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Do burn quite out, or wear away
Their snuffs upon the edge of day?
Whether the sea increase, or waste,
And, if it do, how long 'twill last?
Or, if the Sun approaches near
The Earth, how soon it will be there?
These were their learned speculations,
And all their constant occupations,
To measure wind, and weigh the air,
And turn a circle to a square;
To make a powder of the Sun,

By which all doctors should b' undone;
To find the north-west passage out,
Although the furthest way about;
If chymists from a rose's ashes
Can raise the rose itself in glasses?
Whether the line of incidence
Rise from the object or the sense;
To stew th' elixir in a bath
Of hope, credulity, and faith;
To explicate, by subtle hints,
The grain of diamonds and flints,
And in the braying of an ass
Find out the treble and the bass;
If mares neigh alto, and a cow
A double diapason lowe-

REPARTEES' BETWEEN CAT AND PUSS

AT A CATERWAULING.

IN THE MODERN HEROIC WAY.

I was about the middle age of night,

When half the Earth stood in the other's light,
And Sleep, Death's brother, yet a friend to life,
Gave weary'd Nature a restorative;
When puss, wrapt warm in his own native furs,
Dreamt soundly of as soft and warm amours;
Of making gallantry in gutter-tiles,
And sporting on delightful faggot-piles;
Of bolting out of bushes in the dark,
As ladies use at midnight in the Park;
Or seeking in tall garrets an alcove,
For assignations in th' affairs of love.

At once his passion was both faise and true,
And the more false, the more in earnest grew.
He fancy'd that he heard those amorous charms
That us'd to summon him to soft alarms,
To which he always brought an equal flame,
To fight a rival, or to court a dame;
And, as in dreams love's raptures are more taking
Than all their actual enjoyments waking,
His amorous passion grew to that extreme,
His dream itself awak'd him from his dream.
Thought he, "What place is this? or whither art
Thou vanish'd from me, mistress of my heart?
But now I had her in this very place,
Here, fast imprison'd in my glad embrace,
And, while my joys beyond themselves were rapt,
I know not how, nor whither, thou 'rt escap'd:
Stay, and I'll follow thee"-With that he leapt
Up from the lazy conch on which he slept,

This poem is a satirical banter upon those heroic plays which were so much in vogue at the time our author lived; the dialogues of which, aving what they called heroic love for their sub

And, wing'd with passion, through his known purlieu,
Swift as an arrow from a bow, he flew,
Nor stopp'd until his fire had him convey'd
Where many an assignation he 'ad enjoy'd;
Where finding, what he sought, a mutual flame,
That long had stay'd and call'd before he came,
Impatient of delay, without one word,

To lose no further time, he fell aboard,
But grip'd so hard, he wounded what he lov'd,
While she, in anger, thus his heat reprov'd.

C. Forbear, foul ravisher, this rude address;
Canst thou, at once, both injure and caress?

P. Thou hast bewitch'd me with thy powerful charms,

And I, by drawing blood, would cure my harms. C. He that does love would set his heart a-tilt, Ere one drop of his lady's should be spilt.

P. Your wounds are but without, and mine

within;

You wound my heart, and I but prick your skin; And, while your eyes pierce deeper than my claws, You blame th' effect, of which you are the cause.

C. How could my guiltless eyes your heart invade, Had it not first been by your own betray'd? Hence 'tis my greatest crime has only been (Not in mine eyes, but your's) in being seen. P. I hurt to love, but do not love to hurt. C. That's worse than making cruelty a sport. P. Pain is the foil of pleasure and delight, That sets it off to a more noble height.

C. He buys his pleasure at a rate too vain, That takes it up beforehand of his pain.

P. Pain is more dear than pleasure when 'tis past.
C. But grows intolerable if it last.

P. Love is too full of honour to regard
What it enjoys, but suffers as reward.
What knight durst ever own a lover's name,
That had not been half murder'd by his flame,
Or lady, that had never lain at stake,
To death, or force of rivals, for his sake?

C. When love does meet with injury and pain, Disdain 's the only med'cine for disdain.

P. At once I'm happy, and unhappy too,
In being pleas'd, and in displeasing you.

C. Preposterous way of pleasure and of love,
That contrary to its own end would move!
'Tis rather hate, that covets to destroy;
Love's business is to love, and to enjoy.

