On Avon's bank, where flowers eternal blow, If I but ask, if any weed can grow? 120 One tragic sentence if I dare deride Which Betterton's grave action dignified, Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims, (Though but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names) How will our fathers rise up in a rage, And swear, all shame is lost in George's age! You'd think no fools disgraced the former reign, Did not some grave examples yet remain, Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill, And, having once been wrong, will be so still. 130 He who, to seem more deep than you or I, Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy, Mistake him not; he envies, not admires, And to debase the sons, exalts the sires. Had ancient times conspired to disallow What then was new, what had been ancient now? Or what remain'd so worthy to be read By learned critics of the mighty dead? In days of ease, when now the weary sword Was sheathed, and luxury with Charles restored; 140 In every taste of foreign courts improved, 'All, by the king's example,[148] lived and loved.' Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excel, Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell; The soldier breathed the gallantries of France, And every flowery courtier writ romance. Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm, And yielding metal flow'd to human form: Lely[149] on animated canvas stole The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul. 150 No wonder then, when all was love and sport, The willing Muses were debauch'd at court: On each enervate string they taught the note To pant, or tremble through an eunuch's throat. But Britain, changeful as a child at play, Now calls in princes, and now turns away. Now Whig, now Tory, what we loved we hate; Now all for pleasure, now for Church and State; Now for prerogative, and now for laws; Effects unhappy! from a noble cause. 160 Time was, a sober Englishman would knock His servants up, and rise by five o'clock, Instruct his family in every rule, And send his wife to church, his son to school. To worship like his fathers, was his care; To teach their frugal virtues to his heir; To prove, that luxury could never hold; And place, on good security, his gold. Now times are changed, and one poetic itch Has seized the court and city, poor and rich: 170 Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays, Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays, To theatres, and to rehearsals throng, And all our grace at table is a song. I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie, Not ----'s self e'er tells more fibs than I; When sick of muse, our follies we deplore, And promise our best friends to rhyme no more; We wake next morning in a raging fit, And call for pen and ink to show our wit. 180