See! where the British youth, engaged 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,

215

As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.
"That's velvet for a king?" the flatterer swears;
'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be king Lear's.
Our Court may justly to our stage give rules, 220
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.

225

Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell, Like frigates fraught with spice and cochine'l, Sail in the ladies: how each pirate eyes

So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!

NOTES.

the only property they have. Thank Heaven, my Lords, we are otherwise provided for." The first play that was prohibited by this act, was Gustavus Vasa, by Brooke; the next was the Edward and Eleonora of Thomson. Warton.

Ver. 220. our stage give rules,] Alluding to the authority of the Lord Chamberlain,

Warburton.

Ver. 227. Like frigates fraught] Here is a very close resemblance to the picture of Dulilah, in Samson Agonistes:

This cause, These men, men's 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.
Would not 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,
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,

NOTES.

Ver. 240. by Durer's rules,] The best painter Germany ever produced; he was patronized and beloved by Maximilian I. and by Charles V., and, what was of more consequence to an artist, by Raphael himself, who sent him several designs, and his own portrait. He formed himself on no other painter, had a manner of his own, which indeed was hard; he wanted grace, and had not studied the antique, and copied only common nature and the forms before him. He attended not to costume. His Madonnas were dressed like German ladies, and his Jews had beards and mustachios. See a most judicious criticism on the works and talents

of

Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim,

230

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 praised for nought,
For both the beauty and the wit are bought. 235
'Twould burst even Heraclitus with the spleen,
To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin:
The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,
The Mosque of Mahound, or some queer Pagod.
See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, 240
Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!
Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw
Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;
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,

245

They march to prate their hour before the fair.
So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes,250
With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.

Let but the Ladies smile, and they are blest:
Prodigious! how the things protest, protest: 255

NOTES.

of Albert Durer, by a living painter of great genius and learning, Mr. Fuseli, in the third volume of that entertaining/publication, intitled, Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, p. 234. Warton.

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.
But here comes Glorious that will plague them
both,

Who in the other extreme only doth

Call a rough carelessness, good fashion :

Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,
He cares not, he. His ill words do no harm
To him; he rushes in, as if Arm, arm,

He meant to cry; and though his face be as ill
As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to look worse; he keeps all in awe;
Just like a licens'd fool, commands like law.

Tyr'd, now I leave this place, and but pleas'd so As men from gaols to execution go,

Go through the great chamber (why is it hung
With the seven deadly sins?) being among

NOTES.

Ver. 256. or Gonson] Sir John Gonson, the famous police magistrate, was as celebrated in his day, in the annals of justice, as one of his successors in office, Sir John Fielding, has been since. His portrait is introduced in Hogarth's Harlot's Progress.

Bowles.

Ver. 262. The Captain's honest,] Much resembling Noll Bluff, in Congreve's Old Bachelor, who was copied from Thraso, and also from Ben Jonson. Warton.

Ver. 273. As men from jails] A line so smooth that our author thought proper to adopt it from the original. There are many such, as I have before observed, which shew, that if Donne had

taken

Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you, If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!

Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.

But here's the captain that will plague them both,
Whose air cries Arm! whose very look's an oath :
The captain's honest, Sirs, and that's enough,
Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff.
He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,
Like battering rams, beats open every door; 265
And with a face as red, and as awry,
As Herod's hang-dogs in old tapestry,
Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,
Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;
Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,
Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law.
Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
As men from jails to execution go;
For, hung with deadly sins, I see the wall,
And lined with giants deadlier than them all: 275

270

NOTES.

taken equal pains, he need not have left his numbers so much more rugged and disgusting, than many of his cotemporaries, especially one so exquisitely melodious as Drummond of Hawthornden; who, in truth, more than Fairfax, Waller, or Denham, deserves to be called the first polisher of English versification. Milton read him much. And Pope copied him, not only in his Pastorals, as before observed, but in his Eloisa. A well written Life of Drummond is inserted in the fifth volume of the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, with many curious particulars imparted by Mr. Parke. Warton.

Ver. 274. For, hung with deadly sins,] The room hung with old tapestry, representing the seven deadly sins. Pope.