So, in return, that strives to render less
The last delusion, with its own excess,
And, like two unskilled gamesters, use one way
With bungling t' help out one another's play.
For those, who heretofore sought private holes,
Securely in the dark to damn their souls,
Wore vizards of hypocrisy, to steal
And slink away, in masquerade, to hell,
Now bring their crimes into the open sun,
For all mankind to gaze their worst upon,
As eagles try their young against his rays,
To prove, if they're of generous breed, or base;
Call heaven and earth to witness, how they've aimed
With all their utmost vigour to be damned,
And by their own examples, in the view
Of all the world, strived to damn others too;
On all occasions sought to be as civil
As possible they could, t' his grace the Devil,
To give him no unnecessary trouble,
Nor in small matters use a friend so noble,
But with their constant practice done their best
T'improve, and propagate his interest.
For men have now made vice so great an art,
The matter of fact's become the slightest part;
And the debauched'st actions they can do,
Mere trifles, to the circumstance and show.
For 'tis not what they do, that's now the sin,
But what they lewdly affect, and glory in;
As if preposterously they would profess
A forced hypocrisy of wickedness,
And affectation, that makes good things bad,
Must make affected shame accursed, and mad;
For vices for themselves may find excuse,
But never for their complement, and shows;
That if there ever were a mystery
Of moral secular iniquity,
And that the churches may not lose their due
By being incroached upon, 'tis now, and new:
For men are now as scrupulous, and nice,
And tender conscienced of low paltry vice,
Disdain as proudly to be thought to have
To do in any mischief, but the brave,
As the most scrupulous zealot of late times
Τ'
appear
in any,
but the horrid'st crimes;
Have as precise and strict punctilios
Now to appear, as then to make no shows;
And steer the world by disagreeing force
Of different customs 'gainst her natural course.
So powerful's ill example to incroach,
And nature, spite of all her laws, debauch;
Example, that imperious dictator
Of all that's good, or bad, to human nature;
By which the world's corrupted and reclaimed,
Hopes to be saved, and studies to be damned;
That reconciles all contrarieties,
Makes wisdom foolishness, and folly wise,
Imposes on divinity, and sets
Her seal alike on truths, and counterfeits;
Alters all characters of virtue and vice,
And passes one for th' other in disguise;
Makes all things, as it pleases, understood,
The good received for bad, and bad for good;
That slily counter-changes wrong and right,
Like white in fields of black, and black in white;*
As if the laws of nature had been made
Of purpose, only to be disobeyed;
Or man had lost his mighty interest,
By having been distinguished from a beast,
And had no other way but sin and vice,
To be restored again to Paradise.
How copious is our language lately grown,
To make blaspheming wit, and a jargon!
And yet how expressive and significant,
In damme at once to curse, and swear, and rant!
* Counter-changes in heraldry mean intermixtures, as the colours of the field and charge,
As if no way expressed men's souls so well,
As damning of them to the pit of hell;
Nor any asseveration were so civil,
As mortgaging salvation to the devil;
Or that his name did add a charming grace,
And blasphemy a purity to our phrase.
For what can any language more enrich,
Than to pay souls for vitiating speech;
When the greatest tyrant in the world made those
But lick their words out, that abused his prose?
What trivial punishments did then protect
To public censure a profound respect,
When the most shameful penance and severe,
That could b' inflicted on a cavalier
For infamous debauchery, was no worse,
Than but to be degraded from his horse,
And have his livery of oats and hay,
Instead of cutting spurs off, taken away?
They held no torture then so great as shame,
And that to slay was less than to defame;
For just so much regard as men express
To th' censure of the public, more or less,
The same will be returned to them again,
In shame or reputation, to a grain;
And, how perverse soe'er the world appears,
'Tis just to all the bad it sees, and hears;
And for that virtue, strives to be allowed,
For all the injuries it does, the good.
How silly were their sages heretofore
To fright their heroes with a siren whore;
Make 'em believe a water-witch with charms
Could sink their men of war, as easy as storms,
And turn their mariners, that heard them sing,
Into land porpusses, and cod, and ling;
To terrify those mighty champions,
As we do children now with Bloody-bones;
Until the subtlest of their conjurers
Sealed up the labels to his soul, his ears,
And tied his deafened sailors, while he passed
The dreadful lady's lodgings, to the mast,
And rather venture drowning, than to wrong
The sea-pugs' chaste ears with a bawdy song:
To b' out of countenance, and, like an ass,
Not pledge the Lady Circe one beer-glass;
Unmannerly refuse her treat and wine,
For fear of being turned into a swine;
When one of our heroic advent'rers now
Would drink her down, and turn her int' a sow.
So simple were those times, when a grave sage
Could with an old-wife's tale instruct the age;
Teach virtue, more fantastic ways and nice,
Than ours will now endure t' improve in vice;
Made a dull sentence, and a moral fable
Do more, than all our holdings-forth are able;
A forced obscure mythology convince,
Beyond our worst inflictions upon sins;
When an old proverb, or an end of verse
Could more than all our penal laws coerce,
And keep men honester than all our furies
Of jailors, judges, constables, and juries;
Who were converted then with an old saying,
Better than all our preaching now, and praying.
What fops had these been, had they lived with us,
Where the best reason's made ridiculous;
And all the plain and sober things we say,
By raillery are put beside their play!
For men are grown above all knowledge now,
And, what they're ignorant of, disdain to know;
Engross truth, like fanatics, underhand,
And boldly judge, before they understand;
The self-same courses equally advance
In spiritual, and carnal ignorance;
And, by the same degrees of confidence,
Become impregnable against all sense;
For, as they outgrew ordinances then,
So would they now morality again.
Though drudgery and knowledge are of kin,
And both descended from one parent, sin,*
And therefore seldom have been known to part,
In tracing out the ways of truth and art;
Yet they have North-west passages to steer
A short way to it, without pains or care.
For, as implicit faith is far more stiff,
Than that which understands its own belief;
So those, that think, and do but think, they know,
Are far more obstinate than those that do,
And more averse, than if they'd ne'er been taught
A wrong way, to a right one to be brought;
Take boldness upon credit beforehand,
And grow too positive to understand;
Believe themselves as knowing, and as famous,
As if their gifts had gotten a mandamus,
A bill of store to take up a degree,
With all the learning to it, custom-free;+
And look as big, for what they bought at court,
As if they'd done their exercises for❜t.
WHAT fool would trouble fortune more,
When she has been too kind before;
Or tempt her to take back again,
What she had thrown away in vain;
By idly venturing her good graces
To be disposed of by alms-aces;
Or settling it in trust to uses,
Out of his power, on trays and deuces;
To put it to the chance, and try,
I' th' ballot of a box and die,
A bill of store is a licence which the merchant obtains at the Custom House, of taking up such stores and provisions as are necessary for his voyage, custom-free.'-T.
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