If you pretend, as well you may, His grace of Bucks has made a farce, you, whose comic wit is terfe all, Can hardly fall below Rehearsal. Then finish what you have began; But fcribble fafter if you can: For yet no George, to our difcerning, Has writ without a ten years warning. EPISTLE the EIGHTH. то Mr. SOUTHERN E, ON HIS COMEDY call'd, The WIVES EXCUSE. URE there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain SURE To write, while thefe malignant planets reign. Some very foolish influence rules the pit, Not always kind to sense, or just to wit: And whilst it lafts, let buffoonry succeed, To make us laugh; for never was more need. Farce, in itself, is of a nafty fcent; But the gain fmells not of the excrement. The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too, With all her charms, bore but a single show: But let a monster Muscovite appear, He draws a crowded audience round the year. May be thou haft not pleas'd the box and pit ; } Like his thy thoughts are true, thy language clean; E'en lewdness is made moral in thy fcene. The hearers may for want of Nokes repine; But reft fecure, the readers will be thine. With fuch good manners, as the Wife did ufe, The standard of thy ftyle let Etherege be; EPISTLE the NINTH. то HENRY HIGDEN, Efq; ON HIS Tranflation of the Tenth Satire of JUVENAL. HE Grecian wits, who Satire first began, ΤΗ Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man ; At mighty villains, who the state opprest, They durft not rail, perhaps; they lash'd, at least, And turn'd them out of office with a jest. No fool could peep abroad, but ready stand The drolls to clap a bauble in his hand. Wife legiflators never yet could draw ; A fop within the reach of common law But Yet you, my friend, have temper'd him so well, You make him smile in spite of all his zeal : An art peculiar to yourself alone, To join the virtues of two ftyles in one. It costs our quiet and content of mind, } Why should I help th' ill-natur'd world to laugh? "Tis all alike to them, who get the day; They love the spite and mischief of the fray. Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone. |