treasure of a more esteemed fame.  
As (unclean) Mundus, when he once did feign  
Himself the God Anubis, did obtain  
Th' enjoyment of Paulina fair and chast:  
So others, when they have upon them cast  
Religion's cloak, are often neretheless  
More apt than No to show their nakedness.  
Men of great fortunes think they may command  
All pleasures services, and none withstand;  
They take up Beauties as they do their rents,  
And as their states were free from punishments.  
Preposterous are their courses, whilst they care  
That their dead bodies shall with rich and rare  
Balms be preserved, but whilst alive they be,  
Corrupt them with all rank impurity;  
And deal worse with their better parts, their souls,  
Which every base lust threatens and controls.  
O they endear their lust! the Fondling lay  
In 〈◊〉 presumed beds, and make it gay  
With finest silks and scarlets, pearls and gold,  
With these, as with bright baits, to catch and hold  
Coy Mistresses; that whilst they these admire,  
They may to mix embraces more desire.  
love's Lady, Venus, from the Ocean sent,  
Sends her purveyors through her element,  
And the land too, to seek (as once did lewd  
Medea for strange herbs) for costly food,  
High humour-stirring meats, that may inspire  
Rude heat, and set frigidity on fire.  
Chiefly to thee, God Bacchus, doth she owe  
Her frantic pleasure, sith where wine doth flow,  
There wisdom ebbs, there modesty's exiled,  
There rashness, freedom of soul language, wild  
Behaviour, and hot passions, do inflame  
Unwary hearts, and give blind Cupid aim.  
Those Witches, Circe, and Calypso, by  
Old Homer marked with spots of insamy  
(Like some rank faces) knew no lewder arts  
To spoil by Charms and Philters wretched hearts  
Of freedom, than our Gallants have, to raise  
Spirits of lust, embodying where they please.  
But if their skill fail, the Physician must  
Goet' Hell (like Hercules) to serve a lust,  
Work up their wickedness, and make them do  
What Goats nor monkeys will be heightened to.  
Thus a long-studied Knowledge, that should be  
To mortals almost like a precious tree  
Of life, doth like a worthless Bramble grow  
Contemned, and hated as a flattering foe,  
That whilst he would for fordid lucre please  
A lewd desire, both health and life betrays.  
Now, Gallants, now, whilst Roses do embow'r  
In your fresh cheeks, and bounteous youth doth pour  
blood through your veins, you little think how soon  
Diseases will (like darknesses at noon)  
O'ercast your beauties, how a sudden frost  
Will pierce your limbs, your bones will be exhaust,  
Your joints with palsies slacked, your flesh half dead,  
With Ulcers (as with unguents) overspread,  
Whilst sharp regret for time and strength misspent  
Will wound your spirits, and your hearts torment.  
It sometime happened that Blandora, she  
Who long had lived by th' loss of honesty,  
And trained up others i'th' down-lying trade,  
Meeting a beautiful and modest Maid,  
Whose mind resembled the pure country-air  
She left, when she to th' City did repair,  
Bespoke her thus:' Sweet Beauty, give me leave  
‛ The truth to tell, that plainly I perceive  
‛ By some pale vapours swimming in your eyes  
‛ That you are sick of cares, and symbolize  
‛ Too much with the dull country, which of late  
‛ You left, t' enjoy the Cities happier stare.  
' 'Tis more than pity that a Nymph so fair  
‛ As with th' Idalian Goddess may compare,  
‛ Should want a man in arms loves prize to play,  
‛ And that such excellence as shines (like day)  
to cheer a world, should in its lovely prime  
‛ Be threatened with a wane through loss of time.  
‛ But see fair happy emblems here, a Ring  
‛ And Bracelet (pledges of a dearer thing)  
‛ Sent to you by a noble friend, that was  
‛ (As by my window you did lately pass)  
‛ Struck with your beauties, and desires to be  
'A servant to you in a near degree.  
‛ Come take them without blushing; simply vain  
‛ Were modestly that would not entertain  
‛ All kinds of kindness such a friend should show,  
‛ Whose full affections streams will ever flow  
‛ (Like Indian Ganges) with unmeasured store  
‛ Of wealth, and make your Cabinet their shore.  
‛ Pause not, but pass along with me, and bless  
‛ This as the birthday of your happiness.  
‛ You that have Pleasures shadow scarcely known,  
‛ Shall now enjoy its body as your own;  
‛ In stead of low-brought fortunes you shall be  
‛ Ascendent in the heights of gallantry,  
‛ And by such happy sublimation prove  
‛ What sweets are in the quintessence of love;  
‛ You shall with star-like flowers crown your May  
‛ Of youth. But wherefore should we longer stay?  
‛ Come, wing your feet like Hermes, and let me  
‛ Insphere you in this high felicity.  
These gentle blasts of language did inflame  
The easy-natured Maid, and made her tame  
To follow th'old Enchauntress to her cell;  
Where (having lost her hold) downright she fell  
To lawless lusts, fed on forbidden fruit,  
Denied no Trader that preferred his Suit  
With money in his hand, and thus became  
Her beauty's blemish, and her sex's shame.  
Her friends long sought her with such industry  
As Geres did in fields of Sicily  
Sad Proserpina; but found her at the last,  
Found her but knew her not, so much defaced  
Her feature was, her cheek, her eye, her brow  
(As blasted) were so pale, dark, riveled now,  
And sundry parts so ulcerous withal,  
That she was loathsome to the Hospital,  
Wherein she lay in dolour and distress,  
And did sad penance for her wantonness.  
O the damned frauds of old Adulteresses,  
〈◊〉 of tempting Devil-like profess!  
Unto what trains of mischief do their eyes  
Give fire! what force of fatal magic lies  
In their smooth tongues! what treason's in their looks!  
And in their hands what hidden snares and hooks!  
Accursed were those Magistrates at first  
(And haply still their progeny's accursed)  
That licenc'd Brothelry, and set up stews,  
Wherein loose-bodied courtezans might use  
Their trade without control, as if indeed  
Their vice and Nemesis were well agreed.  
If that head-city that is said to be  
Seated about the heel of Italy,  
Out of these Sinks of sin much treasure rakes,  
A course to grow contemptible she takes,  
And much degenerates in manners from  
Old honour-winning world-commanding Rome,  
That virtue did prefer to fordid gains,  
And less for pleasure cared then honest pains.  
Why was it feigned that Cytherea's so●  
By some lewd pranks and insolences done  
Amongst the Gods, did so their wrath provoke,  
That from his shoulders his light wings they broke,  
And flung him from high Heaven; but that hereby  
The Ancients meant to show how wretchedly  
Lust runs into miscarriage, as 'twere sent  
Into the world for mortals punishment?  
Hence that Tragedian that upon the Stage  
Brought grim Orestes in a sparkling rage,  
Desired that men in purer temples might  
Buy children of the Gods, and not delight  
To mix with women, but to let them go,  
As authors of much wickedness and woe.  
But wherefore, Poet, dost thou sentence pass  
'Gainst all such creatures as thy mother was,  
Condemning them, who seldom are with vice  
So intimate, as when lewd men entice?  
'Tis men's unruly heat that drives them from  
Their guard of modesty, and makes them come  
Into unlawful arms in Cupid's field,  
Themselves as vassals to dishonour yield,  
And stain their beauties, that would else appear  
Like burnished gold, and unclipt pieces were.   

Satire XV. Against Voluptuousness.  
WHoever art so sow●e and Stoical,  
As not to meet delightful things at all  
With gladness, but dost think felicity  
To be locked up in a dull apathy,  
At thine own charge be foolish still, and lose  
Those sweets that Nature liberally bestows;  
Shut up thy senses, whilst I (in the Spring)  
Rejoice to hear the winged Musicians sing,  
In the perfumes of flowers take delight,  
And with their various beauties feed my sight,  
Comparing them to noble gems, or bright  
Unnumbered stars, the treasures of the night.  
Such pleasure as from objects of this kind  
Results, is (like to treasure well refined)  
Pure and desirable, whereby the sense  
May seem emparadised without offence.  
But O how vile and vicious is that kind  
Of pleasure which hath made Philedon blind,  
And leads him in an Ocean of excess  
To all the swallowing gulfs of wickedness!  
No sooner does he leave his lazy bed,  
But beastlike goes he to be watered  
At some near Tavern or Ale-guilty house,  
Where with wide-throated Gulls he may carouse,  
Sing, rant, cog, swear, talk nastily, and do  
What lust or vanity incites him to.  
When now in liquor he begins to flow,  
When his eyes sparkle, and his cheeks do glow,  
In comes Rogero with the fiery snout,  
His servant, (apt to find his Master out  
By th'sent of smoke and drink) desires him t'come  
To dinner, tells him what good cheer's at home  
Fit for his palate;' Therefore, Sir, I pray  
‛ Be pacing. Hodge, I will but only stay  
‛ Until an Health be pledged; meanwhile do thou  
‛ Drink a full flagon, which I still allow  
‛ Thee for such pains; thou canst not but be dry,  
‛ And have some sparks to quench as welll as I.  
