These cruel critics put me into passion; For, in their lowering looks I read damnation: You expect a satire, and I seldom fail; When I'm first beaten, 'tis my part to rail. You British fools, of the old Trojan stock, That stand so thick, one cannot miss the flock, Poets have cause to dread a keeping pit, When women's cullies come to judge of wit. As we strew rat's-bane when we vermin fear, 'Twere worth our cost to scatter fool-bane here; And, after all our judging fops were served, Dull poets, too, should have a dose reserved; Such reprobates, as, past all sense of shaming, Write on, and ne'er are satisfied with damning: Next, those, to whom the stage does not belong, Such whose vocation only is--to song; At most to prologue, when, for want of time, Poets take in for journey-work in rhime. But I want curses for those mighty shoals Of scribbling Chloris's, and Phyllis' fools: Those oafs should be restrained, during their lives, From pen and ink, as madmen are from knives. I could rail on, but 'twere a task as vain, As preaching truth at Rome, or wit in Spain: Yet, to huff out our play was worth my trying; John Lilburn 'scaped his judges by defying:[1] If guilty, yet I'm sure o' the church's blessing, By suffering for the plot, without confessing. Footnote: 1. Lilburn, the most turbulent, but the boldest and most upright of men, had the merit of defying and resisting the tyranny of the king, of the parliament, and of the protector. He was convicted in the star-chamber, but liberated by the parliament; he was tried on the parliamentary statute for treasons in 1651, and before Cromwell's high court of justice in 1654; and notwithstanding an audacious defence,--which to some has been more perilous than a feeble cause,--he was, in both cases, triumphantly acquitted. * * * * * THE SPANISH FRIAR; OR, THE DOUBLE DISCOVERY. _Ut melius possis fallere, sume togam._ --MART. _--Alterna revisens Lasit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit._ --VIRG. THE SPANISH FRIAR.