I, that even now lisp'd like an amorist, Am turn'd into a snaphance[364] satirist. O title, which my judgment doth adore! But I, dull-sprited fat Boeotian[365] boor, Do far off honour that censorian seat; But if I could in milk-white robes entreat Plebeians' favour, I would show to be _Tribunus plebis_, 'gainst the villany Of these same Proteans, whose hypocrisy Doth still abuse our fond credulity. 10 But since myself am not immaculate, But many spots my mind doth vitiate, I'll leave the white robe and the biting rhymes Unto our modern Satire's sharpest lines, Whose hungry fangs snarl at some secret sin, And in such pitchy clouds enwrappèd been His Sphinxian riddles, that old OEdipus Would be amazed, and take it in foul snuffs That such Cymmerian darkness should involve A quaint conceit that he could not resolve. 20 O darkness palpable! Egypt's black night! My wit is stricken blind, hath lost his sight; My shins are broke with groping for some sense, To know to what his words have reference. Certes, _sunt_ but _non videntur_ that I know; Reach me some poets' index that will show. _Imagines Deorum_, Book of Epithets, _Natalis Comes_,[366] thou I know recites, And makest anatomy of poesy; Help me to unmask the satire's secrecy; 30 Delphic Apollo, aid me to unrip These intricate deep oracles of wit-- These dark enigmas, and strange riddling sense, Which pass my dullard brain's intelligence. Fie on my senseless pate! Now I can show Thou writest that which I nor thou dost know. Who would imagine that such squint-eyed sight Could strike the world's deformities so right? But take heed, Pallas, lest thou aim awry; Love nor yet Hate had e'er true-judging eye. 40 Who would once dream that that same elegy, That fair-framed piece of sweetest poesy, Which Muto put betwixt his mistress' paps (When he, quick-witted, call'd her Cruel Chaps, And told her there he might his dolors read Which she, O she! upon his heart had spread), Was penn'd by Roscio the tragedian? Yet Muto, like a good Vulcanian-- An honest cuckold--calls the bastard, son, And brags of that which others for him done. 50 Satire, thou liest, for that same elegy Is Muto's own, his own dear poesy: Why, 'tis his own, and dear, for he did pay Ten crowns for it, as I heard Roscius say.-- Who would imagine yonder sober man, That same devout meal-mouth'd precisian, That cries "Good brother," "Kind sister," makes a duck After the antique grace, can always pluck A sacred book out of his civil hose, And at th' op'ning and at our stomach's close, 60 Says with a turn'd-up eye a solemn grace Of half an hour; then with silken face Smiles on the holy crew, and then doth cry, "O manners! O times of impurity!"