FOOL. Without more préface or formality,
A female of malignant quality
Set fire on label of mortality;
The fæces of which ulceration
Brought o'er the helm a distillation
Thro' th' instrument of propagation.
KIL. Then, Cousin, (as I guess the matter) 25 You have been an old fornicator,
And now are shot 'twixt wind and water.
Your style has such an ill complexion,
That from your breath I fear infection,
That ev'n your mouth needs an injection.
You that were once so economic,
Quitting the thrifty style laconic,
Turn prodigal in macaronic.
Yet be of comfort, I shall send-a
Person of knowledge, who can mend-a
Disaster in your nether end-a-
Whether it pullen be or shanker,
Cordee, and crooked like an anchor;
Your cure too costs you but a spanker.
Or tho' your piss be sharp as razor,
Do but confer with Dr. Frazer,
He'll make your running nag a pacer.
Nor shall you need your silver-quick, Sir;
Take Mongo Murrey's black elixir,
And in a week it cures your p-, Sir.
But you that are a man of learning,
So read in Virgil, so discerning,
Methinks t'wards fifty should take warning.
Once in a pit you did miscarry;
That danger might have made one wary :
This pit is deeper than the quarry..
POOL. Give me not such disconsolation,
Having now cur'd my inflammation,
To ulcerate my reputation.
Tho' it may gain the ladies' favour,
Yet it may raise an evil savour
Upon all grave and staid behav'our.
And I will rub my mater pia,
To find a rhyme to gonorrhea,
And put it in my litania.
* Hunting near Paris he and his horse fell into a quarry.
THE PROGRESS OF LEARNING.
My early mistrest, now my ancient Muse,
That strong Circæan liquor cease t' infuse,
Wherewith thou didst intoxicate my youth;
Now stoop, with disinchanted wings, to trutha
As the dove's flight did guide Æneas, now
May thine conduct me to the golden bough :
Tell (like a tall old oak) bow Learning shoots
To beav'n ber branches, and to bell ber roots.
WHEN God from earth form'd Adam in the east,
He his own image on the clay imprest.
As subjects then the whole creation came,
And from their natures Adam them did name;
Not from experience, (for the world was new) S
He only from their cause their natures knew.
Had memory been lost with innocence,
We had not known the sentence nor th' offence.
'Twas his chief punishment to keep in store
The sad remembrance what he was before;
And tho' th' offending part felt mortal pain,
Th' immortal part its knowledge did retain.
After the flood arts to Chaldea fell;
The father of the faithful there did dwell,
Who both their parent and instructer was :
From thence did learning into Egypt pass.
Moses in all th' Egyptian arts was skill'd,
When heav'nly pow'r that chosen vessel fill'd;
And we to his high inspiration owe
That what was done before the flood we know. 20
From Egypt arts their progress made to Greece,
Wrapp'd in the fable of the Golden Fleece.
Musæus first, then Orpheus, civilize
Mankind, and gave the world their deities :
To many gods they taught devotion,
Which were the distinct faculties of one:
Th' Eternal Cause in their immortal lines
Was taught, and poets were the first divines.
God Moses first, then David, did inspire,
To compose anthems for his heav'nly quire :
To th' one the style of Friend he did impart,
On the other stamp the likeness of his heart:
And Moses, in the old original,
Ev'n God the poet of the world doth call.
Next those old Greeks Pythagoras did rise,
Then Socrates, whom th' oracle call'd Wise.
The divine Plato moral virtue shows,
Then his disciple Aristotle rose,
Who Nature's secrets to the world did teach,
Yet that great soul our novelists impeach:
Too much manuring fill'd that field with weeds,
While sects, like locusts, did destroy the seeds.
The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes,
Produces sapless leaves instead of fruits.
Proud Greece all nations else barbarians held, 45 Boasting her learning all the world excell'd. Flying from thence *, to Italy it came, And to the realm of Naples gave the name, Till both their nation and their arts did come A welcome trophy to triumphant Rome. Then wheresoe'er her conq'ring Eagles fled, Arts, learning, and civility were spread; And as in this our microcosm the heart Heat, spirit, motion, gives to ev'ry part, So Rome's victorious influence did disperse All her own virtues thro' the universe, Here some digression I must make, t' accuse Thee, my forgetful and ungrateful Muse! Couldst thou from Greece to Latium take thy flight, And not to thy great ancestors do right? I can no more believe old Homer blind, Than those who say the sun hath never shin'd : The age wherein he liv'd was dark, but he Could not want sight who taught the world to see. They who Minerva from Jove's head derive, Might make old Homer's scull the Muses' hive, And from his brain that Helicon distill Whose racy liquor did his offspring fill. Nor old Anacreon, Hesiod, Theocrite, Must we forget, nor Pindar's lofty flight. Old Homer's soul, at last from Greece retir'd, In Italy the Mantuan swain inspir'd..
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