Your poets fhall be us'd like infidels,
And worst, the author of the Oxford bells:
Nor fhould we 'fcape the fentence, to depart,
E'en in our firft original, a cart.
No zealous brother there would want a ftone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan:
Religion, learning, wit, would be fuppreft,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, muft go down, 25
As chief fupporters of the triple crown ;
And Ariftotle's for deftruction ripe ;
Some fay, he call'd the foul an organ-pipe,
Which, by fome little help of derivation,
Shall then be prov'd a pipe of inspiration.
yet there be a few that take delight In that which reasonable men fhould write; To them alone we dedicate this night. The reft may fatisfy their curious itch, With city-gazettes, or fome factious fpeech, 5 Or whate'er libel, for the public good,
Stirs up the fhrove-tide crew to fire and blood.
Remove your benches, you apoftate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the
Or fee what's worfe, the devil and the
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, refemble the diftracted
Noife, madnefs, all unreasonable things,
That strike at fenfe, as rebels do at kings.
The style of forty-one our poets write,
And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.
Such cenfures our mistaking audience make,
That 'tis almoft grown fcandalous to take.
They talk of fevers that infect the brains;
But nonfenfe is the new difeafe that reigns.
Weak ftomachs, with a long difeafe oppreft,
Cannot the cordials of ftrong wit digeft.
Therefore thin nourishment of farce
Decoctions of a barley-water muse:
A meal of tragedy would make ye
Unless it were a very tender chick.
Some scenes in fippets would be worth our time;
go down; fome love that's poach'd
We must lie down, and, after all our coft,
Keep holiday, like watermen in froft;
While you turn players on the world's great stage,
And act yourselves the farce of your own age.
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1681.
THE fam'd Italian mufe, whofe rhimes ad
Orlando and the Paladins of France,
Records, that, when our wit and fenfe is flown,
"Tis lodg'd within the circle of the moon,
In earthen jars, which one, who thither foar'd, s
Set to his nose, snuff'd up,
and was reftor'd.
Whate'er the story be, the moral's true;
The wit we loft in town, we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with fober fenfe. 10
When London votes with Southwark's disagree,
Here
may they find their long-loft loyalty.
Here busy fenates, to the old cause inclin'd,
May fnuff the votes their fellows left behind:
Your country neighbours, when their grain
grows dear,
May come, and find their laft provifion here:
Whereas we cannot much lament our lofs,
Who neither carry'd back, nor brought one
crofs.
We look'd what representatives would bring ;
But they help'd us, juft as they did the king.
Yet we defpair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyl's books to thofe who know their
And though the firft was facrific'd before,
Thefe volumes doubly will the price reftore.
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whofe undaunted Mufe, with loyal rage,
Has never fpar'd the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forc'd to turn his fatire into praise.
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