After some parting-cups, with him he goes  
Like Silene with his Ass, and puffs and blows,  
And belches, till he stops his throat with meat,  
Which he does quickly when he home doth get,  
Feeds as a man past grace, and at his meats  
Still, as he eats, finds fault, finds fault and eats:  
The dishes are not garnished well, he says,  
The seas'nings nor the sauces greatly please,  
The meats are not in the French fashion dressed,  
Nor are the fruits or spices of the best;  
Nothing contents him, yet goes all to wrack,  
Only the bones hard-metalled Hinds may crack.  
When he has deeply drunk, and highly fed,  
And now the sluggish Hulk's well ballasted,  
Stretching and yawning from his chair he goes,  
Upon his softer day-bed to repose,  
Sleeps like an Hog of Epicurus Herd,  
On no occasion to be called or stirred  
(Though he snore ne'er so loud) till Morpheus take  
His weights away, and gently he awake.  
Then with fresh liquor having cleared his sight,  
Straight (like a watercourse) to's old delight  
He runs, seeks company wherewith to play  
At idle sports, and tipple out the day,  
As if Time, waxen old, grew likewise slow  
Of motion now, and must be hastened so.  
Sent for to supper by his friends, at last  
He homeward stumbles, reels to his repast,  
And quite forgetting carrying knife and all  
Manners, upon his meat doth rudely fall,  
Makes spoil of dainties, and o'er dishes runs  
As o'er their Frets do quick Musicians.  
The meal being ended, but his thirst not quenched,  
Still with strong liquor must the beast be drenched,  
Sucks like a sponge, and with bewitching smoke  
His appetite to drink doth still provoke,  
Until his senses, almost driven from  
Their hold, to parley with his pillow come.  
This is the daily sacrifice which he  
Offers to his voluptuous gluttony,  
Unless some surfer keep him tame awhile;  
Which if it happens, with his health recoil  
His riots still, more jollity he shows,  
And with a fuller noise the Goblet flows.  
This course the times Voluptuaries steer,  
The grandees of our Land, that nothing fear  
Save feavorous diseases, nothing hate  
More than a life well-ruled and temperate.  
Those that in large intradoes do surpass  
Others, do seem to think it a disgrace  
Not to outgo them in licentious ways,  
And in vile courses wildly hunt for praise.  
Nor shall they want it; I'll extol them high,  
And say they may compare for gluttony  
With famed Apicius; that they well may fetch  
the centaurs over at a drinking match;  
●hat for oppressive cruelties they be  
〈◊〉 equalled by Sicilian tyranny;  
And that for careless wantonnizing they  
With strong-backed Hercules their parts may play,  
Or with Jove's self, when in delusive shape●  
He angered Junn with prod'gious rapes.  
You Gallants, that bear up so highly brave,  
That seem to lead blind Fortune as your slave,  
That on our Stage do merely gigantize,  
And others as poor vermin do despise,  
What think ye? Were you born to wallow in  
The miry puddles of corruptive sin?  
Came you into the world as whirlwinds do,  
To puff, roar, bustle, and do mischief too?  
Is it your only work the fools to play,  
And quaff, and drab, and ramble every day?  
What! are your lives worth nothing, that you so  
On vicious vanities the same bestow,  
Making the lines thereof like sl●ghtest nets  
Arachne weaves, which every motion threats?  
In the world's prime, when men might acorns sow,  
Or Cedars plant, and live to see them grow  
Decayed with age, their food was course and plain,  
Fit only nature's vigour to maintain,  
And make them able roughly to endure  
Hard pains, whereto they did themselves enure:  
But in succeeding times (succeeding ill,)  
When men with delicates did daily fill  
Their bellies rather than their appetites,  
Unstrung their courages with faint delights,  
And shunning labours in the dusly field,  
Did to unmanly sloth and softness yield,  
Then seemed diseases at a busy strife  
Which of them heavilyest on human life  
Should fall, and send poor mortals with most speed  
To the sad grave; and than it was decreed  
By th'angry fates that in a shorter space  
Man out of breath should run, and end his race.  
Yet not so p●remptory is their law,  
But that men wisely regular may draw  
T' a fair longevity, and rather die  
Of heatless languor, then of dyscrasy.  
But our great Gulls that daily gormondise,  
And quaff, and smoke, and make the Cook devise  
Quaint dishes; these, that ply their vaulting play  
Like frisking satyrs, turning night to day,  
And day to night, what do they but to fate  
Themselves, betray, and almost violate  
Nature as much as if they did with knife,  
Halter, or poison, force an odious life?  
'Twas usual once to sweeten and to cleanse  
With baths and unguents th' outward parts of men's  
More useful bodies; but now inward go  
Such soft delights, men's stomachs overflow  
With costly meats and liquours; and to be  
Sober and spare in rank prosperity,  
Is surely more a wonder then to know  
The robe of Summer washed with melted snow.  
These exemplary ills, that t' others sight  
Are daily obvious, move them to delight  
In the like vanities: and as we see  
That waters, when they meet, do well agree  
To flow together; so inferiors run  
In the same channel of profusion  
With greater persons, loath to be behind,  
And to luxurious pleasure less inclined.  
If my Lord be a Lecher, or a great  
Exhausting Drunkard, or a gaming Cheat,  
Or s●ain his same with any vices else,  
Th' unhappy town where he inhabits, smells  
Rank of his lordship's lewdness, rustics lay  
About them with their lusts, drink night and day,  
Ply thristless sports, and wholly bend their mind  
Just as their great Supporter is inclined.  
O with what power Lady Pleasure sawyes  
Men's hearts! who have devised more sort of plays  
And sportful tricks, than they have trades and arts  
To save their lives, and exercise their parts.  
I mean no sport that courages inflames,  
Such as the ●sthmian and the Phythian games,  
And those whence Hiero (right noble King)  
Did both the Palm and Pinda●s praises bring;  
No Masteries, to harden lusty boys  
For field exploits; but soft unmanly toys,  
Fit rather to hold up the appetite,  
And make our cups go down with more delight.  
The pyrrhic dance, wherein (like Planets bright)  
Men shined in arms, is antiquated quite,  
Nor do they make their blows at Barriers sound,  
Nor with triumphal thunders shake the ground,  
Running at Tilt for Ladies fair rewards;  
But ply the box with wicked Dice and Cards,  
And other boyish pastimes, making wit  
For grave and good employments most unfit.  
Thus is Time lost in's undiscerned flight;  
Thus to tempt Fortune Prodigals delight,  
And whilst they pass, their tricks of sly deceit  
On others, most of all themselves do cheat.  
Then (faster than the bones) fly Wounds and blood  
In vaporous breath, then stamp they as they would  
Call up internal powers, and then both Stakes  
And Daggers draw: thus Gamesters keep their Wakes.  
If some mild Hermit, or calm Anchorite,  
That wholly doth in holy things delight,  
By some rude violence were thrust among  
The Gallants of our time (to mend the throng)  
And should observe them in some gaming house,  
How some sit puffing smoke, and then carouse  
To quench their servours; others fling away  
Sometimes whole Lordships in their frantic play;  
Others sing bawdy Catches, lewdly prate,  
Swagger and vapour, swear and imprecate,  
Belch out harsh blasphemies, and fall sometimes  
To fatal stabbing, to make up their crimes,  
Should those (I say) in whose untroubled cells  
Devotion, graced with innocency, dwells,  
See such lewd wildnesses, their flesh would quake,  
Their blood congeal, their inmost bowels ache,  
Their hair wax stiff, and surely they would guess  
That Hell scarce teens with greater wickedness.  
Men should taste pleasure as a Dog does Nile's  
Sweetness in view of horrid Crocodiles,  
Take 't without stay, lest if it soak too deep  
Into their senses, they forget to keep  
The rules of life, and make themselves unfit  
For due performances of strength or wit.  
Our wars had with less insolence and wrong  
Been carried on, nor plagued our land so long,  
If those that shined in arms had strove to be  
Clear from the foul attaints of luxury,  
Despised the languishments of soft delights,  
And rather Spartans seem●d then Sybarites.  
But they were far from sober courses, far  
From all the strictnesses required in war;  
Still where they Marched, they pillaged by the way,  
And spent at night the plunder of the day;  
Gave fire more to their lusts then to their guns,  
And with deep quaffing drowned their Garrisons.  
Those that made Mars a God, and placed him far  
'Bove th'aery regions, thought too well of war;  
They should have damned him to the blackest cell  
Of night, imprisoned him in deepest Hell,  
Armed him with all the terrors of the dire  
Infernal Furies, filled his breast with fire,  
Made him more horrid than Medusa's hair,  
Or Hydra's chaps, or th' harpies talons are,  
And set wild Tumult, Insolence, Debate,  
Mischief and treachery, on him to wait.  
Poets, that sang how he (Ensnared) did lie  
With Venus, only taxed his luxury:  
But his more lewd debauchments to contain  
In verse, would put the Muses to more pain,  
Than all th' exploits of Hercules to tell,  
That were admired on earth, or feared in Hell.   

Satire XVI. Against Timidity.  