P. Enjoying and destroying are all one,
As flames destroy that which they feed upon.
C. He never lov'd at any generous rate,
That in th' enjoyment found his flame abate,
As wine (the friend of love) is wont to make
The thirst more violent it pretends to slake,
So should fruition do the lover's fire,
Instead of lessening, inflame desire.

P. What greater proof that passion does transport,
When what I would die for I'm fore'd to hurt?
C. Death among lovers is a thing despis'd,
And far below a sullen humour priz'd,
That is more scorn'd and rail'd at than the gods,
When they are cross'd in love, or fall at odds:
But since you understand not what you do,
I am the judge of what I feel, not you.

ject, are carried on exactly in this strain, as any one may perceive that will consult the dramatic pieces of Dryden, Settle, and others,

TO THE HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ESQ.

P. Passion begins indifferent to prove, When love considers any thing but love.

C. The darts of love, like lightning, wound within,
And, though they pierce it, never hurt the skin;
They leave no marks behind them where they fly,
Though through the tenderest part of all, the eye;
But your sharp claws have left enough to shew
How tender I have been, how cruel you.

P. Pleasure is pain; for when it is enjoy'd,
All it could wish for was but to b' allay'd.
C. Force is a rugged way of making love.
P. What you like best, you always disapprove.
C. He that will wrong his love, will not be nice,
T'excuse the wrong he does, to wrong her twice.
P. Nothing is wrong but that which is ill meant.
C. Wounds are ill cur'd with a good intent.
P. When you mistake that for an injury
I never meant, you do the wrong, not Ï.

C, You do not feel yourself the pain you give;
But 'tis not that alone for which I grieve;
But 'tis your want of passion that I blame,
That can be cruel where you own a flame
P. 'Tis you are guilty of that cruelty,
Which you at once outdo and blame in me;
For, while you stifle and inflame desire,
You burn, and starve me, in the self-same fire.
C. It is not I, but you, that do the hurt,
Who wound yourself, and then accuse me for 't;
As thieves, that rob themselves 'twixt sun and sun,
Make others pay for what themselves have done.

TO THE

197

But is all instant, your eternal Muse
All ages can to any one reduce.
Then why should you, whose miracle of art
Can life at pleasure to the dead impart,
Trouble in vain your better-busied head
T'observe what time they liv'd in, or were dead?
For, since you have such arbitrary power,
It were defect in judgment to go lower,
Or stoop to things so pitifully lewd,
As use to take the vulgar latitude.

There's no man fit to read what you have writ,
That holds not some proportion with your wit;
As light can no way but by light appear,
He must bring sense that understands it here.

A PALINODE
TO THE

HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ES2.

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE POEM OF THE
BRITISH PRINCES.

It is your pardon, sir, for which my Muse
Thrice humbly thus, in form of paper, sues;
For, having felt the dead weight of your wit,
She comes to ask forgiveness, and submit;
Is sorry for her faults, and, while I write,
Mourns in the black, does penance in the white t
But such is her belief in your just candour,
She hopes you will not so misunderstand her,
To wrest her harmless meaning to the sense
Of silly emulation or offence.

HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ES2. No: your sufficient wit does still declare

SIR,

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE POEM OF THE
BRITISH PRINCES'.

You have oblig'd the British nation more
Than all their bards could ever do before,
And, at your own charge, monuments more hard
Than brass or marble to their fame have rear'd:
For, as all warlike nations take delight
To hear how brave their ancestors could fight,
You have advanc'd to wonder their renown,
And no less virtuously improv'd your own:
For 'twill be doubted whether you do write,
Or they have acted, at a nobler height.
You of their ancient princes have retriev'd
More than the ages knew in which they liv'd;
Describ'd their customs and their rites anew,
Better than all their Druids ever knew;
Unriddled their dark oracles as well
As those themselves that made them could foretell:
For as the Britons long have hop'd, in vain,
Arthur would come to govern them again,
You have fulfill'd their prophecy alone,
And in this poem plac'd him on his throne.
Such magic power has your prodigious pen,
To raise the dead, and give new life to men;
Make rival princes meet in arms and love,
Whom distant ages did so far remove;
For as eternity has neither past
Nor future (authors say) nor first nor last,

Most of the celebrated wits in Charles the
Second's reign addressed this gentleman, in a ban-
tering way, upon his poem called The British
Princes, and, among the rest, Butler.

