While pinched with want, their hunger held them straight, When Hannibal was hovering at the gate: But wanton now, and lolling at our ease, We suffer all the inveterate ills of peace, And wasteful riot; whose destructive charms, Revenge the vanquished world of our victorious arms. No crime, no lustful postures are unknown, Since Poverty, our guardian god, is gone; Pride, laziness, and all luxurious arts, Pour, like a deluge, in from foreign parts: Since gold obscene, and silver found the way, } Strange fashions, with strange bullion, to convey, } And our plain simple manners to betray. } What care our drunken dames to whom they spread? Wine no distinction makes of tail or head. Who lewdly dancing at a midnight ball, For hot eringoes and fat oysters call: Full brimmers to their fuddled noses thrust, Brimmers, the last provocatives of lust; When vapours to their swimming brains advance, And double tapers on the table dance. Now think what bawdy dialogues they have, What Tullia talks to her confiding slave, At Modesty's old statue; when by night They make a stand, and from their litters light; The good man early to the levee goes, And treads the nasty paddle of his spouse. The secrets of the goddess named the Good,[119] Are even by boys and barbers understood; Where the rank matrons, dancing to the pipe, Gig with their bums, and are for action ripe; With music raised, they spread abroad their hair, And toss their heads like an enamoured mare; Laufella lays her garland by, and proves The mimic lechery of manly loves. Ranked with the lady the cheap sinner lies; For here not blood, but virtue, gives the prize. Nothing is feigned in this venereal strife; 'Tis downright lust, and acted to the life. So full, so fierce, so vigorous, and so strong, That looking on would make old Nestor young. Impatient of delay, a general sound, } An universal groan of lust goes round; } For then, and only then, the sex sincere is found. } Now is the time of action; now begin, They cry, and let the lusty lovers in. The whoresons are asleep; then bring the slaves, And watermen, a race of strong-backed knaves. I wish, at least, our sacred rites were free From those pollutions of obscenity: But 'tis well known what singer,[120] how disguised, A lewd audacious action enterprized; Into the fair, with women mixed, he went, Armed with a huge two-handed instrument; A grateful present to those holy choirs, Where the mouse, guilty of his sex, retires, And even male pictures modestly are veiled: Yet no profaneness in that age prevailed; No scoffers at religious rites were found,