Ye curious sots, vainly by Nature led, Where is your vice or virtuous habit now? For _Sustine_[480] _pro nunc_ doth bend his brow, 130 And old crabb'd Scotus, on the Organon, Pay'th me with snaphance,[481] quick distinction. "Habits, that intellectual termèd be, Are got or else infused from Deity." Dull Sorbonist, fly contradiction! Fie! thou oppugn'st the definition; If one should say, "Of things term'd rational, Some reason have, others mere sensual," Would not some freshman, reading Porphyry, Hiss and deride such blockish foolery? 140 "Then vice nor virtue have from habit place; The one from want, the other sacred grace; Infused, displaced; not in our will or force, But as it please Jehovah have remorse." I will, cries Zeno. O presumption! I can. Thou mayst, doggèd opinion Of thwarting cynics. To-day vicious; List to their precepts, next day virtuous. Peace, Seneca, thou belchest blasphemy! "To live from God, but to live happily" 150 (I hear thee boast) "from thy philosophy, And from thyself." O ravening lunacy! Cynics, ye wound yourselves; for destiny, Inevitable fate, necessity, You hold, doth sway the acts spiritual, As well as parts of that we mortal call. Where's then _I will_? Where's that strong deity You do ascribe to your philosophy? Confounded Nature's brats! can _will_ and _fate_ Have both their seat and office in your pate? 160 O hidden depth of that dread secrecy, Which I do trembling touch in poetry! To-day, to-day, implore obsequiously; Trust not to-morrow's will, lest utterly Ye be attach'd with sad confusion, In your grace-tempting lewd presumption. But I forget. Why sweat I out my brain In deep designs to gay boys, lewd and vain? These notes were better sung 'mong better sort; But to my pamphlet, few, save fools, resort. 170 [473] Writhed, crooked. [474] Old eds. "_liues-wet_." [475] "Gourmand. A glutton, _gormand_, bellie-god, greedy-gut."--_Cotgrave._ [476] Juvenal was a native of Aquinum: hence Aquinians = satirists. [477] There was a game at cards called "one-and-thirty." [478] heni di logo ek ton homoion energeion ai hexeis ginontai. Arist. _Eth. Nicom._ ii. 1, 7. [479] Use. [480] _I.e._, maintain the thesis for the occasion. [481] See note, p. 269. [Transcriber's note: Footnote 364]. PROEMIUM IN LIBRUM SECUNDUM. I cannot quote a mott[482] Italionate, Or brand my satires with some Spanish term; I cannot with swoll'n lines magnificate Mine own poor worth, or as immaculate Task others' rhymes, as if no blot did stain, No blemish soil, my young satiric vein.