Though like the pestilence, and old-fashion'd love, And saves his life) gives idiot actors means And bellows pant below, which them do move. One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's charms Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms: Rams and slings now are silly battery, Pistolets are the best artillery. And they who write to Lords, rewards to get, But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw . to out-usure Jews. T'out-drink the sea, t' out-swear the Letanie, Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how, But that the cure is starving, all allow. Yet like the papist's, is the poet's state, 10 15 Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate! 20 One sings the fair; but songs no longer move; No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love: In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold, And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold. These write to Lords, some mean reward to get, As needy beggars sing at doors for meat. Those write because all write, and so have still Excuse for writing, and for writing ill. Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others' wit: 30 'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before, His rank digestion makes it wit no more: I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs 35 Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres, Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir, Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear; As confessors, and for whose sinful sake рох, And plodding on, must make a calf an ox) And wooes in language of the Pleas and Bench.** The tender labyrinth of a maid's soft ear: NOTES. Ver. 38. Irishmen out-swear;] The original says, "out-swear the Letanie," improved by the Imitator into a just stroke of satire. Dr. Donne's is a low allusion to a licentious quibble used at that time by the enemies of the English Liturgy: who, disliking the frequent invocations in the Letanie, called them the taking God's name in vain, which is the scripture periphrasis for swearing. Warburton Ver. 43. Of whose strange crimes] Such as Sanchez de Matrimonio has minutely enumerated and described. Such Canonists deserved this animadversion. In Pascal's fine Provincial Letters are also some strange and striking examples. Warton. Ver. 44. In what Commandment's large contents they dwell.] The original is more humorous: "In which Commandment's large receit they dwell." As if the Ten Commandments were so wide, as to stand ready to receive Wicked as pages, who in early years Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears. 40 One, one man only breeds my just offence; 45 Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence: Time, that at last matures a clap to pox, 50 55 More pert, more proud, more positive than he. NOTES. receive every thing within them, that either the law of nature, or the Gospels, enjoins. A just ridicule on those practical commentators, as they are called, who include all moral and religious duties within the Decalogue. Whereas their true original sense is much more confined; being a short summary of moral duty fitted for a single people, upon a particular occasion, and to serve temporary ends. Warburton. Ver. 48. makes a calf an ox,] An unaccountable blunder in our author. As if an ox was in his natural state. Warton. More, more than ten Sclavonians scolding, more NOTES. Ver. 61. Language, which Boreas—] The original has here a very fine stroke of satire : "Than when winds in our ruin'd abbyes roar." The frauds with which that work (so necessary for the welfare both of religion and the state) was begun; the rapine with which it was carried on; and the dissoluteness in which the plunder arising from it was wasted, had scandalized all sober men; and disposed some, even of the best Protestants, to wish, that some part of that immense wealth, arising from the suppression of the monasteries, had been reserved for charity, hospitality, and even for the service of religion. Warburton. Ver. 74. For not in chariots Peter] Pope might have applied the words of Horace to this eternal Peter, with as much propriety as he did to his friend Bolingbroke: Primâ dicte mihi, summâ dicende camanâ ! |