Shut up against my will, I waste my age
In mending this, and blotting out that page, of the flavish trade,
I envy their condition that write bad.
O happy Scudery! whofe eafy quill
Can, once a month, a mighty volume fill;
For, though thy works are written in despite
Of all good fenfe, impertinent and flight,
They never have been known to stand in need
Of stationer to fell, or fot to read;
For, fo the rhyme be at the verfe's end,
No matter whither all the reft does tend.
Unhappy is that man who, spite of 's heart,
Is forc'd to be ty'd up to rules of art.
A fop that fcribbles does it with delight,
Takes no pains to confider what to write,
But, fond of all the nonfenfe he brings forth,
Is ravish'd with his own great wit and worth;
While brave and noble writers vainly strive
To such a height of glory to arrive ;
But, still with all they do unfatisfy'd,
Ne'er please themselves, though all the world befide:
And those whom all mankind admire for wit,
With, for their own fakes, they had never writ.
Thou, then, that feeft how ill I spend my time,
Teach me, for pity, how to make a rhyme j
And, if th' inftructions chance to prove in vain,
how ne'er to write again.
RIDICULOUS IMITATION OF THE FRENCH.
WHO would not rather get him gone
Beyond th' intolerablest zone,
Or fteer his paffage through those seas
That burn in flames, or thofe that freeze,
Than fee one nation go to school,
And learn of another, like a fool?
To study all its tricks and fashions
With epidemic affectations,
And dare to wear no mode or drefs,
But what they in their wisdom please;
As monkies are, by being taught
To put on gloves and ftockings, caught;
Submit to all that they devife,
As if it wore their liveries ;
Ver. 1.] The object of this fatire was that extravagant and ridiculous imitation of the French which prevailed in Charles the Second's reign, partly owing to the connexion and intercourfe which the politics of thofe times obliged us to have with that nation, and partly to our eager defire of avoiding the formal and precife gravity of the hypocritical age that preceded.
Make ready' and dress th' imagination,
Not with the clothes, but with the fashion;
And change it, to fulfil the curfe
Of Adam's fall, for new, though worfe
To make their breeches fall and rife
From middle legs to middle thighs,
The tropics between which the hose
Move always as the fashion goes:
Sometimes wear hats like pyramids,
And fometimes flat, like pipkins' lids ;
With broad brims, fometimes, like umbrellas,
And fometimes narrow' as Punchinello's :
In coldeft weather go unbrac'd,
And clofe in hot, as if th' were lac'd ;
Sometimes with fleeves and bodies wide,
And sometimes straiter than a hide :
Wear peruques, and with false grey hairs
Difguife the true ones and their years;
That, when they 're modish, with the
The old may seem so in the throng:
And, as fome pupils have been known
In time to put their tutors down,
So ours are often found to 'ave got
More tricks than ever they were taught:
With fly intrigues and artifices
Ufurp their poxes and their vices ;
With garnitures upon their fhoes,
Make good their claim to gouty toes;
By fudden starts, and shrugs, and groans,
Pretend to aches in their bones,
To fcabs and botches, and lay trains
To prove their running of the reins;
And, left they should feem deftitute
Of any mange that 's in repute,
And be behind hand with the mode,
Will fwear to crystallin and node;
And, that they may not lose their rights
Make it appear how they came by 't:
Difdain the country where they were born,
As baftards their own mothers fcorn,
And that which brought them forth contemn,
As it deferves, for bearing them ;
Admire whate'er they find abroad,
But nothing here, though e'er fo good:
Be natives wherefoe'er they come,.
And only foreigners at home;
To which they appear fo far eftrang'd,
As if they 'ad been i' th' cradle chang'd,
Or from beyond the feas convey'd
By witches-not born here, but laid ş
Or by outlandish fathers were
Begotten on their mothers here,
And therefore justly flight that nation
Where they 've fo mongrel a relation;
And feek out other climates, where
They may degenerate less than here;
As woodcocks, when their plumes are grown,
Borne on the wind's wings and their own,
Forfake the countries where they're hatch'd
And feek out others to be catch'd..
So they more naturally may please
And humour their own geniuses,
Apply to all things which they fee.
With their own fancies beft agree;
No matter how ridiculous,
'Tis all one, if it be in use;
For nothing can be bad or good,
But as 'tis in or out of mode;
And, as the nations are that use it,
All ought to practise or refuse it; }
Tobferve their postures, move, and stand,
As they give out the word o' command;
To learn the dulleft of their whims,
And how to wear their very limbs ;
To turn and manage every part,
Like puppets, by their rules of art;
To fhrug discreetly, act, and tread,
And politicly shake the head,
Until the ignorant (that guess
At all things by th' appearances)
To fee how Art and Nature strive,
Believe them really alive,
And that they're very men, not things
That move by puppet-work and springs;
When truly all their feats have been
As well perform'd by motion-men,
And the worst drolls of Punchinellos
Were much th' ingenioufer fellows;
For, when they 're perfect in their leffon,
Th' hypothefis grows out of feason,
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