A Fearful state it were to live without  
All fear, and of our welfare never doubt,  
But with a bold foolhardy forwardness  
Go on, presuming still of good success,  
Just as a blinded beast should far and near  
In pastures range, as every Coast were clear.  
Nature in every thing endued with sense  
Hath planted fear, that objects of offence  
The creatures may decline, as well as move  
Towards delightful things, embraced with love.  
Good Subjects too do heartily revere  
Their Princes, sweetly mixing love with fear,  
And purchasing from them a fair respect,  
Whom they both stand in awe of and affect.  
And as the seaman's Needle ever will  
Be pointing towards the Pole, yet quivers still:  
So he that levels at celestial bliss,  
Is somewhat fearful left his mark he miss.  
Such fears are regular, and well may be  
Consistent with fair virtue's dignity,  
And height of courage: but to shake the state  
Of human life with tears immoderate,  
To quake at shadows, figments of the brain,  
chimaeras, things fantastical and vain,  
That no more essence have, than chemist's gold,  
Argues a broken mind, unapt to hold  
Noble infusions; shows an impotence  
Of spirit, an abused intelligence,  
That (ere since Adam ran into the shade  
O' th' trees of Paradise, and was afraid)  
With other lawless passions hath combined,  
To the disturbance of all human kind.  
Thou that art so maligned by stubborn Fate,  
As on some splendid Prince at Court to wait  
(As Hermes doth on Sol) mayst see how there  
The high-flown Gulls the loss of honour fear,  
What plots they lay their places to secure,  
What arts they use, what busy pains endure;  
With what sharp lines a Rivals fame they tear,  
And oft the bloodier marks of disco●d bear,  
Their cares compelling them still watch to keep,  
At least (like Hares) with open eyes to sleep.  
Those Rhetoricians that in France did strain  
Their lungs, and either must applauses gain,  
Or (if their fluency did fail) be cast  
Into a river, deeply so disgraced,  
Were not more pallid than these men are weak,  
And fearful left their glassy honours break.  
They're like to Climbers, that much labour spend  
A steep and craggy mountain to ascend,  
(One such as Tenariffe or Atlas) and  
When on the frozen Crown thereof they stand,  
Are fearful of a downfall, and much more  
Troubled thereat then with all pains before.  
There's none more jealous of his chosen Mate,  
That by her looks, her garments, and her gate  
shows her wild lusts, then are these Gallants each  
Of other. If the King but deign to reach  
To one of them a favour, all the rest  
(Like to young Kestrels in an high-built nest)  
Stand gaping still, and level all their spite  
Against the new much honoured Favourite,  
Lay all their heads and hearts together how  
To bring his fortunes down, and make him bow,  
Left in his plenty they should chance to pine,  
And his exalting should be their decline.  
Ambitious fools! that fret your hearts with care  
For Honours, that more slight than shadows are;  
More light than vapours, that to wondrous height  
Soon rise, but vanish in the welkin straight;  
And more delusive than our dreams, that will  
Make golden promises, but none fulfil.  
Suppose I were grown rich, and in the street  
A poor well-mannered man should chance to meet,  
That showed me his bare head; what would it me  
Advantage more, than his bare feet to see?  
Or what more by his bowing should I gain,  
Then if he did in backward posture lean?  
He scrapes me legs, and makes the dust give way,  
But does no benefit to me convey.  
Honour's the vulgars' mockery; and he  
That's fearful of the loss of dignity,  
Or's vexed at a repulse, a sounder brain  
Should rather seek, than honour to obtain,  
There's nothing more pernicious to a State  
Then a cold-hearted timorous Magistrate,  
That when he greater persons to the Stake  
Should bring, perceives his weakened hams to quake;  
Deals gentlier with them then she-Surgeons do  
With patients that they bear affection to;  
And oft more pale, more pensive is by far  
Than some offenders standing at the bar:  
A script or message from a potent friend  
Saves a man's life, that now a downright end  
Sadly expects, and sees no hopeful cause  
Why his death should not satisfy the Laws.  
What greatness wills, must be accomplished, though  
The stream of justice be compelled to flow  
(Like Jordan) backward, whilst detested crimes  
(Never more rise then in these wretched times)  
Unpunished pass, and many a soul offence  
Is blanched and smoothed with soft blandiloquence,  
To th'great dishonour of our troubled State,  
And their encouragement that virtue hate.  
Those that grow fat in seats of dignity,  
Are wise enough to know they must comply  
With greatness, lest they chance to be displaced,  
And lose those profits which they hug so fast.  
So sweet is lucre, that men will cashier  
Friendship or equity, or what's more dear,  
Break strongest bonds, endure the hardest pains,  
Rather than lose the harvests of their gains.  
Hence is it that the Merchant rides so far  
O' th' bounding Ocean, as in open war  
He did defy two elements at least:  
Hence the hard soldier doth expose his breast  
To darts and bullets whizzing through the air:  
The Lawyer (wearing Suits and Clients bare)  
Bustles and bawls amongst contentious throngs,  
Cracking at once his conscience and his lungs:  
And every man some pleasing way doth choose,  
Wherein the prize of profit he pursues,  
With hot affection after it doth pant,  
And shows how urgent is the fear of want.  
But most of all this pale-looked passion shows  
Its strength (or rather weakness) when to blows  
Two Armies fall: yea oft, when now the Drum  
But summoned them to warlike work to come,  
One side hath suddenly been palsy-shook,  
Clapped on the wings of fear, the field forlook  
In foul disorder, shameful disarray,  
When they might well have stood and won the day,  
When hostile faces did less danger threat  
Then their own fancies, working their defeat,  
Let not the Romans make too loud a boast  
Of fortitude, sith Crassus rustling host,  
That the sure-handed Parthians did invade,  
Hearing the hideous noises that they made  
T'affray their enemies, were sore distraught  
With terror, and a fearful ruin brought  
Upon themselves, met in dishonoured fl●ght  
By fate, and banished into endless night.  
Indeed the Carthaginians that did hear  
Air-rending outcries, when no foes were near,  
Had cause enough to quake, and to surmise  
That moved to anger were their Deities,  
And sent those terrors as a warning-blow:  
But to be daunted with a clamorous foe  
(As Drunkards are dismayed when vessels sound)  
Argues an heart to have an inward wound,  
A sickly temper, a soft feeble state  
Of mind, that every threat will penetrate.  
Rather than Vulgar people will not play  
The fools, with waking dreams they will affray  
Themselves, and breed more Bugbears in their brain  
Then ere inventive Greece did wonders feign,  
Fairies, Night-spirits, Goblins, all those toys  
Owe their whole essence to weak fantasies.  
I know a neighbouring fountain, sweet and clear,  
(And such as well the Muses might endear,)  
That pours pure liquid treasures forth apace,  
Adorning (as it were) with shining lace  
The border of a field, and making there  
A valley rich and vernant all the year.  
Fair trees o'erlook the well, and seem to play  
With their own shadows in it every day,  
Sending down leaves as love-signs, which the Source  
Doth modestly reject with easy force.  
To this fair mirror Maids by day repair,  
And by it set their looks, and prune their hair:  
But when the Sun sorgoes our Hemisphere,  
Causing the earth's dim shadow to appear,  
None dare approach the place, but balk it quite,  
(As on Avernus' lake no fowls will light,)  
Left treading on that Fairy-ground (for so  
They term it) th' angry Elves should chance to blow  
Their eyes out, or should pinch them black and blue,  
Or lame them: yet that no man living knew  
Such mischiefs done there I dare almost swear.  
Truly when sometime I my course did steer  
Near to this Fountain, whilst fair moonlight shone,  
I visited the water-Nymph alone,  
And sipped her liquour; yet did neither hear,  
Nor see, nor suffer what the rustics fear.  
Indeed a long-billed bird (I think on't still)  
That flushed and flew up from the bubbling rill,  
Was ready to divert me from my way;  
But made me to myself to smile, and say,  
If Woodcocks to this Well dare come so near,  
What cause have country Gulls so much to fear?  
Thus does man to his mass of misery  
Add vain illusions of his fantasy,  
And makes his own more wretched than the state  
Of beasts; that no such terrors do create  
Unto themselves, but every time and place  
Enjoy, and all delightful things embrace,  
Left troubled with their loss, and not at all  
Fearful of what may afterwards befall.  
'Twas otherwise with Cholmelan, who was  
A man well formed, and many did surpass  
In strength, and health, and feature; yet bethought  
Himself to bring his native good to nought.  
For left his Raven-locks should soon grow white,  
With unctuous gums he smeared them every night,  
And with dry powders vexed them so by day,  
That the whole bush was quickly fleeced away,  
And showed a skull like Time's upon a wall,  
Save that it had no sore-top left at all.  
But hair and horns grow fast; and so his head  
After a while was roughly furnished  
With a new tress: and then his only care  
Was to keep up his carcase in repair.  
He quaked at thought of sickness; if a Corn  
But pained his foot, he was a man forlorn,  
Quite out of tune and temper, felt (no doubt)  
A grievous symptom of a woeful Gout,  
And must have either noxious humours thrust  
By physic forth, or forthwith die he must.  
