THE CHARACTER Of Wit's Squint-eyed Maid, Pasquil-makers'.  

WHat Puppy Plays are entering now the Stage?  
Is this the Golden, or the Iron age?  
What Planet now predomines in the Sky?  
Hath Sol's usher usurped Supremacy?  
Are all the rest quite banished the Throne?  
And she like Alexander reigns alone;  
Must all be ruled by her, and her blind Brat?  
Doth Mars now Spin; thrown by his Sword, and Hat?  
Hath Aristotle's Pen, and Maro's Quill,  
Parnassus left, to write on Venus-Hill;  
Are all the Muses gone, Urania's dead?  
Or are they all Sick of their Maidenhead?  
Forgetting their love Madrigals, and feign,  
Pasquil's, and Ballads that are most obscene:  
Mercurius Publicus the News book,  
The Protestant Mercury with a Squint look.  
Heraclitus Ridens, Tilting each one,  
Defending th' interest of Old Babylon,  
The Curate poor Soul now goes to the Streets,  
His Bibliotheque buys in their lose sheets.  
Nothing of volumes in Folio are sold,  
The Stationer's books moth eaten and old.   

What charming spells their giddy heads bewitch?  
Is it to make the Printer only rich?  
Or to Encourage Heteroclite Wrens,  
To spit the Spurious products of their Pens?  
Each Jester now who scarce his Grammar knows,  
Sets Pamphlets forth, and Satyrs blows.  
Nay with his Scribbling nails Scratches the Times,  
And barks like Bread-shaw that Hell's hound in rhymes.  
This World is full of a preposterous chat,  
Our English writers all are Transmigrate.  
In Pamphlet penners, and diurnal Scribes,  
Wanton Comedians, and foul Gypsy Tribes;  
Not like those brave Heroic sublime strains,  
That wrote the Caesar's, and their noble Reigns.  
Nor like those learned Poets so divine,  
That penned Mackduff, and famous Catiline.   

You Peddling, Petty, Saucy Scribblers leave  
You crop-eared, circumcised, antique slave.  
Forbear to fill the World with your clipped coin,  
Let Cesar, and his Interest alone.  
Our Saviour for example patterns laid,  
Tribute, and Homage unto him be paid.  
You nibbling fools, can you not feed on grass,  
But by't the rose, and Thistle, like the Ass?  
You strive with whirling round Vertigoes full,  
Reform the World to a Geneva Bull.   

Can you not earn a Sixpence to behold  
A precious Jewel of refined Gold.  
But you must raise a bold adventring blood  
To stealed with vengeance to your greedy head.  
Like (CRUEL WORMS) not only kick the Crown,  
But push the Prelates; pull the Mitre down.   

Is this the empiric of this Cankered age,  
The fluent phrases of this florid Stage?  
Is this the Dialect of our newest times,  
And language of your Poesy, and Rhymes:  
To cull a word from Amadis de gaul,  
And borrow another from Saint Paul;  
To Glean a Syllable both here and there,  
Gathered from Author's writings every where?  
In sentences cements them till they meet  
With bad connexion makes them up a sheet.  
Composes them in a fair formal book,  
But Thief's beware, and now about ye look.  
There comes a Search for stolen goods, and so  
You must to Newgate, or to Bridewell go,  
Jack Catch in end pleads for a snatch of those,  
Puts Hempen Spectacles upon their Nose.   

This is the method of the moddish times,  
Renews old Songs, Revives old rotten Rhymes.    

London Printed for W. Davis. 1681.