Bear me, some god! oh quickly bear me hence
To wholesome Solitude, the nurse of Sense:
Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings,
And the free soul looks down to pity Kings!
There sober thought pursu'd th' amusing theme,
Till Fancy colour'd it, and form'd a Dream.
A Vision hermits can to Hell transport,
And forc'd ev'n me to see the damn'd at Court.
Not Dante dreaming all th' infernal state,
Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.
Base Fear becomes the guilty, not the free;
Suits Tyrants, Plunderers, but suits not me:
Shall I, the Terror of this sinful town,
Care, if a liv'ry'd Lord or smile or frown ?
At home in wholesome solitariness
My piteous soul began the wretchedness
Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance
Like his, who dreamt he saw hell, did advance
Itself o'er me: such men as he saw there
I saw at court, and worse and more. Low fear
Becomes the guilty, not th' accuser: Then,
Shall I, none's slave, of high-born or rais'd men
Ver. 185. Bear me,] These four lines are wonderfully sublime. His impatience in this region of vice, is like that of Virgil, in the region of heat. They both call out as if they were half stifled by the sulphury air of the place,
O qui me gelidis
Oh quickly bear me hence.
Ver. 188. There sober thought] These two lines are remarkable for the delicacy and propriety of the expression.
Ver. 194. Base Fear] These four admirable lines become the high office he had assumed, and so nobly sustained.
Who cannot flatter, and detest who can,
Tremble before a Noble Serving-man ?
0 my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee
For huffing, braggart, puft Nobility?
Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all
The busy, idle blockheads of the ball,
Hast thou, oh Sun! beheld an emptier sort,
Than such as swell this bladder of a Court?
Now pox on those who shew a Court in wax
It ought to bring all Courtiers on their backs:
Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race
Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face!
Such waxen noses, stately staring things-
No wonder some folks bow, and think them Kings.
Fear frowns; and my mistress Truth, betray thee
For th' huffing, bragart, puft nobility?
No, no, thou which since yesterday hast been,
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
O Sun, in all thy journey, vanity,
Such as swells the bladder of our court: I
Think he which made your a Waxen-garden, and
Transported it from Italy, to stand
With us at London, flouts our Courtiers; for
Just such gay painted things, which no sap, nor
Taste have in them, ours are ; and natural
Some of the stocks bare; their fruits bastard all.
'Tis ten a clock and past; all whom the mues,
Baloun, or tennis, diet, or the stews
Ver. 206. Court in wax!] A famous show of the Court of France, in wax-work.
a A show of the Italian Garden in wax-work, in the time of King James the First.
See! where the British youth, engag'd no more,
At Fig's, at White's, with felons, or a whore,
Pay their last duty to the Court, and come
All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing room;
In hues as gay, and odours as divine,
As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.
"That's Velvet for a King!" the flatt'rer swears;
"Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.
Our Court may justly to our stage give rules,
That helps it both to fools' coats and to fools.
And why not players strut in courtiers clothes?
For these are actors too, as well as those:
Wants reach all states; they beg but better drest,
And all is splendid poverty at best.
Painted for sight, and essenc'd for the smell,
Like frigates fraught with spice and cochine'l,
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready, that day, in flocks are found
In the Presence, and I (God pardon me)
As fresh and sweet their Apparels be, as be
Their fields they sold to buy them. For a king
Those hose are, cry the flatterers: and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell.
Wants reach all states: me seems they do as well
At stage, as courts; all are players. Whoe'er looks
(For themselves dare not go) o'er Cheapside books,
Shall find their wardrobes inventory. Now
The Ladies come. As pirates (which do know
Ver. 213. At Fig's, at White's.] White's was a noted gaming-house: Fig's, a Prize-fighter's Academy, where the young Nobility received instruction in those days. It was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate.
Sail in the Ladies: how each pyrate eyes
So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!
Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim,
He boarding her, she striking sail to him:
"Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!"
And "Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!"
Such wits and beauties are not prais'd for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
"Twould burst ev'n Heraclitus with the spleen,
To see those anticks, Fopling and Courtin:
The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pa-god.
See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules,
Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;
That there came weak ships fraught with Cutchanel)
The men board them; and praise (as they think) well,
Their beauties; they the men's wits; both are bought.
Why good wits ne'er wear scarlet gowns, I thought
This cause, These men, mens wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all red which scarlets dye.
He call'd her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net:
She fears her drugs ill-lay'd, her hair loose set c.
Wouldn't Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe, himself at door refine,
As if the Presence were a Mosque: and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Ver. 240. Durer's rules,] Albert Durer.
e i. e. Conscious that both her complexion and her hair are borrowed, she suspects that, when in the common cant of flatterers, he calls her beauty lime-twigs, and her hair a net to catch lovers, he means to insinuate that her colours are coarsely laid on, and her borrowed hair loosely woven.
But oh! what terrors must distract the soul
Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole;
Or should one pound of powder less bespread
Those monkey-tails that wag behind their head.
Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,
They march, to prate their hour before the Fair.
So first to preach a white-glov'd Chaplain goes,
With band of Lily, and with cheek of Rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immac❜late trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.
Let but the Ladies smile, and they are blest:
Prodigious! how the things protest, protest:
Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,
If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!
Nature made ev'ry Fop to plague his brother,
Just as one Beauty mortifies another.
Making them confess not only mortal
Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate:
And then by Durer's rules survey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waste to thighs.
So in immaculate clothes, and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety
As a young Preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady which owes
Him not so much as good-will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests,
So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten Cardinals into the Inquisition;
And whispers by Jesu so oft, that a
Pursuevant would have ravish'd him away
For saying our Lady's Psalter. But 'tis fit
That they each other plague, they merit it.
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