Iscord, and
With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the
stage.
plots, which have undone our age,
Our house has suffer'd in the common woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
Our brethren are from Thamesto 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
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decay'd,
Div'd here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trufty door-keepers of former time
There strut 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 subjects, to express 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 chosen king.
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe?
Teague has been here, and, to this learned pit,
With Irish action slander'd English wit:
You have beheld such barb'rous Macs appear,
As merited a second massacre:
Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace,
And had their country stamp'd upon their face.
When strolers durst 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,
HO actors cannot much of learning boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most:
We love the praises of a learned pit,
As we remotely are ally'd to wit.
We speak our poets wit, and trade in ore,
Like those, who touch upon the golden shore :
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much, and why, our poems take :
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether th' applause be only found or voice.
When our fop gallants, or our city folly
Clap over-loud, it makes us melancholy :
We doubt that scene which does their wonder raife,
And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
Judge then, if we who act, and they who write,
Should not be proud of giving you delight.
London likes grofly; but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot ;
Knows what should justly please, and what should
Nature herself lies open to your view;
You judge by her, what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colors seem too faint,
Where bunglers dawb, and where true poets paint.
But by the sacred genius of this place,
By ev'ry Muse, by each domeftic grace.
Be kind to wit, which but endeavors well,
And, where you judge, prefumes not to excel.
Our poets hither for adoption come,
As nations sued to be made free of Rome:
Not in the fuffragating tribes to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who with religion loves your arts and you,
Oxford to him a dearer name shall be,
Than his own mother university.
Thebes did his green, unknowing, youth engage;
He chooses Athens in his riper age.
UR hero's happy in the play's conclufion;
The holy rogue at last has met confusion:
Tho Arius all along appear'd a faint,
The last act shew'd him a true Proteftant.
Eufebius, for you know I read Greek authors,
Reports, that, after all these plots and flaughters,
The court of Constantine was full of glory,
And every Trimmer turn'd addressing Tory.
They follow'd him in herds as they were mad:
When Clause was king, then all the world was glad.
Whigs kept the places they possest before,
And most were in a way of getting more;
Which was as much as saying, Gentlemen,
Here's power and money to be rogues again.
Indeed, there were a fort of peaking tools,
Some call them modest, but I call them fools,
Men much more loyal, tho not half so loud;
But these poor devils were cast behind the croud.
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