That, pale with envy, Singleton[143] forswore The lute and sword, which he in triumph bore, And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more. Here stopp'd the good old sire, and wept for joy, 60 In silent raptures of the hopeful boy. All arguments, but most his plays, persuade, That for anointed dulness he was made. Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind (The fair Augusta much to fears inclined), An ancient fabric raised to inform the sight, There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight: A watch-tower once; but now, so fate ordains, Of all the pile an empty name remains: From its old ruins brothel-houses rise, 70 Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys, Where their vast courts the mother-strumpets keep, And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep. Near these a Nursery[144] erects its head, Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred; Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry, Where infant punks their tender voices try, And little Maximins the gods defy. Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear; 80 But gentle Simkin[145] just reception finds Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds: Pure clinches the suburban muse affords, And Panton[146] waging harmless war with words. Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known, Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne. For ancient Decker[147] prophesied long since, That in this pile should reign a mighty prince, Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense: To whom true dulness should some Psyches owe, 90 But worlds of Misers[148] from his pen should flow; Humourists and hypocrites it should produce, Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.[149]