220

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.

225

230

Painted for sight, and essenc'd 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! 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 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, Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools! Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;

NOTES.

235

240

of his own, which indeed was hard; he wanted grace, 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 mustacchios. See a most judicious Criticism on the Works and Talents 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.

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.

But here comes Glorious that will plague them both,

Who in the other extreme only doth

Call a rough carelesness, 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;
Jests 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. 250. So first to preach] An inimitable portrait of a smooth, and smug, and satin, modern divine!

Ver. 256. or Gonson] He was a famous Westminster justice of peace; and Hogarth introduced him in one of his pictures.

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-glov'd Chaplain goes, 250
With band of Lily, and with cheek of Rose,
Sweeter than Sharon, in immac❜late trim,
Neatness itself impertinent in him.

255

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.

259

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,
Tho' his soul's bullet, and his body buff.

He spits fore'right; his haughty chest before,
Like batt'ring rams, beats open ev'ry door:
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 licens'd fool, commands like law.

265

270

NOTES.

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

Those Askaparts*, men big enough to throw
Charing Cross for a bar, men that do know
No token of worth, but Queens man, and fine
Living; barrels of beef, flaggons of wine.
I shook like a spied Spie-Preachers which are
Seas of Wit and Arts, you can, then dare,
Drown the sins of this place, but as for me
Which am but a scant brook, enough shall be
To wash the stains away: Although I yet
(With Maccabees modesty) the known merit
Of my work lessen, yet some wise men shall,
I hope, esteem my Writs Canonical.

NOTES.

* A Giant famous in Romances. P.

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 equal pains, he need not have left his numbers so much more rugged and disgusting, than many of his contemporaries, 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. Park,

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 lin'd with Giants deadlier than 'em all:
Each man an Askapart, of strength to toss
For Quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.
Scar'd at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly,

And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.

275

279

Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine: Charge them with Heav'n's Artill'ry, bold Divine! From such alone the Great rebukes endure, Whose Satire's sacred, and whose rage secure : 'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a Court in tears. Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my Wit, In time to come, may pass for Holy Writ.

NOTES.

285

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

Ver. 286. my Wit,] The private character of Donne was very amiable and interesting; particularly so, on account of his secret marriage with the daughter of Sir George More; of the difficulties he underwent on this marriage; of his constant affection to his wife, his affliction at her death, and the sensibility he displayed towards all his friends and relations.