But to my Satires gave this only warrant,
To apprehend and punish vice apparent ;
Who aiming in particular at none,
In general upbraided every one,
That each (unshamed of himself) might view
That in himself which no man dares to shew.
And hath this age bred up neat vice so tenderly,
She cannot brook it to be touch'd so slenderly?
Will she not bide my gentle Satyr's bites?
Harm take her then! what makes she in their sights?
If with impatience she my whip-cord feel,
How had she raged at my lash of steel?
But am I call'd in question for her cause?
Is't vice that these afflictions on me draws?
And need I now thus to apologize,
Only because I scourged villainies?
Must I be fain to give a reason why,
And how I dare allow of honesty,
Whilst that each fleering parasite is bold
Thy royal brow undaunted to behold,
And every temporizer strikes a string
That's music for the hearing of a King?
Shall not he reach out to obtain as much,
Who dares more for thee than a hundred such?
Heaven grant her patience! my Muse takes't so
I fear she'll lose her wits; for she raves madly.
Yet let not my dread Sovereign too much blame her,
Whose awful presence now hath made her tamer;
For if there be no fly but hath her spleen,
Nor a poor pismire but will wreak her teen,*
How shall I then, that have both spleen and gall,
Being unjustly dealt with, bear with all?
I yet with patience take what I have borne,
And all the world's ensuing hate can scorn;
But 'twere in me as much stupidity
Not to have feeling of an injury,
As it were weakness not to brook it well;
What others therefore think I cannot tell.
But he that's less than mad, is more than man,
Who sees, when he hath done the best he can
To keep within the bounds of innocence,
Sought to discharge his due to God and Prince,
That he, whilst villainies unreproved go,
Scoffing, to see him over-taken so,
Should have his good endeavours misconceiv'd,
Be of his dearest liberty bereav'd,
And, which is worse, without reason why,
Be frown'd on by authority's grim eye.
By that great Power my soul so much doth fear,
She scorns the stern'st frowns of a mortal Peer!
* Teen. Sorrow; grief.
"Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,
And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen."
SHAKSPEARE's Richard III. A. 4. sc. 1.
But that I Virtue love for her own sake,
It were enough to make me undertake
To speak as much in praise of vice again,
And practise some to plague these shames of men ;
I mean those my accusers who, mistaking
My aims, do frame conceits of their own making.
But, if I list, I need not buy so dear,
The just revenge might be inflicted here.
Now could I measures frame, in this just fury,
Should sooner find some guilty than a jury:
The words, like swords (temper'd with art) should
And hang, and draw, and quarter them in verse.
Or I could rack them on the wings of fame,
(And he's half-hang'd, they say, hath an ill name);
Yea, I'd go near to make those guilty elves,
*Lycambes-like, be glad to hang themselves.
And though this age will not abide to hear
The faults reprov'd that custom hath made dear,
Yet, if I pleased, I could write their crimes,
And pile them up in walls for after-times;
Lycambes-like. Lycambes was the father of Neobule. He promised his daughter in marriage to the poet Archilochus, and afterwards refused to fulfil his engagement, when she had been courted by a man whose opulence had more influence than the fortune of the poet. This irritated Archilochus: he wrote a bitter invective against Lycambes and his daughter, and rendered them both so desperate by the satire of his composition, that they hanged themselves.
For they'll be glad (perhaps) that shall
To see some story of their fathers true.
Or should I smother'd be in darkness still,
I might not use the freedom of a quill,
"Twould raise up braver spirits than mine own
To make my cause and this their guilt more known;
Who by that subject should get love and fame,
Unto my foes disgrace, and endless shame;
Those I do mean, whose comments have mis-us'd
And to those Peers I honour, have accus'd me;
Making against my innocence their batteries,
And wronging them by their base flatteries.
But of revenge I am not yet so fain
To put myself unto that needless pain,
Because I know a greater Power there is,
That noteth smaller injuries than this;
And being still as just as it is strong,
Apportions due revenge for every wrong.
But why (some say) should his too saucy rhymes
Thus tax the wise and great ones of our times?
It suits not with his years to be so bold,
Nor fits it us by him to be controul'd.
I must confess ('tis very true indeed)
Such should not of my censure stand in need.
But blame me not: I saw good Virtue poor,
Desert, among the most, thrust out of door,
Honesty hated, courtesy banished,
Rich men excessive, poor men famished,
Coldness in zeal, in laws partiality,
Friendship but compliment and vain formality,
Art I perceive contemn'd, while most advance
To offices of worth rich ignorance,
And those that should our lights and teachers be,
Live (if not worse) as wantonly as we;
Yea, I saw Nature from her course run back,
Disorders grow, good orders go to wrack.
So, to encrease what all the rest began,
I to this current of confusion ran,
And seeing age left off the place of guiding,
Thus play'd the saucy wag, and fell to chiding.
Wherein, however some perhaps may deem,
I am not so much faulty as I seem;
For when the Elders wrong'd Susannah's honour,
And none withstood the shame they laid upon her,
A child rose up to stand in her defence,
And, spite of wrong, confirm'd her innocence;
To shew, those must not, that good undertake,
Strain court'sy, who shall do't for manner's sake.
Nor do I know, whether to me God gave
A boldness more than many others have,
That I might shew the world what shameful blot Virtue by her lascivious Elders got.
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