Itself too amply, they are mad that dare
So vain and senseless a presumption own,
To yoke your vast parts in comparison:
And yet you might have thought upon a way
T' instruct us how you 'd have us to obey,
And not command our praises, and then blame
All that 's too great or little for your fame:
For who could choose but err, without some trick
To take your elevation to a nick?
As he that was desir'd upon occasion,
To make the mayor of London an oration,
Desir'd his lordship's favour, that he might
Take measure of his mouth to fit it right;
So, had you sent a scantling of your wit,
You might have blam'd us if it did not fit;
But 'tis not just t' impose, and then cry down
All that 's unequal to your huge renown;
For he that writes below your vast desert,
Betrays his own, and not your want of art.
Praise, like a robe of state, should not sit close
To th' person 'tis made for, but wide and loose;
Derives its comeliness from being unfit,
And such have been our praises of your wit;
Which is so extraordinary, no height
Of fancy but your own can do it right;
Witness those glorious poems you have writ,
With equal judgment, learning, art, and wit,
And those stupendious discoveries

You 've lately made of wonders in the skies:
For who, but from yourself, did ever hear
The sphere of atoms was the atmosphere?
Who ever shut those stragglers in a room,
Or put a circle about vacuum?
What should confine those undetermin'd crowds,
And yet extend no further than the clouds?

198

BUTLER'S POEMS.

Who ever could have thought, but you alone,
A sign and an ascendant were all one?
Or how 'tis possible the Moon should shrowd
Her face, to peep at Mars behind a cloud,
Since clouds below are so far distant plac'd,
They cannot hinder her from being barefac'd?
Who ever did a language so enrich,
To scorn all little particles of speech?
For though they make the sense clear, yet they're
To be a scurvy hindrance to the sound;
Therefore you wisely scorn your style to humble,
Or for the sense's sake to wave the rumble.
Had Homer known this art, he 'ad ne'er been fain
To use so many particles in vain,

[found

That to no purpose serve, but (as he haps
To want a syllable) to fill up gaps.
You justly coin new verbs, to pay for those
Which in construction you o'ersee and lose;
And by this art do Priscian no wrong
When you break 's head, for 'tis as broad as long.
These are your own discoveries, which none
But such a Muse as your's could hit upon,
That can,
in spite of laws of art, or rules,
Make things more intricate than all the schools:
For what have laws of art to do with you,
More than the laws with honest men and true?
He that's a prince in poetry should strive
To cry them down by his prerogative,
And not submit to that which has no force
But o'er delinquents and inferiors.
Your poems will endure to be try'd

I' th' fire, like gold, and come forth purify'd;
Can only to eternity pretend,

For they were never writ to any end.
All other books bear an uncertain rate,

But those you write are always sold by weight;
Each word and syllable brought to the scale,
And valued to a scruple in the sale:

For when the paper 's charg'd with your rich wit,
'Tis for all purposes and uses fit,

Has an abstersive virtue to make clean
Whatever Nature made in man obscene.
Boys find, b' experiment, no paper-kite,
Without your verse, can make a noble flight.
It keeps our spice and aromatics sweet;
In Paris they perfume their rooms with it:
For burning but one leaf of your's, they say,
Drives all their stinks and nastiness away.
Cooks keep their pies from burning with you wit,
Their pigs and geese from scorching on the spit;
And vintners find their wines are ne'er the worse,
When arsenic's only wrapt up in the verse.
These are the great performances that raise
Your mighty parts above all reach of praise,
And give us only leave t' admire your worth,
For no man, but yourself, can set it forth,
Whose wondrous power 's so generally known,
Fame is the echo, and her voice your own.

