LITMIR.BIZ

On the Argument and Design of the following Oration.

       Table of Contents

      WHATEVER the modern satyrs o' th' stage,

       To jerk the failures of a sliding age,

       Have lavishly expos'd to public view,

       For a discharge to all from envy due,

       Here in as lively colours naked lie,

       With equal wit, and more of modesty,

       Those poets, with their free disclosing arts,

       Strip vice so near to its uncomely parts,

       Their libels prove but lessons, and they teach

       Those very crimes which they intend t' impeach:

       While here so wholesome all, tho' sharp t' th' taste,

       So briskly free, yet so resolv'dly chaste;

       The virgin naked as her god of bows,

       May read or hear when blood at highest flows;

       Nor more expense of blushes thence arise,

       Than while the lect'ring matron does advise

       To guard her virtue, and her honour prize.

       Satire and panegyric, distant be,

       Yet jointly here they both in one agree.

       The whole's a sacrifice of salt and fire;

       So does the humour of the age require,

       To chafe the touch, and so foment desire.

       As doctrine-dangling preachers lull asleep

       Their unattentive pent-up fold of sheep;

       The opiated milk glues up the brain,

       And th' babes of grace are in their cradles lain;

       ( xxiv)

       While mounted Andrews, bawdy, bold, and loud,

       Like cocks, alarm all the drowsy crowd,

       Whose glittering ears are prick'd as bolt-upright,

       As sailing hairs are hoisted in a fright.

       So does it fare with croaking spawns o' th' press,

       The mould o' th' subject alters the success;

       What's serious, like sleep, grants writs of ease,

       Satire and ridicule can only please;

       As if no other animals could gape,

       But the biting badger, or the snick'ring ape.

       Folly by irony's commended here,

       Sooth'd, that her weakness may the more appear.

       Thus fools, who trick'd, in red and yellow shine,

       Are made believe that they are wondrous fine,

       When all's a plot t' expose them by design.

       The largesses of Folly here are strown.

       Like pebbles, not to pick, but trample on.

       Thus Spartans laid their soaking slaves before

       The boys, to justle, kick, and tumble o'er:

       Not that the dry-lipp'd youngsters might combine

       To taste and know the mystery of wine,

       But wonder thus at men transform'd to swine;

       And th' power of such enchantment to escape,

       Timely renounce the devil of the grape.

       So here,

       Though Folly speaker be, and argument,

       Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the lecture meant.

      So here, Though Folly speaker be, and argument,

       Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the lecture meant.