This I would do: but what will our desire avail When active heat and vigour fail? 'Tis well thou hast more youthful combatants than I, Right able to protect thy immortality: If envy should attack thy spotless name (And that attacks the best of things And into rigid censure brings The most undoubted registers of fame), 30 Their fond artillery let them dispense, Piercing wit and murd'ring eloquence, Noble conceit and manly sense, Charming numbers let 'em shine And dazzle dead in ev'ry line The most malicious of thy foes, Though Hell itself should offer to oppose; I (thy decrepit subject) only can resign The little life of art is left, to ransom thine: Fumbling's as bad in poetry, 40 And as ridiculous, as 'tis in gallantry: But if a dart I may prevent, Which at my friend's repute was meant, Let them then direct at me; By dying in so just a war, I possibly may share In thy infallible eternity. IV. But, dearest friend (Before it be too late), Let us a while expostulate, 50 What heat of glory call'd you on, Your learnèd empire to extend Beyond the limits of your own dominion? At home, you were already crown'd with bays: Why foreign trophies do you seek to raise? Poets arcanas have of government, And tho' the homagers of your own continent Out of a sense of duty do submit, Yet public print a jealousy creates, And intimates a laid design 60 Unto the neighb'ring potentates. Now into all your secret arts they pry, And weigh each hint by rules of policy. Offensive leagues they twine, In councils, rotas, and cabals they sit, Each petty burgess thinks it fit The Corporation should combine Against the Universal Monarchy of Wit, And straight declare for quite abjuring it. V. Hence then must you prepare for an invasion: 70 Tho' not from such as are reclaim'd by education; In the main points all European wits agree, All allow order, art, and rules of decency, And to be absolutely perfect, ne'er was yet A beauty such, or such a wit. I fear the Pagan and the barbarous, A nation quite Antipodes to us; The infidel unletter'd crew (I mean) Who call that only wit, Which is indeed but the reverse of it; 80 Creatures in whom civility ne'er shone, But (unto Nature's contradiction) It is their glory to be so obscene, You'd think the legion of th' unclean Were from the swine (to which they were condemn'd) releas'd, And had these verier swine (than them) possess'd. VI.