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Had your's been less, all helps had been in vain,
And thrown away, though on a less sick brain;
But you were so far from receiving hurt,
You grew improv'd, and much the better for 't.
As when th' Arabian bird does sacrifice,
And burn himself in his own country's spice,
A maggot first breeds in his pregnant urn,
Which after does to a young phoenix turn:
Did life renew'd and vigorous youth acquire;
So your hot brain, burnt in its native fire,
And with so much advantage, some have guest,
Your after-wit is like to be your best,

And now expect far greater matters of ye
Than the bought Cooper's Hill, or borrow'd Sophy;
Such as your Tully lately dress'd in verse,
Like those he made himself, or not much worse;
And Seneca's dry sand unmix'd with lime,

Such as you cheat the king with, botch'd in rhyme.
Nor were your morals less improv'd, all pride
And that ungovern'd outrage, that was wont
And native insolence quite laid aside;
All, that you durst with safety, to affront.
No China cupboard rudely overthrown,
Nor lady tipp'd, by being accosted, down;
No poet jeer'd, for scribbleing amiss,
With verses forty times more lewd than his :
Nor did your crutch give battle to your duns,
And hold it out, where you had built a sconce ;
Nor furiously laid orange-wench aboard,
For asking what in fruit and love you 'ad scor'd;
But all civility and complacence,

More than you ever us'd before or since.
Beside, you never over-reach'd the king
One farthing, all the while, in reckoning,
Nor brought in false account, with little tricks,
Of passing broken rubbish for whole bricks;
False mustering of workmen by the day,
Deduction out of wages, and dead pay
For those that never liv'd; all which did come,
By thrifty management, to no small sum.
You pull'd no lodgings down, to build them worse,
Nor repair'd others, to repair your purse,
As you were wont, till all you built appear'd
Like that Amphion with his fiddle rear'd:
For had the stones, like his, charm'd by your verse,
Built up themselves, they could not have done worse:
And sure, when first you ventur'd to survey,
You did design to do 't no other way.

All this was done before those days began
In which you were a wise and happy man:
For who e'er liv'd in such a paradise,
Until fresh straw and darkness op'd your eyes?
Who ever greater treasure could command,
Had nobler palaces, and richer land,
Than you had then, who could raise sums as vast,
As all the cheats of a Dutch war could waste,
Or all those practis'd upon public money?
For nothing, but your cure, could have undone ye.

If what temptuous a manner, the character of a poet so much esteemed as sir John Denham was. he charges him with be true, there is, indeed, some, room for satre; but still there is such a spirit of bitterness runs through the whole, besides the cruelty of ridiculing an infirmity of this nature, as can be accounted for by nothing but some personal quarrel or disgust. How far this weakness may carry the greatest geniuses, we have a proof in what Pope has written of Addison.

For ever are you bound to curse those quacks
That undertook to cure your happy cracks;
For, though no art can ever make them sound,
The tampering cost you threescore thousand pound.
How high might you have liv'd, and play'd, and lost,
Yet been no more undone by being choust,
Nor forc'd upon the king's account to lay
All that, in serving him, you lost at play!
For nothing but your brain was ever found
To suffer sequestration, and compound.
Yet you 'ave an imposition laid on brick,
For all you then laid out at Beast or Gleek;
And when you 've rais'd a sum, straight let it fly,
By understanding low, and venturing high;
Until you have reduc'd it down to tick,

And then recruit again from lime and brick.

UPON CRITICS,

Are qualify'd to be destroy'd by Fate,
For other mortals to take warning at.
As if the antique laws of tragedy
Did with our own municipal agree,
And serv'd, like cobwebs, but t' ensnare the
weak,

And give diversion to the great to break;
To make a less delinquent to be brought
To answer for a greater person's fault,
And suffer all the worst the worst approver
Can, to excuse and save himself, discover.
No longer shall dramatics be confin'd
To draw true images of all mankind;
To punish in effigie criminals,
Reprieve the innocent, and hang the false;
But a club-law to execute and kill,
For nothing, whomsoe'er they please, at will,
To terrify spectators from committing

The crimes they did, and suffer'd for, unwitting.
These are the reformations of the stage,
Like other reformations of the age,

WHO JUDGE OF MODERN PLAYS PRECISELY BY THE RULES On purpose to destroy all wit and sense,

OF THE ANCIENTS'.