If at a Jovial crash he chanced to take  
Deep draughts, that did at night in's bowels make  
Unruly tumults, all his house must be  
Disturbed about his mad-brained malady,  
And Doctors fetched, whose sober skill might lay  
Hold on his life, that else would slip away.  
Thus did he fool himself with physic, thus  
Ere long as blasted and cadaverous  
Looked his whole visage, thus to ruin went  
His beauty, thus his sinews were unbent,  
His eyes beclouded, tainted was his breath,  
And lastly, thus he died for fear of death;  
All his fat fortunes being purged away  
'Mongst fatal Vultures, gaping still for prey,  
After hard labours men are well content  
Softly to rest, and after banishment  
Fix joyful eyes upon their native seat:  
Yet the same men (their folly is so great)  
After a world of trouble, pain and strife,  
Hateful to Nature, are in love with life,  
And would not that the friendly hand of fate  
Should plant them in a free and quiet State.  
Of nature's bounty do they gladly taste,  
With her in childhood seem to break their fast,  
At fullgrown manly age with her to dine,  
And t'sup with her when strength doth now decline;  
Yet grudge that Death the servitor should play,  
And take, as with a Voider, all away.  
Why should men fear so what they ne'er did try,  
And frame such bugs themselves to testify?  
Some dead men have been fetched to life again,  
But which of them did ever yet complain  
O' th' pains they suffered when their vital fire  
Did twinkle out, their languid heat expire?  
The wiser sort by meditation make  
Stern Death familiar, and the boldness take  
To handle (as it were) his dart and spade;  
Hence are they not of his sharp looks afraid,  
But entertain him as a friendly guest,  
That comes to fetch them to the fields of rest.   

Satire XVII. Against Detraction.  
NOr I, nor any that do satyrs write,  
Please Glossamare, who with envenomed spite  
Shoots at us, looking (as the Parthians use)  
Another way. He says, we much abuse  
Our pens and pains, and are too partial  
To blemish others with besprinkled gall,  
And t' clear ourselves, who oft more faulty are  
Then those whose credits we so much impair.  
‛ Hear, Slanderer, our answer: if you know  
‛ That in such cross and crooked ways we go  
‛ As you are lost in, then free leave have you  
to shake your Scourge, and jerk us smartly too.  
‛ Meanwhile (like Furies) shall we strive to fright  
‛ You from your faults, and make our satyrs bite,  
‛ And worry you for all your lewd and vile  
‛ Aspersions, that our same's do still defile.  
‛ Had you snarled so when Juvenal did write,  
‛ Flaccus, or Persius, sure they would have quite  
‛ shattered you with invectives, tore your name  
To rags, dampt out the sparkles of your fame,  
‛ Caused your foul slanders to reflect upon  
‛ Your brazen brow, to dash some shame thereon,  
‛ And make you hasten to a sword or knife,  
to cut therewith your fretted thread of life.  
Those that (like Aesop's Frog) with envy swell  
At others that the common crew excel,  
And noted are for wit, wealth, dignity,  
Or great men's favour, break (Ill-favouredly)  
Int' spiteful language, thinking to abase  
Their worth by slinging at them foul disgrace,  
And raising dust (as 'twere) to dim men's sight,  
Left of such objects they should judge aright.  
Let no man think t' escape the brandished tongue  
Of calumny, sith he that primely sung  
The fate of Ilium, the old Moenian Bard;  
And th' other, aptly unto him compared,  
Brave Virgil, high in style, and deep in sense;  
Grave l'lato too, that winged his eloquence  
With heavenly fancies; and the Stagirite,  
That sent through nature's orb so clear a light,  
Were all too sharply censured, all besprent  
With gall, and weight of malice underwent.  
Yea, he that sometime like a Sunny ray  
Was sent from Heaven our fatal debt to pay,  
To whose clear virtues treasures were impure  
And worthless, and the Lightning-flash obscure;  
He that cured all our maladies, procured  
All blessings for us, all our pains endured,  
Was ranked with wretched sinners neretheless,  
Charged home with deulilish arts, and deep excess,  
And many others ills, well known to be  
Their inmates that belched our such blasphemy.  
The baneful Serpent that t' our mother Eve  
Gave th' apple, did thereon such poison leave,  
As fills all human kind with cankered spite,  
And makes them vent the same with much delight.  
Where can we find a knot of company  
So fast and friendly, as will not let fly  
Their tongues to hateful contumelious talk,  
Nor let them through more lives and manners walk  
Then ere Ulysses saw? A mere surmise  
(Though ne'er so false) will give their calumnies  
Sufficient colour; any slight presence  
Seems ground enough for black maledicence.  
‛ Observe you not, said Wolfang, th' other day,  
‛ How our great Rabbi does on's cushion lay  
'A written book, and ever squints at it,  
‛ When he is damning us to th' Stygian pit  
‛ For less faults than his own? I boldly say  
‛ That he that cannot preach, nor scarcely pray  
‛ Without his papers, is more fit to troul  
‛ Ballads, then deal in business of the soul:  
‛ His Doctorship's a Dullard, past all cure  
‛ Of sharp reproof; he is a Preacher sure  
‛ As wooden as his Pulpit, and his brains  
‛ As barren as the sand his glass contains.  
‛ If Universities bring up such fools,  
‛ May War and sacrilege bring down their Schools.  
‛ And what's his pure Disciple, Theophil,  
‛ That melts at Sermons as he would distil  
‛ His matt'ry brain through th'limbeck of his nose,  
‛ And on the poor such largesses bestows?  
‛ He's a rank Hypocrite, a rotten post  
‛ All vanished o'er, a painted tomb that cost  
‛ Much idle artship, a gay thing of nought,  
'A shining glass with poison inly fraught,  
‛ That soon will break't: For sure he cannot hold  
Long, though his coffers were all crammed with gold;  
‛ His large expense and idleness beside  
‛ Will shortly work his fall, and bring the pride  
‛ Of his nice wife acquainted with her birth,  
to take more knowledge of her mother earth,  
‛ The woman is well skilled in making shows,  
‛ And in an homely outside garb she goes,  
‛ Talks much of heaven, professing sanctity  
‛ More than would furnish a whole Nunnery:  
‛ But O she bears a Luciferian mind,  
‛ Apt in each company to raise the wind  
‛ Of her own praise; nor surely is she free  
‛ From the worst kind of woman's levity:  
‛ For a young Gallant privately ('tis said)  
‛ Frequents her house; and if her husband's head  
‛ Be not horn-heavy (like Actaeon's) now,  
‛ It is because he hath a brazen brow,  
‛ An hardened front that will not bud, but shows  
‛ Like to a beaten way where nothing grows.  
Thus was this soul Defamer pleased to vent  
Heart-swelling rancour'gainst the innocent,  
And by his biting (wickedly) behind  
Gave others notice of his currish kind.  
Mastiffs and Lions openly do make  
Their valour known, as if they scorned to take  
Advantages; but fainter beasts will steal  
Closely to mischief, secretly assail;  
So generous spirits fairly face to face  
Will question those that offer them disgrace,  
Or wrong them otherwise; but baser Hinds  
In terms of obloquy discharge their minds,  
And fall like hail-storms on the backs of those  
Whose presence awes them, and suspends their blows.  
The tongue (Perfused with much humidity)  
A member is so quick and slippery,  
And so much black corruptive malice rests  
In the dark lurking-holes of human breasts,  
That as some rabid beasts will here and there  
Be snatching, so some men will not forbear  
To lay reproachful mouths in every place  
On worthier persons, seeking to disgrace  
Those sometimes whom they never saw, nor know  
Whether their just esteem be high or low.  
When toyish Fortune at our English Court  
Made with great Gallants not a little sport,  
O what an heavy fate has oft been known  
To fall on those that have int' favour grown  
With gracious Princes! when their glories Sun  
Has by the mists of every one begun  
To be obscured, than forthwith (as they say  
That the night-wandering wolves of Syria  
Bark at the Moon) the mad-brained multitude  
With a calumnious cry the men pursued,  
Nor calmed their fury till they saw them down  
Quite under foot, that were so near the Crown.  
Great and irreparable is the wrong  
That's done to men by an envenomed tongue:  
Not all the herbs Medea picked and chose,  
Can cure the wounds thereof: its secret blows  
Are oft heard farther than the loudest cracks  
Of thunder, or th' Egyptian Cataracts.  
A good report spreads slowly, quickly grows  
Cold in the mouth, and doth its vigour lose:  
But an ill rumour seems to ride upon  
The plumes of Boreas, suddenly is gone  
Past a recall, and keeps its airy form  
In the despite o'th' most impetuous storm.  
Noised through the world are the few blemishes  
Of Alexander, pride, wrath, drunkenness,  
That sometime moved him with rude Steel to try  
Where his dear foster-brothers heart did lie:  
But of his Princely parts and virtues who  
Relation makes? what eulogies do show  
How pearls of pity for the wretched case  
Of foiled Darius, trickled down his face?  
How nobly he his wailing Queen did treat,  
Who (though her beauty was no common bait)  
Would not dishonour her himself, nor see  
Others profane her shrine of chastity?  
