So truly' effential to his good,

Produce new, never-heard-of breeds,

To whom the fiercer unicorn

To countervail his penfive cares,
And flavith drudgery of affairs;
To teach him judgment, wit, and fenfe,
And, more than all thefe, confidence;
To pafs his times of recreation
In choice and noble converfation,
Catch truth and reafon unawares,
As men do health in wholesome airs
(While fools their converfants poffefs
As unawares with fottifhnefs);
To gain accefs a private way

To man's beft fenfe, by its own key,
Which painful judgers itrive in vain
By any other courfe t' obtain;
To pull off all difquife, and view
Things as they're natural and true;
Difcover fools and knaves, allow'd
Sor wife and honeft in the crowd;
With innocent and virtuous sport

Make short days long, and long nights short,'
And mirth, the only antidote

20

When they drink coffee, into th' pots;
While man, with raging drink inflam'd,
Is far more favage and untam'd;

25 Supplies his lofs of wit and fenfe

30

35

Againft difeafes ere they 're got;

40

To fave health harmless from th' accefs

Both of the medicine and difeafe;

Or make it help itself, fecure

Against the defperat'it fit, the cure.

45

All these fublime prerogatives

Of happiness to human lives,
le vainly throws away and flights,
or ma nefs, noife, and bloody fights;
When nothing can decile, but fwords
and pots, the right or wrong of words,
ke princes' tities; and he's outed
The justice of his cute that 's roated.
No fooner has a charge been founded
Vith-Son of a whare, and Damn'd confounded,
nd the bold final given, the ije,

ut in lantly the bottles fly,
There cups and glaffes are finall fhot,
nd cannon-ball a pewter-pot;

hat blood, that's hardly in the vein,

i now remanded back again;

nough fprung from wine of the fame piece,

nd near a-kin, within degrees, trives to commit alfalinations

In its own natural relations;

nd thofe twin-fpirits, fo kind-hearted,

hat from their friends fo lately parted,

With barbaroufnefs and infolence;
Believes him felf, the lefs he 's able,
The more heroic and formidable;
Lays-by his reafon in his bowls,
As Turks are faid to do their fouls,
Until it has fo often been
Shut out of its lodging, and let in,
At length it never can attain
To find the right way back again;
Drinks all his time away, and prunes
The end of 's life, as vignerons
Cut fhort the branches of a vine,
To make it bear more plenty o' wine;
And that which Nature did intend
T' enlarge his life, perverts t' its end.

So Noah, when he anchor'd fafe on
The mountain's top, his lofty haven,
And all the paffengers he bore
Were on the new world fet afhore,
He made it next his chief defign
To plant and propagate a vine;

Which fince has overwhelm'd and drown'd
Far greater numbers, on dry ground,
Of wretched mankind, one by one,

50 Than all the flood before had done.

55

60

6

SATIRE

UPON

But when they tir'd, like other horned beafts,
Might have it taken off, and take their refts,
Without being bound in duty to fhew caufe,
Or reckon with divine or heman laws.
For fince, what ufe of matrimony' has been,
But to make gallantry a greater fin?
16
As if there were no appetite nor guft,
Below adultery, in modifh luft;
Or no debauchery were exquifite,
Until it has attain'd its perfect height.

20

31

For men do now take wives to nobler ends,
Not to bear children, but to bear them friends;
Whom nothing can oblige at fuch a rate
As thefe endearing offices of late.
For men are now grown wife, and understand 25
How to improve their crimes as well as land;
And, if they 've iffue, make the infants pay
Down for their own begetting on the day,
The charges of the goffiping difburfe,
And pay beforehand (ere they're born) the nurfe;
As he that got a monster on a cow,
Out of defign of fetting up a show.
For why should not the brats for all account,
As well as for the chriftening at the fount,
When thofe that ftand for them lay down the rate
O' th' banquet and the prieft in fpoons and plate?
The ancient Romans made the ftate allow
For getting all men's children above two!
Then married men, to propagate the breed,
Had great rewards for what they never did, 40
Were privileg'd, and highly honour'd too,
For owning what their friends were fain to do;
For fo they 'ad children, they regarded not
By whom (good men), or how, they were begot.
To borrow wives (like money) or to lend,
Was then the civil office of a friend,
And he that made a fcruple in the cafe
Was held a miferable wretch and bafe:

45

For when they 'ad children by them, th' honeft

men

Return'd them to their hufbands back again.
Then, for th' encouragement and propagation
Of fuch a great concernment to the nation,
All people were fo full of complacence,
And civil duty to the public fenfe,
They had no name t' exprefs a cuckold then,
But that which fignified all married men;
Nor was the thing accounted a difgrace,
Unless among the dirty populace,

And no man underftands on what account
Les civil nations after hit upon 't:
For to be known a cuckold can be no
Dishonour but to him that thinks it fo
For if he feel no chagrin or remorse,

