Whilst Womanhood, in habit of a nun, At Medenham[292] lies, by backward monks undone; A nation's reckoning, like an alehouse score, Whilst Paul, the aged, chalks behind a door, Compell'd to hire a foe to cast it up, Dashwood shall pour, from a communion cup, 700 Libations to the goddess without eyes, And hob or nob in cider and excise. From those deep shades, where Vanity, unknown, Doth penance for her pride, and pines alone, Cursed in herself, by her own thoughts undone, Where she sees all, but can be seen by none; Where she, no longer mistress of the schools, Hears praise loud pealing from the mouths of fools, Or hears it at a distance, in despair To join the crowd, and put in for a share, 710 Twisting each thought a thousand different ways, For his new friends new-modelling old praise; Where frugal sense so very fine is spun, It serves twelve hours, though not enough for one, King[293] shall arise, and, bursting from the dead, Shall hurl his piebald Latin at thy head. Burton (whilst awkward affectation hung In quaint and labour'd accents on his tongue, Who 'gainst their will makes junior blockheads speak, Ignorant of both, new Latin and new Greek, 720 Not such as was in Greece and Latium known, But of a modern cut, and all his own; Who threads, like beads, loose thoughts on such a string, They're praise and censure; nothing, every thing; Pantomime thoughts, and style so full of trick, They even make a Merry Andrew sick; Thoughts all so dull, so pliant in their growth, They're verse, they're prose, they're neither, and they're both) Shall (though by nature ever both to praise) Thy curious worth set forth in curious phrase; 730 Obscurely stiff, shall press poor Sense to death, Or in long periods run her out of breath; Shall make a babe, for which, with all his fame, Adam could not have found a proper name, Whilst, beating out his features to a smile, He hugs the bastard brat, and calls it Style. Hush'd be all Nature as the land of Death; Let each stream sleep, and each wind hold his breath; Be the bells muffled, nor one sound of Care, Pressing for audience, wake the slumbering air; 740 Browne[294] comes--behold how cautiously he creeps-- How slow he walks, and yet how fast he sleeps-- But to thy praise in sleep he shall agree; He cannot wake, but he shall dream of thee. Physic, her head with opiate poppies crown'd, Her loins by the chaste matron Camphire bound; Physic, obtaining succour from the pen Of her soft son, her gentle Heberden,[295] If there are men who can thy virtue know, Yet spite of virtue treat thee as a foe, 750 Shall, like a scholar, stop their rebel breath, And in each recipe send classic death. So deep in knowledge, that few lines can sound And plumb the bottom of that vast profound, Few grave ones with such gravity can think, Or follow half so fast as he can sink;