So our third Richards cruelty and great  
Ambition, reeking both with blood and sweat,  
Are matters frequent in our mouths: but who  
Tells what endowments Nature did bestow  
Upon this Potentate, to make thereby  
A fair amends for his deformity?  
Who mentions his sagacity? or hears  
Of his great heart, that knew no common fears?  
Or of his deep unfathomed policy,?  
That did complete such rules of equity,  
Such salutary Laws, as will be (while  
Fixed is this Centre) famous in this he  
Some that affect a quick facetious vein  
Of speaking, and their hearers entertain  
With jesting upon others, by and by  
Pass the just bounds of fair urbanity:  
And as we see when nimble Squirrels play  
With nuts, and turn them this and th' other way  
They lastly! crack them: so when these have made  
Some sport with others errors, they invade  
Their credits at the last, and make thereby  
An ill compound of mirth and injury.  
Those that delight to turn the point of wit  
On others thus, and care not where they hit,  
Nor yet regard whose fame they violate,  
Are oft repaid with this vindictive fate,  
That whilst they make some men ridiculous.  
Themselves become to all men odious.  
Good same is dear and tender as our eyes,  
And none can brook another should ds-prize  
His estimate, much less should at him cast  
Disgraceful language, and his credit blast.  
Though of the clearness of their judgements eye  
Few men can boast, yet too too forwardly  
We censure others skill, and books peruse  
Errors to find, and Authors to abuse.  
What Author's is more grave or exquisite  
Than Pliny, that so punctually doth write  
Of nature's works, and took such pains to be  
Well learned in her copious History?  
Yet some that measure others qualities  
By their own habits, with mistakes and lies  
Are bold to charge him, as if purposely  
He gulied the world with specious vanity,  
And more directly at a shadowy fame  
Did look, then at substantial truth did aim.  
The like did to our Mandeville befall,  
Who having measured of this earthly ball  
A greater part than any of his time,  
When he revisited his native Clime,  
Published his travels, that his country so  
Might what with pain he found, with pleasure know.  
Now what was the success? his Readers threw  
Contempt upon his news, more strange than true  
Thought his reports, accounting them such toys  
And sigments as fantastics oft devise.  
Yet afterwards when travellers did make  
Further discou'ries, and surveys did take  
Of this main Globe, they found his wonders true  
I th' greater part, and gave him praises due  
To his high merits, making him thereby  
A just amends for wrongful obloquy.  
What shall I say of those that dare defame  
The dead, corrupt the odours of their name,  
Disturb their quiet dust, and (as it were)  
Fight with their shades? This surely doth appear  
Of secret striking the most deadly way,  
And makes men not unlike to beasts of prey,  
Which, that they may be ready still to tear  
The bodies of the slain, pursue the Rear  
Of warlike Armies. Yet as Sylla's lewd  
And brutish rage on weeping Anio strewed  
Th' ashes of Marius; so some men there are  
So wildly impious, that they little care  
How much they violate the dead with base  
Effects of malice, studying their disgrave.  
This seems to make the sad sepulchral stone  
Lie heavier upon those that hence are gone,  
And seeds of Hemlock (as it were) doth sow.  
Where else the Rose and violet might grow.  
When men are under death's arrest, and have  
Made down-tight payment in the humble grave  
Of their last debt; to wrong them, needs must be  
A rude extreme of harsh impiety,  
An horrid wickedness, enough to make  
(Without imprisoned wind) the earth to quake.   

Satire XVIII. Against Injustice.  
I Have been still so blessed (I thank my Stars)  
As not to raise nor foment any jars,  
But rather patiently would put up wrong,  
Then hire the service of a claim'rous tongue  
To plead my right, I see in suit prevails  
None but the rich, gold ever turns the Scales,  
And (as an Atlas to our motions) here  
Carries all causes, all the sway doth bear,  
Upholds all factions, sets a-work all hands,  
And leads all hearts as in triumphal bands,  
As Sabine soldiers on Tarpeia cast  
Their bracelets and their bucklers, till at last  
Under their deadly weight her life was spent:  
So greater persons fatally torment  
Fair justice under wealth's oppressive load,  
Upon such mischief-workers worst bestowed.  
It is a just complaint that long ago  
Justice forlook these regions here below  
Replete with wickedness, and to the skies  
Went, where she might man's insolence despise;  
Yet some resemblance of old equity  
She left; and that the same's so wretchedly  
With blood disfigured, is the too well known  
Cause of our present grief and endless moan.  
Thou that art wronged, and any thing dost lose  
(Except thy wits) be wise, and rather choose  
To sit down with thy loss, then go to law;  
Whence on thyself thou shalt be sure to draw  
Fresh injuries, nor ever have redress,  
Unless thy purse in Angels languages  
Do speak thy grievance, or great friends thou find,  
That in our wars to th' winning side inclined.  
Though thou be'st ne'er so honest, and the sky  
No clearer than thy heart's integrity;  
And though the wrongs for which thou dost implead  
Another, in the Laws full view be laid;  
Yet if withal thou under Hatches be,  
And (being tossed in straits of poverty)  
Canst to no harbour of great friendship get,  
Thou'lt fare no better than an overset  
Ship in a storm, thy labour, and thy cost,  
And hope of recompense, will all be lost.  
Many that might law-quarrels well decide,  
Are like to hungry Kites that far and wide  
Seek for a prey, and build their nests on high  
With mere acquists of their rapacity.  
If thou be'st troubled with a plethry  
Of a full fortune (as we daily see  
That vices and vexations wait upon  
Wealth,) be some Lawyer thy Physician,  
And thou wilt find he soon will macerate  
The corpulency of thy great estate,  
Attenuate its bulk, contract its size,  
Pare to the quick its proud excrescencies,  
And when thy golden plumes are plucked in law,  
Be one to laugh at thee like Aesop's Daw.  
What brought Caninio to an ebb so low  
In his estate, but that he still let flow●  
His wealth among, the perifogging sort,  
That which long bills of charges did cut short  
His large intrado? who was high (they say)  
In fortune's favour, as most apt to play  
The fool, in turning still the point of law  
On men almost for th' wagging of a straw.  
At least three hundred Crowns he once let fly  
After a Goose, that was too waggishly  
Took from his Coop, his choler so to move,  
Who as his life did wrangling ever love,  
But could from such a suit expect small gains,  
To compensate his charges and his pains.  
Some wits derided him, and said that Fowl  
Might well be one that saved the Capitol,  
And if the man to wars did ever go,  
Would in his helmet make a goodly show,  
And when the bustling winds their strength did try,  
Would seem to hiss, and threat his enemy.  
My task were endless, should I undertake  
To tell what small account the most did make  
Of noble justice in the stormy days  
Of our late war, when many men did raise  
Themselves by rapine, and from poor and low  
Estates to wealth and eminence did grow.  
One such a strangely metamorphosed man  
Is that imperious varlet, Putean,  
Who till wild discord soft her sparkling brands,  
And fired our hearts, bestirred his brawny hands,  
Digged in a quarry for his daily bread,  
And hardly was with fruits of labour fed,  
All rattered like a shaggy satire went,  
Was despicably low and indigent;  
But when loud drums and trumpets did awake  
Our drowsy spirits, he resolved to take  
Another course, new fortunes would assay,  
In the next Army took a soldiers pay,  
Nothing at all regarded wrong nor right,  
Nor yet for conquest, but for coin, did fight.  
Fight did I say? nay, rather Mercury  
The Mars he served, of fraud and thievery  
Upheld the trades, ranged all about for prey,  
Plundered in towns, and robbed upon the way;  
Hence raked he up much wealth in little time,  
To high preferment wickedly did climb;  
And in a fair house, whence he did expel  
His father's Landlord, does the Pagan dwell.  
But as we see a little ball of snow  
To a great Globe by volutation grow,  
Then quickly to dissolve: so may we say  
That such men's heaped-up riches will decay  
In a small tract of time, and that they shall  
Sink in the gulf of sudden Funeral.  
Those vast Sicilian monsters, Polypheme  
And others, whom old Poets made their theme,  
What were they but great Robbers, that did spoil  
All those they met with in their fruitful isle?  
But as the vengeful hand of Heaven ere long  
Repaid them for their violence and wrong:  
So will all those that are unjustly bent,  
Be taught their duty by just punishment.  
For very pensiveness my heart doth ache,  
And all my bowels with sad horror quake,  
To thick how frequently with fatal blows  
Our Martialists oreturned their fellows (those  
Of the same side I mean,) when secret spite  
Or sudden passion made them bold to smite:  
Yet some were scarcely questioned, very few  
Felt deadly punishment for murder due;  
Justice was seldom set a-work among  
Rude blades, the hasty instruments of wrong.  
Methinks some Comet in the troubled air  
Should now appear with bloody streaming hair  
Like to a fiery Scourge, t' upbraid thereby  
Our horrid murders and harsh cruelty,  
And threat with sharper punishments to smite  
Such Monsters as in mischief most delight.  
O for stout Theseus, or strong Hercules!  
That would adventure (for immorral praise)  
To pave our Cities with the heads of those  
That both by fraud and force all right oppose.  