55

For horns (like horny calloufes) are found
To grow on fculls that have receiv'd a wound,
Are crackt, and broken; not at all on tho
That are invulnerate and free from blows.
What a brave time had cuckold-makers then,
When they were held the worthiett of men,
The real fathers of the commonwealth,
That planted colonies in Rome itself!
When he that help'd his neighbours, and begx
Moft Romans, was the noblest patriot
For if a brave man, that preferv'd from de
One citizen, was honour'd with a wreath,
He that more gallantly got three or four,
In reafon must deferve a great deal more.
Then, if thofe glorious worthies of old Res
That civiliz'd the world they 'ad overcome,
And taught it laws and learning, found thevy
The belt to fave then empire from decay,
Why should not thefe, that borrow all the
They have from them, not take this leffett
Get children, friends, and honour too, alk

ney,

By prudent managing of matrimony?
For, if 'tis honourable by all confeft,
Adultery must be worshipful at least,
And thefe times great, when private mea FC

come

Up to the height and politic of Rome.
All by-blows were not only free-born the
But, like John Lilburn, free-begotten men;
Had equal right and privilege with theie
That claim by title right of the four feas:
For, being in marriage born, it matters not a
After what liturgy they were begot;
And if there be a difference, they have
Th' advantage of the chance in proving
By being engender'd with more life and i
Than thofe begotten the dull way of coufe. "*

The Chinese place all piety and zeal
In ferving with their wives the commonwell.
Fix all their hopes of merit and falvation
Upon their women's fuper erogation;
With folemn yows their wives and daughter b
Like Eve in Paradife, to all mankind;
And thofe that can produce the most gallon,
Are held the precioufeft of all their faints;
Wear rofaries about their necks, to con
Their exercifes of devotion on;

That ferve them for certificates, to fhow
With what vaft numbers they have had to do:
Before they 're married, make a confcience
T'omit no duty of incontinence;
And the that has been ofteneft prostituted, 11
Is worthy of the greatest match reputed.
But, when the conquering Tartar went about
To root this orthodox religion out,
They stood for confcience, and refolv'd to de
Go Rather than change the ancient purity
Of that religion, which their ancestors
And they had profper'd in fo many years;
Vow'd to their gods to facrifice their lives,

His forehead 's fhot-free, and he's ne'er the And die their daughters martyrs, and their wif

worfe:

Before they would commit fo great a fin
Against the faith they had been bred up in

When no indictment justly lies,

15

To own, and challenge, and adopt,
At least th' expos'd and fatherless
Poor orphans of the pen and prefs,
Whofe parents are obfcure, or dead,
Or in far countries born and bred?

60

But where the theft will bear a price.

For though wit never can be learn'd,

It may b' affum'd,, and own'd, and carn'd,
And, like our nobleft fruits, improv❜d,
By being transplanted and remov'd;

And, as it bears no certain rate,
Nor pays one penny to the ftate,

With which it turns no more t' account
Than virtue, faith, and merit 's wont;
Is neither moveable nor rent,
Nor chattel, goods, nor tenement,

Nor was it ever pafs'd b' entail,
Nor fettled upon heirs-male;
Or if it were, like ill-got land,
Did never fall t'a fecond hand;

20

As none but kings have power to raise
A levy, which the fubject pays,

65

And though they call that tax a loan,

Yet when 'tis gather'd 'tis their own;
So he that 's able to impofe

A wit-excife on verfe or profe,

70

And ftill, the abler authors are

Can make them pay the greater share,

25

Is prince of poets of his time,

And they his vaffals that fupply' him ;

Can judge mo.e juftty' of what he takes

75

Than any of the belt he makes,

And more impartially conceive

30

What's fit to chufe, and what to leave.

For men reflect more ftrictly' upon

35

To owe its being to its vent;

That has no value of its own,

But as it is divulg'd and known;

Is perishable and destroy'd,

As long as it lies unenjoy'd;

The fenfe of others than their own;
And wit, that's made of wit and fleight,
Is richer than the plain downright:
As falt, that's made of falt, 's more fine,
Than when it first came from the brine;
And fpirits of a nobler nature
Drawn from the dull ingredient matter.
Hence mighty Virgil's faid, of old,
40 From dung to have extracted gold
(As many a lout and filly clown
Bais inftructions fince has done);
And grew more lofty by that means,
Than by his livery-oats and beans,
When from his carts and country farms
He rofe a mighty man at arms;
To whom th' Heroics ever fince
Have worn allegiance, as their prince,
And faithfully have in all times
Obferv'd his cuftoms in their rhymes.
'Twas counted learning once, and wit,
To void but what fome author writ,
And what men understood by rote,
By as implicit fenfe to quote:
Then many a magifterial clerk
Was taught, like finging-birds, i' th' dark,

It is not improbable but that Butler, in this
fatire, or fneering apology for the plagiary, ob-
liquely hints at Sir John Denham, whom he has
directly attacked in a preceding poem.
Butler was not pleafed with the two first lines
of this compofition, as appears by his altering
them in the margin, tus:

Why fhould the world be fo fevere
To every fmall-wit privateer?

And indeed the alteration is much for the bet-
ter; but, as it would not connect grammatically
with what follows, I did not think proper to
adopt it.