WHOEVER will regard poetic fury,
When it is once found ideot by a jury,
And every pert and arbitrary fool
Can all poetic licence over-rule;
Assume a barbarous tyranny, to handle

The Muses worse than Ostrogoth and Vandal;
Make them submit to verdict and report,
And stand or fall to th' orders of a court?
Much less be sentenc'd by the arbitrary
Proceedings of a witless plagiary,
That forges old records and ordinances
Against the right and property of fancies,

More false and nice than weighing of the weather,
To th' hundredth atom of the lightest feather,
Or measuring of air upon Parnassus,

With cylinders of Torricellian glasses;
Reduce all tragedy, by rules of art,
Back to its antique theatre, a cart,

As th' other did all law and conscience;
No better than the laws of British plays,
Confirm'd in th' ancient good king Howell's days;
Who made a general council regulate
Men's catching women by the-you know what,
And set down in the rubric at what time
It should be counted legal, when a crime;
Declare when 'twas, and when 'twas not a sin,
And on what days it went out or came in.

An English poet should be try'd b' his peers,
And not by pedants and philosophers,
Incompetent to judge poetic fury,
As butchers are forbid to b' of a jury;
Besides the most intolerable wrong
To try their matters in a foreign tongue,
By foreign jurymen, like Sophocles,
Or tales, falser than Euripides;

When not an English native dares appear
To be a witness for the prisoner;

When all the laws they use t' arraign and try

And make them henceforth keep the beaten roads The innocent and wrong'd delinquent by,

Of reverend choruses and episodes;
Reform and regulate a puppet play,
According to the true and ancient way,
That not an actor shall presume to squeak,
Unless he have a licence for 't in Greek;
Nor Whittington henceforward sell his cat in
Plain vulgar English, without mewing Latin:
No pudding shall be suffer'd to be witty,
Unless it be in order to raise pity;
Nor Devil in the puppet-play b' allow'd
To roar and spit fire, but to fright the crowd,
Unless some god or demon chance t' have piques
Against an ancient family of Greeks;
That other men may tremble, and take warning,
How such a fatal progeny they 're born in ;
For none but such for tragedy are fitted,
That have been ruin'd only to be pity'd:
And only those held proper to deter,
Who 've had th' ill luck against their wills to err.
Whence only such as are of middling sizes,
Between morality and venial vices,

This warm invective was very probably occasioned by Mr. Rymer, historiographer to Charles II. who censured three tragedies of Beaumont's and Fletcher's. The cold, severe critic may perhaps

Were made b' a foreign lawyer and his pupils,
To put an end to all poetic scruples,
And, by th' advice of virtuosi Tuscans,

Determin'd all the doubts of socks and buskins;
Gave judgment on all past and future plays,
As is apparent by Speroni's case,
Which Lope Vega first began to steal,
And after him the French filou Corneille;
And since our English plagiaries nim
And steal their far-fet criticisms from him,
And, by an action falsely laid of trover,
The lumber for their proper goods recover,
Enough to furnish all the lewd impeachers
Of witty Beaumont's poetry and Fletcher's;
Who, for a few misprisions of wit,

Are charg'd by those who ten times worse commit;
And, for misjudging some unhappy scenes,
Are censur'd for 't with more unlucky sense;
When all their worst miscarriages delight,
And please more than the best that pedants
write.

find some few inaccuracies to censure in this composition; but the reader of taste will either overlook or pardon them for the sake of the spirit that runs through it.

PROLOGUE

TO THE

QUEEN OF ARRAGON,

ACTED BEFORE THE DUKE OF YORK, UPON HIS BIRTH-DAY.