With juggling hands their gainful games do play,  
O' th' very house of prayer make a prey;  
Both Church and Academies dare despoil,  
And on their ruins raise a lofty pile  
Of wealth and dignity. The sons of great  
Phoebus have small encouragement to beat  
Their brains in studies, or to change their looks  
T' a pale and wan complexion like their books,  
When almost all rewards (except the Bay,  
T' adorn their brows withal) are forced away,  
And as much honour to Gad's hill is done  
As to Parnassus or fair Helicon.  
When justice does pretend to th' greatest sway,  
She yet acts little in the nobler way  
Of compensation: Sometime she's severe,  
When men that show more guilt than gold, appear  
Before her; or her busy servants wait  
Till some great person forfeits his estate,  
She readily will punish such; but when  
Does she propose rewards for worthier men?  
With what rich guerdons does she gratify  
Brave souls, that for their country's liberty  
Have served stern Mars, or happily have hit  
On some rare means of public benefit?  
What had the chemist for his guns? or he  
That blessed the Muses with Typography?  
He that devised the Compass? or the man  
That brought the Spaniard with th' American  
Acquainted first, and showed him whence he might  
Fetch gold enough to glut his appetite?  
If such desertful Patriots do obtain  
Some shadowy honour, 'tis the only gain  
They can expect: no real fruits of dear  
Respect and gratitude are gathered here;  
But he that does with warm affection serve  
His country, may (to his cold comfort) starve.  
True justice should begin like charity,  
At home; then look at others equally,  
Like the world's cheerful eye: but men do quite  
Neglect their welfare in the ways of right,  
Do to themselves a world of injury,  
And seem to bear a kind of enmity  
To their own lives. Do they not let them slide  
At all adventures without Helm or Guide,  
And range as wildly as the Steeds of great  
Phoebios, when Phaeton had lost his seat?  
Do they not make this life a term of space  
To follow trifles in, a fruitless race  
Of idle courses? do they not let fly  
Their precious hours almost insensibly?  
And may they not more properly be said  
T' have lively motions, than a life to lead,  
When rude distempers toss them, and the sway  
Of humorous passions rapts them every way?  
They taste not life's dear sweetness, till with fate  
They ready be to meet; and then (too late)  
Weep they their loss, and die in their conceit,  
Ere sickly Nature sound her sad retreat  
Into the grave. To my late grief and pain  
I heard an aged Prodigal complain  
In these sad words.' Ah! woe is me (said he)  
‛ Is this the fruit of all my jollity,  
to lie and languish on a restless bed,  
‛ Whereto the knotty Gout hath fettered  
‛ My strengthless limbs? how have I gulled & wronged  
‛ My self and those that to my charge belonged!  
‛ How have I blasted all my flowery prime  
‛ With heats of lust, and lavished out my time!  
‛ How have I been as in a silken chain  
‛ Of pleasure led, that hath procured my pain!  
‛ How, when I grasped at honours, have I caught  
‛ Clouds like Ixion, vanishing to nought!  
‛ O that Medea's art, that once retriv'd  
'Old Aeson's youthful days, were now revived,  
‛ And back again mine age's wheel would drive  
‛ Unto its vernal point! I then would strive  
‛ My life to manage as a thing of weight,  
‛ Frame all mine actions regular and straight,  
‛ Not live tumultuously (as here and there  
‛ Wild beasts do range,) but by discretion steer  
‛ An even course, my passions keep in awe,  
‛ And give mine appetite so strict a law,  
‛ That like Cornarus the Venetian, I  
‛ Would feed by weight, and serve necessity;  
‛ Ay, like Ulysses fastened to his Mast,  
‛ Would pass by Sirens, and be ever chaste;  
‛ Virtue should be my Mistress, and I would  
‛ Value her beauties above mounts of gold.  
‛ But ah! my words are weak, my wishes vain;  
‛ Nothing's of force with me save grief and pain.  
These plaints did move my pity; and though I,  
If men will wrong themselves so wretchedly,  
What wonder is it that they prove unjust  
To others, and so oft betray their trust?  
They break their faith, the band of amity,  
As Samson did his cords; yea, oft we see  
Great Princes (to th' dishonour of their State)  
Most solemn Leagues to slight and violate,  
And where they did fair amity profess,  
Fall foul with vile perfidious practices,  
Causing the Carthaginians not to be  
Condemned alone for impious treachery.  
Then comes that bloody-mouthed Monster, War,  
And threatning mischiefs like a blazing star,  
Hasts to inflict the same, and wretched makes  
Whole nations for their wicked Rulers sakes.  
These haply may secure themselves indeed,  
But sure enough their Subjects are to bleed  
'Mongst sharp contentions, sure enough to lie  
(Like drowned Egyptians) in deep misery.   

Satire XIX. Against Cruelty.  
AN error 'tis as common as to cheat,  
Or lie, to take rude fierceness for a great  
Effect of fortitude, and those to be  
Most valiant that are fleshed in cruelty,  
And bloody-minded; whereas nothing can  
More ill-beseem th' harmonious frame of man  
Then harsh ungentleness, and nothing brings  
More fate and foul dishonour upon Kings  
Then wicked tyranny, when upon slight  
Pretences they strike out the vital light  
Of their true Subjects, or do otherwise  
Afflict them with more spoilful injuries,  
Breaking their fortunes, as the slender bands  
Of law they violate with armed hands.  
What good man does not loath the memory  
Of that prodigious Duke of Muscovie,  
Basilides? who sometimes loose would let  
Fierce hungry Bears amongst his Subjects met  
In thick assemblies, and delight to see  
Their limbs all torn with horrid cruelty,  
Saying, they might be glad in such a sort  
To suffer, sith they made their sovereign sport.  
Almost as merciless those Princes are,  
Who to the very quick their Subjects parc  
With too sharp penalties and taxes, so  
Exhausting them, and keeping them so low  
Under oppressions, that they scarce can raise  
Their hearts, but sink in sorrow all their days.  
That formidable tyrant of the East  
Deals worse with his bashaws, whom (when increased  
Their treasures are to a full-heaped mass)  
He charges with feigned crimes, but yet doth pass  
Sentence in earnest, and so takes away  
Both life and riches, as a double prey.  
Yet now and then (as when on dirt we tread,  
It spirits up sometimes from the foot to th' head)  
From under heaviest wrongs the Vulgar rise  
In tumules and seditious mutinies,  
Threatening the ruling powers, that from on high  
Fling on their necks the yokes of slavery,  
And whilst men's lives and states they dissipate  
At pleasure, drive them to be desperate.  
Then, as when dashing billows break their mounds,  
Neptune runs wildly o'er the fruitful grounds,  
Levels proud buildings in his watery way,  
Makes men and beasts his scaly monster's prey,  
And hideous mischief works: so when the rude  
False-hearted and mad-headed multitude  
Gets strength and liberty, the country wades  
In blood let out by deadly-wounding blades,  
Justice packs thence with overturned scales,  
The spirit of the world, Religion, fails,  
Wrong, rapine, cruelty with hasty feet  
Their inroads make, and in confusion meet.  
Once in Palermo through a misconceit  
Taken against a Jew, in furious heat  
The people rose, and did not only hale  
And beat and burn the wretch, but did assail  
All of his Nation, pillaged, wounded, flew  
Them, and their bodies (some yet panting) threw  
To greedy flames, plucked from the refuges  
Of Saints and Altars old men (succourless)  
Children and maids, forthwith ingulphing all  
In one confused and ruthless Funeral:  
So wildly fierce and hard to be appeased  
Are tamest fools, when in commotion raised.  
'Tis somewhat strange that men appear to be  
By nature bent to rigid cruelty;  
Yet so they seem, else would they not delight  
So much to see rude beasts to tug and fight,  
And take more pleasure in th' antipathy  
Of such, then in all love's compliancy.  
Old Rom● saw this, and often would bestow  
Great cost in making many a savage show,  
The ruder sort to please; who only took  
Delight at first on fighting beasts to look;  
But afterwards (as if they had by th' eye  
Drunk in full draughts of bloody cruelty)  
They thought it braver sport upon the stage  
To see sword-players fiercely to engage  
Themselves in fight, and seldom off to go  
Till Death stepped in, and gave a parting blow.  
Augustus, though less taxed for tyranny  
Then many of his high flown family,  
Did yet command that only loss of life  
Should be the up-stroke of the tragic strife,  
And one or both that made the people sport,  
Should fall in earnest, die in woeful sort.  
O men of stony bowels, steely breasts!  
Ruthless Spectators, brutisher than beasts!  
Traitors to Nature! that with smiling eyes  
Could view those dire prodigious cruelties;  
And if a Caitiff slave, all hewed and hacked,  
Did (when his spirits failed, and heartstrings cracked)  
Beg a discharge, that he might longer live,  
Would not to th' woeful wretch that savour give,  
But urge on mischief, whilst his wounds gaped wide  
For pity, weeping streams of blood beside,  
Till all the sand that on the Stage did lie,  
Wore the deep crimson dye of cruelty.  
