The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thou common shore of this poetic town,
Where all the excrements of wit are thrown;
For sonnet, satire, bawdry, blasphemy,
Are emptied, and disburdened all in thee:
The choleric wight, untrussing all in rage,
Finds thee, and lays his load upon thy page.
Thou Julian, or thou wise Vespasian rather,
Dost from this dung thy well-pickt guineas gather.
All mischief's thine; transcribing, thou wilt stoop
From lofty Middlesex to lowly Scroop.
What times are these, when, in the hero's room,
Bow-bending Cupid doth with ballads come,
And little Aston offers to the bum?
Can two such pigmies such a weight support,
Two such Tom Thumbs of satire in a court?
Poor George grows old, his muse worn out of fashion,
Hoarsely he sung Ephelia's lamentation.
Less art thou helped by Dryden's bed-rid age;
That drone has lost his sting upon the stage.

218

Resolve me, poor apostate, this my doubt,
What hope hast thou to rub this winter out?
Know, and be thankful then, for Providence
By me hath sent thee this intelligence.

A knight there is, if thou canst gain his grace,
Known by the name of the hard-favoured face.
For prowess of the pen renowned is he,
From Don Quixote descended lineally;
And though, like him, unfortunate he prove,
Undaunted in attempts of wit and love.
Of his unfinished face, what shall I say,—
But that 'twas made of Adam's own red clay;
That much, much ochre was on it bestowed;
God's image 'tis not, but some Indian god:
Our Christian earth can no resemblance bring,
But ware of Portugal for such a thing;
Such carbuncles his fiery face confess,
As no Hungarian water can redress.
A face which, should he see (but Heaven was kind,
And, to indulge his self, Love made him blind),
He durst not stir abroad for fear to meet
Curses of teeming women in the street:
The best could happen from this hideous sight,
Is, that they should miscarry with the fright,—
Heaven guard them from the likeness of the knight:
Such is our charming Strephon's outward man,
His inward parts let those disclose who can.
One while he honoureth Birtha with his flame,
And now he chants no less Lovisa's name;
For when his passion hath been bubbling long,
The scum at last boils up into a song;
And sure no mortal creature, at one time,
Was e'er so far o'ergone with love and rhyme.
To his dear self of poetry he talks,
His hands and feet are scanning as he walks;
His writhing looks his pangs of wit accuse,
The airy symptoms of a breeding muse,
And all to gain the great Lovisa's grace,
But never pen did pimp for such a face;
There's not a nymph in city, town, or court,
But Strephon's billet-doux has been their sport

219

Still he loves on, yet still he's sure to miss,
As they who wash an Ethiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend,
Never to get a mistress, nor a friend!
Strephon alike both wits and fools detest,
'Cause he's like Esop's bat, half-bird, half-beast;
For fools to poetry have no pretence,
And common wit supposes common sense;
Not quite so low as fool, nor quite a top,
He hangs between them both, and is a fop.
His morals, like his wit, are motley too;
He keeps from arrant knave with much ado.
But vanity and lying so prevail,
That one grain more of each would turn the scale;
He would be more a villain had he time,
But he's so wholly taken up with rhyme,
That he mistakes his talent; all his care
Is to be thought a poet fine and fair.
Small beer and gruel are his meat and drink,
The diet he prescribes himself to think;
Rhyme next his heart he takes at the morn peep,
Some love epistles at the hour of sleep;—
So, betwixt elegy and ode, we see
Strephon is in a course of poetry.
This is the man ordained to do thee good,
The pelican to feed thee with his blood;
Thy wit, thy poet, nay thy friend, for he
Is fit to be a friend to none but thee.
Make sure of him, and of his muse betimes,
For all his study is hung round with rhymes.
Laugh at him, jostle him, yet still he writes,
In rhyme he challenges, in rhyme he fights.
Charged with the last, and basest infamy,
His business is to think what rhymes to lie;
Which found, in fury he retorts again.
Strephon's a very dragon at his pen;
His brother murdered, and his mother's whored,
His mistress lost, and yet his pen's his sword.