And, all their labour loft, they 're fain
To learn new, and begin again ;
To talk eternally and loud,
And all together in a crowd,
No matter what ; for in the noise
No man minds what another says :
T' assume a confidence heyond
Mankind, for solid and profound,
And still, the less and less they know,
The greater dose of that allow :
Decry all things ; for to be wise
Is not to know, but to despise ;
And deep judicious confidence
Has still the odds of wit and sense,
And can pretend a title to
Far greater things than they can do :
T' adorn their English with French scraps,
And give their very language claps ;
To jernie rightly, and renounce
I'th' pure and most approv'd-of tones,
And, while they idly think t' enrich,
Adulterate their native speech:
For, though to fmatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetorique
Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious,
To smatter French is meritorious ;
And to forget their mother-tongue,
Or purposely to speak it wrong,
A hopeful sign of parts and wit,
And that they' improve and benefit;

135

As those that have been taught amiss
In liberal arts and sciences,
Must all they 'ad learnt before in vain
Forget quite, and begin again.

TIS

pity wine,

5

IS pity wine, which Nature meant

To man in kindness to present,
And gave him kindly, to caress
And cherish his frail happiness ;
Of equal virtue to renew
His weary'd mind and body too;
Should (like the cyder-tree in Eden,
Which only, grew to be forbidden)
No sooner come to be enjoy'd,
But th' owner 's fatally destroy'd ;
And that which the for good design'd,
Becomes the ruin of mankind,
That for a little vain excess
Runs out of all its happiness,
And makes the friend of Truth and Love
Their greatest adversary prove;

15

T'abure 25

T'abuse a blessing the bestow'd
So truly essential to his good,
To countervail his pensive cares,
And Navilh drudgery of affairs į
To teach him judgment, wit, and sense,
And, more than all these, confidence;
To pass his times of recreation
In choice and noble conversation,
Catch truth and reason unawares,
As men do health in wholefome airs
(While fools their conversants possess
As unawares with fottishness);
To gain access a private way
To man's best fense, by its own key,
Which painful judgers ftrive in vain
By any other course t'obtain ;
To pull off all disguise, and view
Things as they ’re natural and true;
Discover fools and knaves, allow'd
For wise and honest in the crowd;
With innocent and virtuous sport
Make short days long, and long nights fort,
And mirth, the only antidote
Against diseases ere they 're got;
To save health harmless from th' access
Both of the medicine and disease ;
Or make it help itself, fecure
Against the desperat'ft fit, the cure,

All these sublime prerogatives
Of happiness to human lives, .

$

He

He vainly throws away and flights,
For madness, noise, and bloody fights ;
When nothing can decide, but fwords
And pots, the right or wrong of words,

30 Like princes" titles ; and he's outed The justice of his caufe that 's routed,,

No sooner has a charge been founded
With-Son of a whore, and Damn'd confounded,
And the bold signal given, the lye,

55
But instantly the bottles fly,
Where cups and glafles are small hot,
And cannon-ball a pewter-pot :
That blood, that's hardly in the vein,
Is now remanded back again ;

60 Though sprung from wine of the same piece, And near a-kin, within degrees, Strives to commit assassinations On its own natural relations ; And those twin-spirits, so kind-hearted,

65 That from their friends so lately parted, No sooner several ways are gone, But by themselves are set upon, Surpriz'd like brother against brother, And put to th' sword by one another : So much more fierce are civil wars, Than those between mere foreigners ! And man himself, with wine pofleft, More savage than the wildest beaft! For serpents, when they meet to water,

75 Lay by their poison and their nature;

And -95

And fierceft creatures, that repair,
In thirsty deserts, to their rare
And diftant rivers' banks to drink,
In love and close alliance link,
And from their mixture of Atrange feeds
Produce new, never-heard-of breeds,
To whom the fiercer unicorn
Begins a large health with his horn;
As cuckolds put their antidotes,
When they drink coffee, into th' pots :
* While man, with raging drink inflam'd,
Is far more favage and untam'd;
Supplies his loss of wit and sense
With barbarousness and infolence;
Believes himself, the less he 's able,
The more heroic and formidable ;
Lays-by his reason in his bowls,
As Turks are said to do their fouls,
Until it has so often been
Shut out of its slodging, and let'in,
At length it never can attain
To find the right way back again ;
Drinks all his time away, and prunes
The end of 's life, as vignerons
cut short the branches of a vine,
To make it bear more plenty o' wine ;
And that which Nature did intend
T'enlarge his life, perverts t' its end.

So Noah, when he anchor'd safe on
The mountain's top, his lofty haven,