But late his keys are marr'd, or broken quite :

For Hell he cannot shut, but opens light;

Nor Heav'n can ope, but shut; nor buys, but sells by slight.
LXIII.

"Two heads, oft three, he in one body had,
Nor with the body, nor themselves agreeing :
What this commanded, th' other soon forbad;
As different in rule, as nature being :

The body to them both, and neither prone,
Was like a double-hearted dealer grown ;
Endeavouring to please both parties, pleasing none.
LXIV.

As when the pow'rful wind and adverse tide
Strive which should most command the subject main;
The scornful waves swelling with angry pride
Yielding to neither, all their force disdain:

Mean time the shaking vessel doubtful plays,
And on the stagg'ring billow trembling stays,
And would obey them both, yet neither she obeys.
LXV.

A subtil craftman fram'd him seemly arms,

Forg'd in the shop of wrangling Sophistry;
And wrought with curious arts, and mighty charms,
Temper'd with lies, and false philosophy :

Millions of heedless souls thus had he slain.
His sev'n-fold targe a field of gules did stain;
In which two swords he bore: his word, 'Divide, and reign.'
LXVI.

Envy the next, Envy with squinted eyes ;

Sick of a strange disease, his neighbour's health; Best lives he then, when any better dies;

Is never poor, but in another's wealth:

On best men's harms and griefs he feeds his fill;
Else his own maw doth eat with spiteful will :
Ill must the temper be, where diet is so ill.

LXVII.

Each eye through divers optics slily leers,
Which both his sight, and object's self bely;
So greatest virtue as a moat appears,

And molehill faults to mountains multiply.

When needs he must, yet faintly, then he praises;

Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises : So marreth what he makes, and praising, most dispraises. LXVIII.

Upon his shield that cruel herd-groom play'd,

Fit instrument of Juno's jealous spite; His hundred eyes stood fixed on the maid;

He pip'd, she sigh'd: his word, ' Her day, my night." His missile weapon was a lying tongue,

Which he far off like swiftest lightning flung: That all the world with noise, and foul blaspheming rung. LXIX.

Last of this rout the savage Phonos* went,

Whom his dire mother nurs'd with human blood; And when more age and strength more fierceness lent, She taught in a dark and desert wood

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With force and guile poor passengers to slay,

And on their flesh his barking stomach stay, And with their wretched blood his fiery thirst allay. LXX.

So when the never settled Scythian

Removes his dwelling in an empty wain : When now the Sun hath half his journey ran,

His horse he bloods, and pricks a trembling vein;

* Murder.

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So from the wound quenches his thirsty heat:

Yet worse, this fiend makes his own flesh his meat.
Monster! the rav'nous bear, his kind will never eat.
LXXI.

Ten thousand furies on his steps awaited,

Some sear'd his harden'd soul with Stygian brand;
Some with black terrors his faint conscience baited,
That wide he star'd, and starched hair did stand:
The first born man still in his mind he bore,
Foully array'd in guiltless brother's gore,

Which for revenge to Heav'n, from Earth did loudly roar.
LXXII.

His arms offensive all, to spill, not spare;

Swords, pistols, poisons, instruments of Hell;
A shield he wore (not that the wretch did care
To save his flesh, oft he himself would quell)
For shew, not use on it a viper swilling

The dam's split gore; his empty bowels filling
With flesh that gave him life: his word, I live by killing.'
LXXIII.

And last, his brutish sons, Acrates sent,

Whom Caro bore both in one birth and bed,

Methos* the first, whose paunch his feet out-went,
As if it usher'd his unsettled head:

His soul quite souced lay in grapy blood

In all his parts the idle dropsy stood;

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Which, tho' already drown'd, still thirsted for the flood.

LXXIV.

This thing, nor man, nor beast, turns all his wealth
In drink; his days, his years, in liquor drenching:

So quaffs he sickness down, by quaffing health;
Firing his cheeks with quenching; strangely quenching

* Drunkenness

His

eyes with firing; dull and faint they roll'd :

But, nimble lips, known things and hid unfold;

Belchings, oft sips, large spits point the long tale he told.
LXXV.

His armour green might seem a fruitful vine;
The clusters prison'd in the close set leaves,
Yet oft between the bloody grape did shine;
And peeping forth, his jailor's spite deceives:

Among the boughs did swilling Bacchus ride,

Whom wild grown Monads bore, and ev'ry stride, Bacche, Iö Bacche, loud with madding voice they cry'd. LXXVI.

On's shield, the goatish satyrs dance around,

(Their heads much lighter than their nimble heels) Silenus old, in wine (as ever) drown'd,

Clos'd with the ring, in midst (though sitting) reels: Under his arm a bag-pipe swoll'n he held,

(Yet wine-swoll'n cheeks the windy bag outswell'd) So loudly pipes: his word, 'But full, no mirth I yield.' LXXVII.

Insatiate sink, how with so general stain

Thy loathed puddles, court, town, fields entice ! Ay me! the shepherd's selves thee entertain,

And to thy Curtian gulph do sacrifice :

All drink to spew, and spew again to drink.

Sour swill-tub sin, of all the rest the sink,

How can'st thou thus bewitch with thy abhorred stink? LXXVIII.

The eye thou wrong'st with vomit's recking streams, The ear with belching; touch thou drown'st in wine; The taste thou surfeit'st; smell with spewing steams Thou woundest: foh! thou loathsome putrid swine ;

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Still thou increasest thirst, when thirst thou slakest ;

The mind and will thou (wit's bane) captive takest;

· Senseless thy hoggish filth, and sense thou senseless makest. LXXIX.

Thy fellow sins, and all the rest of vices,

With seeming good, are fairly cloth'd to sight;
Their feigned sweets, the blear-ey'd will entices,
Coz'ning the dazzled sense with borrow'd light:
Thee, neither true, nor yet false good commends;
Profit, nor pleasure on thy steps attends :
Folly begins thy sin, which still with madness ends.
LXXX.

With Methos, Gluttony, his guttling brother,

Twin parallels, drawn from the self-same line;
So foully like was either to the other,

And both most like a monstrous belly'd swine :
His life was either a continued feast,

Whose surfeits upon surfeits him oppress'd;
Or heavy sleep, that helps so great a load digest.
LXXXI.

Mean time his soul, weigh'd down with muddy chains,
Can neither work, nor moye in captive bands;

But dull'd in vap'rous fogs, all careless reigns,

Or rather serves strong appetite's commands:

That when he now was gorg'd with cramm'd down store,
And porter wanting room had shut the door,

The glutton sigh'd, that he could gormandize no more.
LXXXII.

His crane-like neck was all unlac'd; his breast,

And gouty limbs, like to a circle, round, As broad as long; and for his spear in rest

Oft with his staff he beats the yielding ground;