Pay their last duty to the court, and come
All fresh and fragrant to the drawing-room;
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,
As the fair fields they sold to look so fine. "That's velvet for a King!" the flatt'rer swears; 'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's. Our court may justly to our stage give rules, That helps it both to fools-coats and to fools. And why not players strut in courtier's clothes? For these are actors too, as well as those : Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest, And all is splendid poverty at best.
Painted for sight, and essenc'd for the smell, Like frigates fraught with spice and cochine❜l, Sail in the ladies: how each pyrate eyes So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize! Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim, He boarding her, she striking sail to him: "Dear Countess ! you have charms all hearts to hit !" And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!" Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought, For both the beauty and the wit are bought. "Twould burst ev'n Heraclitus with the spleen, To see those anticks, Fopling and Courtin : The Presence seems, with things so richly odd, The mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pa-god. See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waste to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes, and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety
As a young preacher at his first time
To preach, he enters, and a lady which owes
Him not so much as good-will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests,
So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten cardinals into the Inquisition;
And whispers by Jesu so oft, that a
Pursuevant would have ravish'd him away
For saying our Lady's Psalter. But 'tis fit
That they each other plague, they merit it.
But here comes Glorious that will plague them both,
Who in the other extreme only doth
Call a rough carelessness, good fashion:
Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him; he rushes in, as if Arm, arm,
He meant to cry; and though his face be as ill
As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
VER. 256. or Gonson] Sir John Gonson, the famous police gistrate.
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;
But oh! what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole ;
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey-tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the fair.
So first to preach a white-glov'd chaplain goes, 250
With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immac❜late trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.
Let but the ladies smile, and they are blest:
Prodigious! how the things protest, protest:
Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!
Nature made ev'ry fop to plague his brother,
Just as one beauty mortifies another.
But here's the captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries Arm! whose very look's an oath :
The captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough,
Tho' his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
Like batt'ring rams, beats open ev'ry door:
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hang-dogs in old tapestry,
Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;
He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe;
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like law.
Tyr'd, now I leave this place, and but pleas'd so As men from gaols to execution go,
Go, through the great chamber (why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?) being among
Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw
Charing-Cross for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth, but Queens man, and fine
Living; barrels of beef, flaggons of wine.
I shook like a spied spie-Preachers which are
Seas of wit and arts, you can, then dare,
Drown the sins of this place, but as for me
Which am but a scant brook, enough shall be
To wash the stains away: Although I yet
(With Maccabees modesty) the known merit
Of
my work lessen, yet some wise men shall
I hope, esteem my writs canonical.
* A giant famous in romances.
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,
Jests like a licens'd fool, commands like law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from jails to execution go;
For, hung with deadly sins, I see the wall,
And lin❜d with giants deadlier than 'em all:
Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss
For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.
Scar'd at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly,
And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.
Courts are too much for wit's so weak as mine:
Charge them with heav'n's artill'ry, bold divine!
From such alone the great rebukes endure,
Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure :
'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears.
Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my wit,
In time to come, may pass for holy writ.
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