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We are so wretched to profess,

A glory in our wretchedness;
To

vapour fillily, and rant
Of our own misery and want,
And grow vain-glorious on a score
We ought much rather to deplore ;
Who, the first moment of our lives,
Are but condemn'd, and giv’n reprieves ;
And our great'st grace is not to know
When we shall

pay

them back, nor how; Begotten with a vain caprich, And live as vainly to that pitch.

Our pains are real things, and all Our pleasures but fantastical

; : Diseases of their own accord, . But cures come difficult and hard. Our noblest piles, and stateliest rooms, Are but outhouses' to our tombs ; Cities, though e'er so great and brave, But mere warehouses to the

grave.
Our bravery 's but a vain'disguise,
To hide us from the world's dufl eyes,
"The remedy of a defect,
With which our nakedness is deckt;
Yet makes us (well with pride, and boast,
As if we'd gain 'd by being loft.

All this is nothing to the evils
Which men, and their confederate devils,
Inflict, to aggravate the curse
On their own hated kind much worse;

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As if by Nature they 'd been servd
More gently than their fate deservd,
Take pains (in justice) to invent,
And Itudy their own punishment;
That, as their crimes should greater grow;
So might their own inflictions too.
Hence bloody wars at firt began,
The artificial plague of man,
That from his own invention rise,
To fcourge his own iniquities;

That, if the heavens should chance to spare
Supplies of conftant poifond air,
They might not, with unfit delay,
For lingering destruction stay ;
Nor seek recruits of death so far,
But plague themselves with blood and war.

And if these fail, there is no good
Kind Nature e'er on man bestow'd,
But he can easily divert
To his own misery and hurt;
Make that which Heaven meant to bless
Th' ungrateful world with, gentle Peace,
With luxury and excess, as fast
As war and desolation, walte ;
Promote mortality, and kill,
As fast as arms, by fitting still ;.
Like earthquakes, flay without a blow,
And, only moving, overthrow i
Make law and equity as dear
As plunder and free-quarter were

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And fierce encounters at the bar
Undo as fast as those in war;
Enrich bawds, whores, and usurers,
Pimps, scriveners, filenc'd ministers,
That get estates by being undone
For tender conscience, and have none.
Like those that with their credit drive
A trade, without a stock, and thrive ;
Advance men in the church and state
For being of the meanest rate,
Rais'd for their double-guild deserts,
Before integrity and parts ;
Produce more grievious complaints-
For plenty, than before for wants,
And make a rich and fruitful year:
A greater grievance than a dear;
Make jests of greater dangers far,
Than those they trembled at in war;.
Till, unawares, they 've laid a train
To blow the public up again ;
Rally with horror, and, in sport,
Rebellion and destruction court,
And make Fanatics, in despight
Of all their madness, reason right,
And vouch to all they have foreshown,
As other monsters oft have done,
Although from truth and sense as far
As all their other maggots are :
For things said false, and never meant,
Do oft prove true by accident.
VOL. II.

Q

145

Igo

155

That

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That wealth that bounteous Fortune sends
As presents to her dearest friends,
Is oft laid out upon a purchase
Of two yards long in pariih-churches,
And those too-happy men that bought it
Had liv’d, and happier too, without it:
For what does vast wealth bring but cheat,
Law, luxury, disease, and debt;
Pain, pleasure, discontent, and sport,
An easy-troubled life, and short ?

But all these plagues are nothing near
Those, far more cruel and fevere,

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170 Unhappy

Ver. 168.] Though this satire seems fairly tran, fcribed for the press, yet, on a vacancy in the sheet opposite to this line, I find the following verses, which probably were intended to be added; but as they are not regularly inserted, I chuse rather to give them by way of note.

For men ne'er digg'd fo deep into
The bowels of the earth below,
For metals, that are found to dwell
Near neighbour to the pit of hell,
And have a magic power to fway
The greedy fouls of men that way,
But with their bodies have been fain
To fill those trenches up again;
When bloody battles have been fought
For sharing that which they took out:
For wealth is all things that conduce
To man's destruction or his use;
A standard both to buy and sell
All things from heaven down to hell.

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Unhappy man takes pains to find,
T'inflict himself upon his mind :
And out of his own bowels (pins
A rack and torture for his fius;
Torments himself, in vain, to know
That most which he can never do ;
And, the more strictly 'tis deny'd,
The more he is unsatisfy’d;
Is busy in finding fcruples out,
To languish in eternal doubt ;

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Sees spectres in the dark, and ghofts,
And starts, as horfes do 'at posts,
And, when his eyes affift him least,
Discerns such fubtle objects beft.
On hypothetic dreams and visions

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Grounds everlasting difquifitions,
And raises endless controversies
On vulgar theorems and hearsays ;
Grows positive and confident,
In things so far beyond th' extent

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Of human sense, he does not know
Whether they be at all or no,
And doubts as much in things that are
As plainly evident and clear ;
Disdains all useful fense, and plain,

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T'apply to th’ intricate and vain ;
And cracks his brains in plodding on
That which is never to be known;
To pose himself with subtleties,
And hold no other knowledge wise ;

Q?

Although,

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