Replete with strange hermetic powder,

That wounds nine miles point-blank would folder;
By skilful chymist with great cost

Extracted from a rotten post;
But of a heav'nlier influence

Than that which mountebanks dispense;
Though by Promethean fire made,

As they do quack that drive that trade.
For as when flovens do amifs

At others doors, by stool or pifs;
The learned write, a red-hot spit
B'ing prudently apply'd to it,
Will convoy mischief from the dung
Unto the part that did the wrong:
So this did healing, and as fure
As that did mischief, this would cure.
Thus virtuous Orfin was endu'd
With learning, conduct, fortitude,
Incomparable: and as the prince.
Of poets, Homer, fung long since,
A fkilful leech is better far

Than half a hundred men of war;
So he appear'd, and by his skill,
No less than dint of fword, could kill.
The gallant Bruin march'd next him,
With vifage formidably grim,

And rugged as a Saracen,

Or Turk of Mahomet's own kin:

Clad in a mantle della guerre

Of rough and impenetrable fur;

And in his nofe, like Indian king,
He wore, for ornament, a ring;
About his neck a threefold gorget,
As rough as trebled leathern target;
Armed, as heralds cant, and langued,
Or, as the vulgar fay, sharp-fanged.
For as the teeth in beasts of prey

Are fwords, with which they fight in fray;
So fwords, in men of war, are teeth
Which they do eat their vittle with.

He was by birth, fome authors write,
A Ruffian, fome a Mufcovite;

And 'mong the Coffacks had been bred,
Of whom we in diurnals read,

That ferve to fill up pages here,

As with their bodies ditches there.
Scrimansky was his cousin-german,

With whom he ferv'd, and fed on vermin:
And when these fail'd, he'd fuck his claws,
And quarter himself upon his paws.
And though his country-men, the Huns,
Did stew their meat between their bums,
And th' horfes backs on which they straddle,
And ev'ry man eat up his faddle,

He was not half fo nice as they;

But eat it raw when't came in's way.
He had trac'd countries far and near,
More than Le Blanc the traveller;
Who writes, he spous'd in India,
Of noble house, a lady gay,

And got on her a race of worthies,

As ftout as any upon earth is.
Full many a fight for him between
Talgol and Orfin oft had been;
Each ftriving to deserve the crown
Of a fav'd citizen; the one

To guard his bear, the other fought
To aid his dog; both made more stout
By fev'ral fpurs of neighbourhood,
Church-fellow membership, and blood;
But Talgol, mortal foe to cows,
Never got ought of him but blows;
Blows, hard and heavy, fuch as he
Had lent, repaid with ufury.

Yet Talgol was of courage ftout,
And vanquish'd oft'ner than he fought:
Inur'd to labour, sweat, and toil,
And like a champion fhone with oil.
Right many a widow his keen blade,
And many a fatherless, had made.
He many a boar and huge dun cow
Did, like another Guy, o'erthrow.
But Guy with him in fight compar'd,
Had like the boar and dun cow far'd.
With greater troops of sheep h'had fought
Than Ajax, or bold Don Quixote;

And many a ferpent of fell kind,
With wings before, and stings behind,
Subdu'd; as poets fay, long agone

Bold Sir George, St. George, did the dragon.

At beating quarters up, or forage,
Behav'd herself with matchlefs courage,
And laid about in fight more bufily
Than th'Amazonian dame Penthefile.

And though fome critics here cry shame, And fay our authors are to blame,

That (fpite of all philofophers,

Who hold no females ftout, but bears;
And heretofore did fo abhor

That women fhould pretend to war;
They would not fuffer the ftout'ft dame
To fwear by Hercules's name)

Make feeble ladies, in their works,
To fight like termagants and Turks:
To lay their native arms afide,
Their modefty, and ride aftride;
To run a-tilt at men, and wield
Their naked tools in open field;
As ftout Armida, bold Thalestris,
And fhe that would have been the mistress
Of Gundibert; but he had grace,
And rather took a country-lafs:
They fay 'tis falfe, without all fenfe,
But of pernicious confequence
To government, which they fuppofe
Can never be upheld in profe:
Strip nature naked to the fkin,
You'll find about her no fuch thing.
It may be fo; yet what we tell
Of Trulla, that's improbable,

Shall be depos'd by those have seen't,
Or, what's as good, produc'd in print:
And if they will not take our word,
We'll prove it true upon record.

The upright Cerdon next advanc'd,
Of all his race the valiant'st:
Cerdon the Great, renown'd in fong,
Like Herc❜les, for repair of wrong:
He rais'd the low, and fortify'd
The weak against the strongest side :
Ill has he read that never hit

On him, in mufes deathlefs writ.

He had a weapon keen and fierce,

That through a bull-hide shield would pierce,

And cut it in a thousand pieces,

Though tougher than the knight of Greece his,
With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor

Was comrade in the ten years war:
For when the restless Greeks fat down
So many years, before Troy town,
And were renown'd, as Homer writes,
For well-foal'd boots, no less than fights;
They ow'd that glory only to

His ancestor, that made them fo.

Fast friend he was to reformation,

Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion.

Next rectifier of wry law,

And would make three to cure one flaw.
Learned he was, and could take note,
Tranfcribe, collect, tranflate, and quote.