Men make their eyes the inlets of offence;  
And he that frequently his optic sense  
Feeds on fell objects, cannot but thereby  
Surfeit into hard-hearted cruelty,  
Cannot but grow obdurate by degrees,  
And lose all sense of others miseries.  
The Spaniards, when they planted first in rich  
Peru and other Coasts, that did bewitch  
Their eyes with shining treasures, were not so  
Like savage Wolves as they did after grow,  
When they had often sluced out the blood  
Of the poor Natives, that in vain withstood  
The sweeping stream of avarice; for than  
They used them more like noisome beasts than men,  
Shot, stabbed, brained thousands, others forced by flight  
To seek wild thickets, taking much delight  
To tire them with pursuit, to make them preys  
To hungry Mastiffs, to bestrew the ways  
With their torn limbs, and sometimes o'er the heads  
Of multitudes to fire the leafy Sheds.  
Thus they that boast that th'all-surveying Suns  
Light ever shines on some Dominions  
Of their great Kings, and got so clear a fame  
By brave Sea-travels, did obscure and shame  
Themselves by cruelties, so strangely wild  
And fierce, as all humanity exiled.  
There's no such cruelty as that of wars;  
And he that of those harsh tumultuous jars  
●pens the bloody sluice to let in fate,  
The curse of Heaven and all good people's hate  
Justly incurs. Can earth afford a sight  
More horrid, then to view in eager fight  
Armies engaged? When Cannons thundering loud●  
Swords flash out lightning in a stifling cloud  
Of smoke and dust, enraged Horses neigh,  
Men groan and gush out blood; here quivering lie  
Bemangled limbs, there heads are bowled along  
By their falls force, here trunked bodies slung  
And trampled on, there trailed guts are made  
Their gyves and chains that would not else be stayed  
From acts of mischief, and thus everywhere  
In baleful dress stern horror doth appear.  
But then the devastations of all sorts  
In times of war, demolishing of Forts,  
Razing of Castles, burning of whole Towns,  
Wasteful incursions into fruitful grounds,  
Rapines, taxations, turning out o'th' door  
Whole families; these, and a thousand more  
Such wicked mischiefs, heap up a degree  
Of high and most abhorred cruelty.  
Are not those Princes highly then to blame,  
Who (whilst at prouder eminence they aim,  
Or else stoop down to sordid avarice,  
Envy or Lust, or some such wretched vice)  
Whole Nations do embroil, whole kingdoms shake  
With the tempestuous tumults which they make,  
Little regarding what their fury spends  
Of blood or treasure, so they gain their ends?  
A letters interception, an address  
T' a fo●reign Prince on private business,  
A jest, a prying int' affairs of State,  
Hath sometimes proved an instrument of fate  
To raise prodigious mischiefs that have shed  
Much blood, and mighty kingdoms ruined.  
Some such occasions (as 'tis said) did stir  
Up that grim Lion, the stout Swethlander,  
To pass int' Germany, and range for prey  
Beyond the bounds of vast Hercynia,  
Leaving a tract of blood, a print of woe,  
Such as that wretched Nation long will show,  
Though to wash off so terrible a stain,  
The Baltic waters were all spent in rain.  
The world's malignity in this appears  
More, that whereas in some late bleeding years  
Men of high fortunes were by th' armed tout  
Pulled from their perches, now they go about  
(Mad with revengeful thoughts) to do some right  
Unto themselves by their undoing quite  
Of their weak vassals; just as some that are  
Inflamed with choler, do but little care  
Whom they assault, so that thereby they vent  
That angry heat that doth their heart's torment.  
Poor wretched starvelings that as thinly look  
As half-pined prisoners, men whom wars have shook  
Almost no rags, and brought as low as dust,  
Must in their rents be only raised, and must  
(As they have worn their flesh away) their blood  
In some sort lose, I mean all livelihood:  
When now with careful heads, and painful hands  
They cannot answer to the hard demands  
Of pitriless oppressors, straight they must  
(As noisome creatures) from their homes be thrust,  
But first he stripped almost as bare as those  
That Worms or Haddocks feed, their goods must lose,  
Of ruined families the doleful moans,  
That well might soften the Ceraunian stones,  
No more regarded are then children's cries,  
That were to Moloch burned in sacrifice.  
Mine eyes have been the weeping witnesses  
Of a great Landlords greater wickedness,  
That did depopulate a town, and sent  
Poor people int' a kind of banishment,  
That in their stead he might some gamesome dear  
Empark, and make more room for pleasure there.  
If this oppressor that set light by sin,  
Had as Actaeox metamorphosed been  
Into an Hart, and by his own hounds rent  
In pieces, just had been his punishment,  
And much more mirth had from his branched pate  
Been raised, than sorrow from his bloody fate.  
All things by Nature equally are free,  
And nothing private; but if industry,  
Conquest, or better hap, hath men endowed  
With riches, must they needs grow fierce and proud,  
And rush down all (like torrents) in their way?  
This is to bear a rude impetuous sway  
As beasts do in the woods, where force prevails,  
And still the strong the weaker sort assails.  
Those that with biggest words of manhood boats,  
Most brutish are in deeds, and tainted most  
With inhumanity, a vice that waits  
Most frequently on gallant great estates,  
When through high diet, softness, nicety,  
Fastidious pride, and quainter luxury,  
Men are rob apt to break into a flame  
Of rage, which reason knows not how to tame.  
A small neglect, a hum, a nod, a wry  
Look, a knit brow, or somewhat bold reply,  
Hath sometimes set such persons in a heat;  
And then like raging Hercules they beat  
All in their way; their servants then, their wives,  
And children run to save their threatened lives,  
And scape the storm that blusters here and there,  
And fiercely flashing shows what claps are near.  
Surely that Barber had forgot to say  
His prayers right, who trimming th' other day  
A roaring Knight, and being busy about  
Washing his bristled chin and burnished snout,  
(Whereon the water made a shining show  
Like dew upon a Rose, and dropped off so  
When it was shaken) could not well forbear  
Laughter, but slily did begin to fleer;  
which th' other noting (with a face all full  
Of suds, and signs of fury) forth did pull  
His deadly weapon, quickly put to flight  
The snapping youth, and then began to fight  
with's brushes, basons, glasses; rudely made  
Such spoil, that the poor Shaver was afraid  
To look into his shop again, and see  
The wild effects of barbarous tyranny.  
When men stop not th' eruptions of their ire,  
But give free way to passionate desire,  
And with its hasty torrent run along,  
They thus themselves befool, and others wrong.  
If all that are enraged to cruelty  
As was Daedalian, were transformed (as he)  
To ravenotts Hawks, the harpies could not to  
Arcadian Phineus more annoyance do,  
Than birds of prey would pester us: poor Doves  
(Th' emblems of innocence and gentle loves)  
Would find as little rest as that which flew  
From Noah's Ark before the flood withdrew.   

Satire XX. Against Discontentedness.  
THe most versatile Planet Mercury,  
Shows not in's wanderings more deformity  
Than man does in his courses; the same men  
With the same minds will scarce appear again,  
But as the force of some strange accident  
Shall form them, strangely will themselves present,  
And on this Theatre, as Chance shall sway,  
And on their humours work, their parts will play.  
Few to themselves prefix a nobler end,  
And to that fair mark their endeavours bend,  
But live by chance as Gamesters throw their dice,  
And with as many curses due to vice.  
The most are most like to Augustus, who  
So various was that none his mind could know,  
Was so volatile that no object could  
Fix him, no knot the changeful Proteus hold.  
From honest purposes so soon they part,  
And from the bent of resolution start,  
That some men hence (too bold to give the lie  
To doctrines fetched from sage Antiquity)  
Two several souls to every man assign;  
Whereof the one, celestial and divine,  
To virtue leads him; th' other, vile and lewd,  
Seeks to implunge him int' all turpitude;  
And thus by turns they rule, as some did say,  
That Jove and Caesar did divide their sway.  
Then good and evil Angels would have less  
To do: howsoever, men's wondrous giddiness,  
And strange inconstancy hereby appears,  
Suddenly stopping in their hottest careers.  
Show me the man that with his present state  
Sits down content, and says he's fortunate,  
Keeping at home the strength of his desire;  
And (as the times chief jewel) most admire  
His worth I shall, and honour him no less  
Then if he were th' Athenian Socrates.  
But men of such composed spirits are  
As birds of Paradise (in Europe) rare;  
An age yields few of them. For either vain  
Ambition, or the greedy thirst of gain,  
Or the fair falsehood of some other vice  
Men's minds to run hew hazards doth entice,  
And renders them as restless as the stone  
Of Sisyphus, that's still in motion.  
Who knew not Dromeus, that was civilly  
Amongst us bred at th' University,  
And thence in haste to Italy would go,  
To see how there the muse's Springs did flow,  
Intending in some College there to lead  
His life, and ne'er on's native ground to tread?  
Yet ere the Sun had measured out a year,  
We found him canvasing the volumes here  
Of Barthol and Justinian, bent to ply  
The Civil Law with utmost industry,  
And try what fortunes would thereon ensue,  
What (lawful) benefit would thence accrue.  