SIR, while so many nations strive to pay
The tribute of their glories to this day,
That gave them earnest of so great a sum
Of glory (from your future acts) to come,
And which you have discharg'd at such a rate,
That all succeeding times must celebrate;
We, that subsist by your bright influence,
And have no life but what we own from thence,
Come humbly to present you, our own way,
With all we have, (beside our hearts) a play.
But, as devontest men can pay no more
To deities than what they gave before,
We bring you only what your great commands
Did rescue for us from engrossing hands,
That would have taken out administration
Of all departed poets' goods i' th' nation;
Or, like to lords of manors, seiz'd all plays
That come within their reach, as wefts and strays,
And claim'd a forfeiture of all past wit,
But that your justice put a stop to it.
'Twas well for us, who else must have been glad
T' admit of all who now write new and bad;
For, still the wickeder some authors write,
Others to write worse are encourag'd by 't;
And though those fierce inquisitors of wit,
The critics, spare no flesh that ever writ,
But, just as tooth-drawers, find, among the rout,
Their own teeth work in pulling others out;
So they, decrying all of all that write,
Think to erect a trade of judging by 't.
Small poetry, like other heresies,
By being persecuted multiplies;

But here they're like to fail of all pretence;
For he that writ this play is dead long since,
And not within their power; for bears are said
To spare those, that lie still and seem but dead.

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

TO THE DUTCHESS.

MADAM, the joys of this great day are due,
No less than to your royal lord, to you;
And, while three mighty kingdoms pay your part,
You have, what 's greater than them all, his
heart;

That heart that, when it was his country's guard,
The fury of two elements outdar'd,
And made a stubborn haughty enemy
The terrour of his dreadful conduct fly;
And yet you conquer'd it—and made your charms
Appear no less victorious than his arms;
For which you oft have triumph'd on this day,
And many more to come Heaven grant you may!
But, as great princes use, in solemn times
Of joy, to pardon all but heinous crimes,
If we have sinn'd without an ill intent,
And done below what really we meant,
We humbly ask your pardon for 't, and pray
You would forgive, in honour of the day.

UPON

PHILIP NYE'S THANKSGIVING BEARD

A BEARD is but the vizard of a face,
That Nature orders for no other place;
The fringe and tassel of a countenance,
That hides his person from another man's,
And, like the Roman habits of their youth,
Is never worn until his perfect growth;
A privilege no other creature has,
To wear a natural mask upon his face,
That shifts its likeness every day he wears,
To fit some other persons' characters,
And by its own mythology implies,
That men were born to live in some disguise.

This satisfy'd a reverend man, that clear'd
His disagreeing conscience by his beard.
He 'ad been preferr'd i' th' army, when the church
Was taken with a Why not? in the lurch;
When primate, metropolitan, and prelates,
Were turn'd to officers of horse and zealots,
From whom he held the most pluralities
Of contributions, donatives, and salaries;
Was held the chiefest of those spiritual trumpets,
That sounded charges to their fiercest combats;
But in the desperatest of defeats

Had never blown as opportune retreats,
Until the synod order'd his departure
To London, from his caterwauling quarter,
To sit among them, as he had been chosen,
And pass or null things at his own disposing:
Could clap up souls in limbo with a vote,
And for their fees discharge and let them out;
Which made some grandees bribe him with the place
Of holding-forth upon thanksgiving-days;
Whither the members, two and two abreast,
March'd to take in the spoils of all-the feast;
But by the way repeated the oh-hones
Of his wild Irish and chromatic tones;
His frequent and pathetic hums and haws,
He practis'd only t' animate the cause,
With which the sisters were so prepossest,
They could remember nothing of the rest.

As our poet has thought fit to bestow so many verses upon this trumpeter of sedition, it may, perhaps, be no thankless office to give the reader some further information about him, than what merely relates to his beard.-He was educated at Oxford, first in Brazen Nose College, and afterwards in Magdalen Hall; where, under the influence of a puritanical tutor, he received the first tincture of sedition and disgust to our ecclesiastical establishment. After taking his degrees, he went into orders, but soon left England to go and reside in Holland, where he was not very likely to lessen those prejudices which he had already imbibed. In the year 1640, he returned home, became a furious presbyterian, and a zealous stickler for the parlia ment; and was thought considerable enough, in his way, to be sent by his party into Scotland, to encourage and spirit-up the cause of the covenant; in defence of which he wrote several pamphlets. However, as his zeal arose from self-interest and ambition, when the independents began to have the ascendant, and power and profit ran in that channel, he faced about, and became a strenuous preacher on that side; and in this situation he was when he fell under the lash of Butler's satire.

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