What should a Poet do? "Tis hard for one
To pleasure all the fools that would be fhown:
And yet not two in ten will pafs the town.
Moft coxcombs are not of the laughing kind;
More goes to make a fop, than fops can find. 15
Quack Maurus, though he never took degrees
In either of our universities;
Yet to be shown by fome kind wit he looks,
Because he play'd the fool, and writ three books.
But, if he would be worth a Poet's pen,
He must be more a fool, and write again:
For all the former fuftian stuff he wrote,
Was dead-born doggrel, or is quite forgot;
His man of Uz, ftript of his Hebrew robe,
Is juft the proverb, and As poor as Job.
One would have thought he could no longer
jog;
But Arthur was a level, Job's a bog.
There, though he crept, yet ftill he kept in fight;
But here, he founders in, and finks down right.
Had he prepar'd us, and been dull by rule, 30
Tobit had firft been turn'd to ridicule:
But our bold Briton, without fear or awe,
O'erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha;
Invades the Pfalms with rhymes, and leaves no
any Vandal Hopkins yet to come.
But when, if after all, this godly geer Is not fo fenfeless as it would appear;
Our mountebank has laid a deeper train,
His cant, like Merry Andrew's noble vein,
Cat-calls the fects to draw 'em in again.
At leisure hours, in epic fong he deals,
Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels,
Prescribes in hafte, and seldom kills by rule,
But rides triumphant between ftool and stool.
Well, let him go; 'tis yet too early day,
To get himself a place in farce or play. We know not by what name we should arraign him,
For no one category can contain him;
A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack,
Are load enough to break one ass's back: 50
At laft grown wanton, he prefum'd to write,
Traduc'd two kings, their kindness to requite;
One made the doctor, and one dubb'd the
PERHAPS the parfon stretch'd a point too
When with our Theatres he wag'd a war.
He tells you, that this very moral age
Receiv'd the firft infection from the stage.
But fure, a banish'd court, with lewdness fraught,
The feeds of open vice, returning, brought.
Thus lodg'd (as vice by great example thrives)
It firft debauch'd the daughters and the wives.
London, a fruitful foil, yet never bore
So plentiful a crop of horns before.
The Poets, who must live by courts, or starve,
Were proud fo good a government to ferve;
Dryden in this epilogue labours to throw the fault of the licentioufnefs of dramatic writers, which had been so severely cenfured by the Rev. Jeremy Collier, upon the example of a court returned from banishment, accompanied by all the vices and follies of foreign climates; and whom to please was the poet's business, as he wrote to eat. DERRICK.
And, mixing with buffoons and pimps prophane,
Tainted the Stage, for some small snip of gain.
For they, like harlots, under bawds profeft, 15
Took all the ungodly pains, and got the leaft.
Thus did the thriving malady prevail,
The court, its head, the Poets but the tail.
The fin was of our native growth, 'tis true;
The scandal of the fin was wholly new.
Miffes they were, but modeftly conceal'd;
Whitehall the naked Venus first reveal'd.
Who standing as at Cyprus, in her shrine,
The ftrumpet was ador'd with rites divine.
'Ere this, if faints had any fecret motion,
'Twas chamber-practice all, and clofe devotion.
I pafs the peccadillos of their time;
Nothing but open lewdnefs was a crime.
A monarch's blood was venial to the nation,
Compar'd with one foul act of fornication.
Now, they would filence us, and fhut the door,
That let in all the barefac'd vice before.
As for reforming us, which fome pretend,
That work in England is without an end :
Well may we change, but we shall never
mend.
Yet, if you can but bear the prefent Stage, We hope much better of the coming age. What would you fay, if we should first begin To ftop the trade of love behind the scene: Where actreffes make bold with married men?
For while abroad fo prodigal the dolt is,
Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is.
In fhort, we'll grow as moral as we can,
Save here and there a woman or a man:
But neither you, nor we, with all our pains, 45
Can make clean work; there will be fome re-
mains,
have ftill your Oates, and we our
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