Heaven for our fins this fummer has thought fit
To vifit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things in its way;
But those hot Monfieurs were too quick to stay :
Yet, to our coft, in that short time, we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
Th'Italian merry-andrews took their place,
And quite debauch'd the stage with lewd grimace:
Instead of wit, and humors, your delight
Was there to fee two hobby-horfes fight;
Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in,
And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.
For love you heard how amorous affes bray'd,
And cats in gutters gave their ferenade.
Nature was out of countenance, and each day
Some new-born monster shewn you for a play.
But when all fail'd, to strike the stage quite dumb,
Those wicked engines call'd machines are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are play'd,
And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid :
Art magic is for poetry profest;
And cats and dogs, and each obfcener beaft,
To which Ægyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worshipp'd now:
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth and Simon Magus of the town,
Fletcher's defpis'd, your Jonfon's out of fashion,
And wit the only drug in all the nation.
In this low ebb our wares to you are shown;
By you thofe ftaple authors worth is known;
For wit's a manufacture of your own.
When you, who only can, their scenes have prais'd, We'll boldly back, and say, their price is rais'd.
FT has our poet wish'd, this happy feat
Might prove his fading Mufe's last retreat :
I wonder'd at his wifh, but now I find
He fought for quiet, and content of mind
Which noifeful towne, and courts can never know,
And only in the fhades like laurels grow.
Youth, ere it fees the world, here ftudies reft,
And age returning thence concludes it best.
What wonder if we court that happiness
Yearly to fhare, which hourly you possess,
Teaching e'en you, while the vext world we show,
Your peace to value more, and better know?
"Tis all we can return for favors past,
Whose holy memory fhall ever laft,
For patronage from him whofe care prefides
Q'er every noble art, and every science guides:
Bathurst, a name the learn'd with reverence know,
And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe;
Whofe
age enjoys but what his youth deferv'd,
To rule those Muses whom before he ferv'd.
His learning, and untainted manners too,
We find, Athenians, are deriv'd to you:
Such antient hofpitality there reits
In yours, as dwelt in the firft Grecian breafts,
Whose kindness was religion to their guests.
Such modesty did to our fex appear,
As, had there been no laws, we need not fear,
Since each of you was our protector here.
Converse so chafte, and so strict virtue shown,
As might Apollo with the Mufes own.
Till our return, we must despair to find
Judges fo juft, fo knowing, and fo kind.
Ifcord, and plots, which have undone our age,
With the fame ruin have o'erwhelm'd the
Our house has fuffer'd in the common woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed,
And of our fifters, all the kinder-hearted,
To Edinburgh gone, or coach'd, or carted.
With bonny bluecap there they act all night
For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence
hight.
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean,
There with her fingle perfon fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decay'd,
Div'd here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty door-keepers of former time
There ftrut and swagger in heroic rhime.
Tack but a copper-lace to drugget fuit,
And there's a hero made without dispute :
And that, which was a capon's tail before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his fubjects, to exprefs the care
Of imitation, go, like Indians, bare
Lac'd linen there would be a dangerous thing;
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring;
The Scot, who wore it, would be chofen king.
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have feen a lewder tribe?
Teague has been here, and, to this learned pit,
With Irish action flander'd English wit:
You have beheld fuch barb'rous Macs appear,
As merited a fecond maffacre:
Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace,
And had their country ftamp'd upon their face.
When strolers durft presume to pick your purse,
We humbly thought our broken troop not worse.
How ill foe'er our action may deserve,
Oxford's a place where wit can never starve.
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