Tell me, ye powers, why should vain man pursue,
With endless toil, each object that is new,
And for the feeming substance leave the true ?
Why should he quit for hopes his certain good,
And loath the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes be,
Tost and tempestuous, like our ambient sea ?
Must still our weather and our wills agree?
Without our blood our liberties we have :
Who that is free would fight to be a flave?
Or, what can wars to after-times assure,
Of which our present age is not secure ?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but t'enjoy the blessings of his reign.
Our land's an Eden, and the main's our fence,
While we preferve our state of innocence:
That loft, then beasts their brutal force employ,
And first their lord, and then themselves destroy.
What civil broils have cost, we know too well;
Oh! let it be enough that once we fell !
And ev'ry heart conspire, and ev'ry tongue,
Still to have such a king, and this king long,
EPILOGUE for the KING'S HOUSE.
by fits, and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then popdown again. Let those who call us wicked change their sense; For never men liv'd more on Providence.
Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore.
Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
Of the three last ungiving parliaments :
So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,
Hemight have spar'd his dream of seven lean kine,
And chang'd his vision for the muses nine.
The comet, that, they say, portends a dearth,
Was but a vapor drawn from play-house earth:
Pent there fince our last fire, and, Lilly says,
Foreshews our change of state, and thin third-days.
'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us poor;
For then the printer's press would suffer more.
Their pamphleteers each day their venom spit;
They thrive by treason, and we starve by wit.
Confefs the truth, which of you has not laid
Four farthings out to buy the Hatfield maid ?
Or, which is duller yet, and more would spite us,
Democritus his wars with Heraclitus?
Such are the authors, who have run us down,
And exercis'd you critics of the town.
Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhimes,
Y' abuse yourselves more dully than the times.
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion.
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wife,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith, they may hang their harps upon the willows;
*Tis just like children when they box with pillows.
Then put an end to civil wars for shame;
Let each knight-errant, who has wrong'd a dame,
Throw down his pen, and give her, as he can,
The fatisfaction of a gentleman.
PROLOGUE to the LOYAL BROTHER:
[By Mr. SOUTHERNE, 1682.]
POETS, like lawful monarchs, rul'd the stage,
Till critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd
Mark how they jump: critics would regulate
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state :
Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them!)
The critic humbly feems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the king:
But one's advice into a fatire flides;
T'other's petition a remonstrance hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no pence;
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince.
The critic all our troops of friends discards;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds, that fright beasts of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids as these,
Are fafe-as long as e'er their subjects please :
And that would be till next queen Bess's night:
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.
Sir Edmond Bury first, in woful wife,
Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes.
There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part,
And pities the poor pageant from her heart;
Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire,
And, with a civil congé, does retire :
But guiltless blood to ground must never fall ;
There's Antichrist behind, to pay for all.
The punk of Babylon in pomp appears,
A lewd old gentleman of seventy years :
Whose age in vain our mercy would implore ;
For few take pity on an old-cast whore.
The devil, who brought him to the shame,
Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart;
Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart.
The word is given, and with a loud huzza
The mitred poppet from his chair they draw :
On the flain corps contending nations fall :
Alas! what's one poor pope among them all!
He burns; now all true hearts your triumphs ring:
And next, for fashion, cry, God save the king.
A needful cry in midst of such alarms,
When forty thousand men are up in arms.
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