| |
| WE act by Fits and Starts, like drowning Men, | |
| But just peep up, and then Dop 1 down again. | |
| Let those who call us Wicked change their Sence, | |
| For never Men liv’d more on Providence. | |
| Not Lott’ry Cavaliers are half so poor, | 5 |
| 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, | |
| He might have spar’d his Dream of Seven lean Kine, | 10 |
| And chang’d his Vision for the Muses Nine. | |
| The Comet which, they say, portends a Dearth | |
| Was but a Vapour drawn from Play-house Earth, | |
| Pent there since our last Fire, and Lilly sayes, | |
| Foreshows our change of State and thin Third-dayes. | 15 |
| ’Tis not our want of Wit that keeps us poor, | |
| For then the Printers Press would suffer more. | |
| Their Pamphleteers each Day their Venom 2 spit; | |
| They thrive by Treason, and we starve by Wit. | |
| Confess the truth, which of you has not laid | 20 |
| Four Farthings out to buy the Hatfield Maid? 3 | |
| Or, what is duller yet and more does spite us, | |
| Democritus his Wars with Heraclitus? | |
| These are the Authors that have run us down, | |
| And Exercise you Critticks of the Town. | 25 |
| Yet these are Pearls to your Lampooning Rhimes, | |
| Y’ abuse your selves more dully than the Times. | |
| Scandal, the Glory of the English Nation, | |
| Is worn to Raggs, and Scribled out of Fashion; | |
| Such harmless Thrusts as if like Fencers Wise, | 30 |
| You had agreed your Play before their Prize. | |
| Faith, you may hang your 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 | 35 |
| Throw down his Pen and give her if he can, | |
| The satisfaction of a Gentleman. | |