But finding matter of more credit there  
Then profit, shortly he began to steer  
A more divine course, did his mind apply  
To the deep Doctrines of Theology,  
Launched into Calvin, Marlorat, and some  
Such Writers, thence did to the schoolmen come  
And ancient Fathers, boldly then did beat  
The pulpit, and the Babylonians thereat.  
But when some wry-looked Sectaries o' th' Town  
Dared to oppose him, and would preach him down,  
Gelded his tithes, and played him much foul play,  
Straight from the Hobbinols he summed away  
T' another country, where he did profess  
That knowledge which had made Hippocrates  
And Galen famous, gave Receipts as he  
Had Doctrines dealt and Uses formerly;  
Lived by diseases as a wandering fire  
Is fed with fumes, did to great same aspire  
By curing others; but will ne'er (I guess)  
Soberly cure his own light giddiness.  
The most men are like some saint Mariners,  
Who, cause the winds and waters (making wars)  
Turmoil their vessels, rather had their gain  
Forego, then stand to th' mercy of the main.  
Their troubles are like weighty Aetna thrown  
Upon Typhoeas, causing them to groan,  
And oft change posture, as the Poets make  
The weary Giants do, when th' earth doth quake.  
Mortals, where is the armour of your souls,  
Patience I mean? that all the force controls  
Of adverse fortune, doth the edge rebate  
Of sharpest sorrow, triumphs over fate,  
Making men firm in what they do profess,  
And true to all well-grounded purposes;  
Perceive you not (fools that you are) that by  
Impatient fretting you the frame destroy  
Of placid thoughts, pervert the ordered state  
Of your affairs, do mainly aggravate  
Afflictive crosses that were else but light,  
And (wildly wandering in a stormy night  
Of cloudy passions) know not where to find  
Such happiness as crowns a quiet mind?  
As the years different seasons wheel about  
Alternately, so may you find (no doubt)  
A revolution in sly fortune's ways,  
Like that of Times: those whom she erst did raise  
To dignity, ere long will down be sent,  
And names, now base, will then be eminent.  
As than experienced Husbandmen, although  
They see their late-sown fields oppress with snow,  
And threatened with sharp storms, do not despair,  
But hope to find their labour, cost and care  
Amply requited with a weighty crop:  
So men of wisdom, though they meet a stop  
In their affairs, will least discouraged be,  
But make their way with cheerful industry.  
You that deem want the greatest cause of woe,  
Tell me why those that in rich plenty flow,  
Magnificoes and grandees, are as far  
At distance from content, as peace from war?  
Why that great Prince that owned the Indies, and  
Did likewise Spain and Portugal command,  
Could not fix there, but in a troubled mood  
Sent his Armado o'er the raging flood  
To seize on England: tell me why the Turk  
Sets th' Europaeans almost all on work  
To keep him back, who else with powerful hands  
Would ruin more than all th' Iberian Bands.  
Is't not because a great man's appetite  
Widens with wealth and power, and makes him quite  
Forget all moderation, quite foregone  
All bounds, like rivers when they overflow  
The neighbouring grounds? There's no man here with us  
More rank in wealth then churlish Anodus,  
Whose Bills and Bonds lie smothered in his chest,  
Yet are of great Use, yield much Interest;  
His grounds are thronged with cattle, and with grain  
His Barns o'ercharged, ready to crack again;  
Nor wife nor child he owns that might require  
His pains, yet drudgest as for daily hire;  
Lays down a weary carcase every night,  
That dreams of thieves, and startles with affright:  
His diet's like himself, who still's his own  
Cook, in a kitchen (like the frozen Zone)  
Both cold and comfortless; in rags he goes,  
And shakes them with his coughing, whilst he throws  
Infection from his Lungs, which age and ill  
Viands with purulent diseases fill.  
Thus lives he vassalled to his wealth, and thus  
Proves no less wretched than ridiculous,  
A poor man's curse, a rich man's scorn, a mere  
Stranger to what true wisdom holds most dear,  
Sweet contentation, that (like Hermes wand)  
Charms querulous cares, and silence doth command.  
O Avarice, how dost thou tyrannize  
On slavish worldlings! mak'st them early rise.  
And ply their wretched drudgery till night,  
Then plot, and cark, and toss, and wake (in spite  
Of Morpheus;) (Sendest them over wrackful Seas,  
Steep mountains, roughest forests, foulest ways,  
Enur'st their limbs to stormy winters cold,  
And dusty summer's heat, thus mak'st them old  
In greener years, through troubles, sorrows, pains,  
That plague them whilst they scratch for sordid gains.  
Old frowning Saturn, whose voracity  
Was such that he devoured his progeny,  
Should not be leaden-heeled, so wondrous slow,  
But rather nimble Mercury outgo,  
If he did well and signally express  
(As some would have him) this vile greediness  
Of gathering wealth, that's ever every way  
Trudging and toiling, never at a stay,  
Can find no Centre where to rest at all,  
So much its motion seems unnatural.  
Some through a dull and languid sluggishness  
Leave hold of what they lately did profess,  
And fall on new quests, seek more pleasing ways;  
Rig up their vessels for unwonted Seas,  
Wherein nor working billows must there be;  
Nor quicksands, but a calm security.  
Fain would they (who can blame them for't?) obtain  
Riches, yet would not purchase them with pain,  
But (as it were) upon blind Fortune steal,  
And in their earnest suit with ease prevail,  
Strike into wealth as Eels do into weeds  
Or mud, and prove as slippery in their deeds.  
Have their light wits took wing, and flown so far,  
That they see not how like a block or bar  
In their preferments way dull slotli doth lie,  
All good things being the fruits of industry?  
'Tis certain that by mighty nature's Laws  
The whole world works, and does by motion cause  
Daily and great effects; the Spheres above  
Still turn, and so the fiery Orb do move;  
The air's still flitting as the wind impels;  
The Ocean too is tossed, and sinks and swells;  
Yea, th' earth itself, the dullest element,  
Still labours in her womb, and oft doth vent.  
Sad sighs and groans in her concussions: then  
Is it not most irregular that men  
Should snort in ease, and settle into mud,  
Contributing no share to human good,  
But like vile weeds appearing, apt to spoil  
The fruits o' th' earth, and vitiate the soil?  
That which most frequently conspires with fate  
To break men's rest, and makes them estuate,  
And pine with fretting, is their cankered spite,  
Conceived at some that prosper in their sight,  
And had the happiness t' obtain the same,  
Friendship, or fortunes, at which these did aim.  
These whom this passion doth bestorm, in vain  
Look for calm days; expect they rather pain  
Of inward wounds, such as with horrid scourge  
The Furies do inflict, or Fates do urge  
In their just anger's height, when down they throw  
Aspiring fools, and leave them deep in woe.  
Once in the sunshine of a royal Court  
Did Alpert live, and in a gallant sort,  
Beloved of Nobles, with his Prince in grace,  
And by him trusted in an honoured place,  
By means whereof he might the businesses  
Of friends promote, of enemies repress;  
As a Court-Meteor he appear●d, both bright  
And eminent: yet then, because he might  
Not as chief Favourite embosom be,  
He lost the fruit of such felicity,  
The sweets of honour and preferment soured,  
Wore clouds upon his forehead, frowned and ●owr'd,  
Grew big with envy and disdainful hate,  
Did boldly libel and calumniate  
Some that o'er-top him, in so vile a sort,  
That he became the ear-wig of the Court,  
With so much spiteful mischief vexed the brave  
Gallants, that all began to loathe the Knave;  
And as when men do in their bodies know  
Somewhat to lurk that may destructive grow,  
They speedily take care t' expel the same:  
So 't was decreed to put to public shame  
This make bate, by his present banishment  
From that high Stage of honour; whence he went  
Like a cowed Cock to's dunghill, where he drops,  
Let's fall his crest, and to misfortune stoops.  
Such miscreants consider not what small  
Reason they have to spew out so much gall  
'Gainst their Superiors, and with so much spite  
To look upon their more-advanced height:  
They lest observe how full of care and pain  
Those are that up to high preferment strain.  
And then how servilely they must comply  
With Greatness, t' under-build their dignity,  
And make it (if 't were possible) to last,  
And stand in spite of envy's rudest blast.  
You that speak thunder, and from Crowns of Gold  
Shoot l'ghtning, which with terror we behold,  
I envy not th' elation of your state,  
On which so many urgent cares do wait,  
(Restless as Scylla's Dogs,) too sure to keep  
Your hearts from solace, and your eyes from sleep.  
Happy contentment is not tied to great  
Power or wealth, but finds a frequent seat  
'Mongst meaner fortunes, and more oft doth bless  
Poor shaded Cells then shining Palaces.  
He that from error strives t' emancipate  
His judgement, and the force doth moderate  
Of wilder passions, holds ●air virtue dear,  
And in one form of life keeps Conscience clear,  
At the low ebbs of Fortune neither chides,  
Nor yet runs riot with her swelling Tides;  
That man (I say) that does these manly things,  
Affects but little the big pomp of Kings,  
Their wealth, or potency, as having gained  
A state that Princes rarely have attained:  
His work is done, and well enjoy may he  
The fruit of wisdom, sweet tranquillity.  
THE END.