Whose place is quarter'd out, three parts in four; And whether to a bishop or a whore:
Who, having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent, Is therefore fit to have a government:
Who in the secret, deals in stocks secure, And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor: Who makes a trust of charity a job, And gets an act of parliament to rob: Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown Can gratis see the country or the town: Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising courtier will have toll. He tells what strumpet places sells for life, What 'squire his lands, what citizen his wife : And, last, which proves him wiser still than all, What lady's face is not a whited wall.
As one of Woodward's patients, sick and sore, I puke, I nauseate ;-yet he thrusts in more; Trims Europe's balance, tops the statesman's
And talks gazettes and post-boys o'er by heart. 155 Like a big wife at sight of loathsome meat
Ready to cast, I yawn, I sigh, and sweat. Then as a licensed spy, whom nothing can Silence or hurt, he libels the great man; Swears every place entail'd for years to come, 160 In sure succession to the day of doom: He names the price for every office paid, And says our wars thrive ill, because delay'd: Nay, hints 'tis by connivance of the court, That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk 's still a port. 165 Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests, To see themselves fall endlong into beasts,
Becoming traytor, and methought I saw One of our giant statutes ope his jaw, To suck me in for hearing him: I found, That as burnt venomous leachers do grow sound By giving others their sores, I might grow Guilty, and he free: therefore I did show All signs of loathing; but since I am in, I must pay mine and my forefathers' sin To the last farthing. Therefore to my power Toughly and stubbornly I bear; but the hour Of mercy now was come: he tries to bring Me to pay a fine, to 'scape a torturing,
says, 'Sir, can you spare me?' I said, • Willingly.'
'Nay, sir, can you spare me a crown?' Thankfully I
Gave it as ransom; but as fiddlers, still,
Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will Thrust one more jig upon you; so did he With his long complimented thanks vex me. But he is gone, thanks to his needy want, And the prerogative of my crown: scant His thanks were ended, when I (which did see All the court fill'd with more strange things than
Ran from thence with such, or more haste than
Who fears more actions, doth haste from prison.
Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise Already half turn'd traitor by surprise. I felt the infection slide from him to me, As in the ***, some give it to get free; And quick to swallow me, methought I saw One of our giant statutes ope its jaw.
In that nice moment, as another lie Stood just a-tilt, the minister came by: To him he flies, and bows, and bows again; Then, close as Umbra, joins the dirty train: Not Fannius' self more impudently near, When half his nose is in his prince's ear. I quaked at heart; and still afraid to see All the court fill'd with stranger things than he, Ran out as fast, as one that pays his bail, And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail. Bear me, some god! O, quickly bear me hence To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense; Where contemplation prunes her ruffled wings, And the free soul looks down to pity kings! There sober thought pursued the amusing theme, Till fancy color'd it, and form'd a dream. A vision hermits can to hell transport, And forced ev'n me to see the damn'd at court. Not Dante, dreaming all the infernal state, Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.
192 Not Dante dreaming. The boldness of the early Italian and French writers is sometimes surprising: it is not less surprising that this boldness should have escaped with impunity under the powerful and violent sovereigns of the time. Dante openly calls the popedom the great harlot of the Apocalypse, (Inferno, canto 19) and declares Hugo Capet the son of a butcher, and the root of an evil plant, from which no good fruit could come.' Rabelais holds up to the wildest ridicule Francis I., Henry II., and Charles V.
At home in wholesome solitariness
My piteous soul began the wretchedness Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance Like his, who dreamt he saw hell, did advance Itself o'er me: such men as he saw there
I saw at court, and worse and more. Low fear Becomes the guilty, not the accuser: then, Shall I, none's slave, of high-born or raised men Fear frowns; and my mistress Truth, betray thee
For the huffing, bragart, puft nobility?
No, no, thou which since yesterday hast been Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen, O sun, in all thy journey, vanity,
Such as swells the bladder of our court? I Think he which made your waxen* garden, and Transported it from Italy, to stand
With us at London, flouts our courtiers; for Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor Tast have in them, ours are; and natural Some of the stocks are; their fruits bastard all. 'Tis ten a clock and past; all whom the mues, Baloun, or tennis, diet, or the stews Had all the morning held, now the second Time made ready, that day, in flocks are found In the presence, and I, God pardon me! As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be Their fields they sold to buy them. For a king Those hose are, cry the flatterers; and bring Them next week to the theatre to sell.
Wants reach all states: me seems they do as well
* A show of the Italian garden in wax-work, in the time of king James I.-Pope.
Base fear becomes the guilty, not the free; Suits tyrants, plunderers, but suits not me. Shall I, the terror of this sinful town,
Care if a liveried lord or smile or frown? Who cannot flatter, and detest who can, Tremble before a noble serving-man?
O, my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee 200 For huffing, braggart, puff'd nobility? Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball;— Hast thou, O sun! beheld an emptier sort, Than such as swell this bladder of a court? Now pox on those who show a court in wax! It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs : Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face! Such waxen noses, stately staring things- No wonder some folks bow, and think them kings. See! where the British youth, engaged no more At Fig's, at White's, with felons or a whore, Pay their last duty to the court, and come All fresh and fragrant to the drawing-room; 215 In hues as gay, and odors as divine,
As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.
'That's velvet for a king!' the flatterer swears: 'Tis true; for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
206 Court in wax. A famous show of the court of France in wax-work.
213 At Fig's, at White's. White's was a noted gaming-house; Fig's, a prize-fighter's academy, where the young nobility received instruction in those days: it was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate.-Pope.
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