Grim-faced Reproof, sparkle with threatening eye! Bend thy sour brows in my tart poesy! Avaunt! ye curs, howl in some cloudy mist, Quake to behold a sharp-fang'd satirist! O how on tip-toes proudly mounts my muse! Stalking a loftier gait than satires use. Methinks some sacred rage warms all my veins, Making my sprite mount up to higher strains Than well beseems a rough-tongu'd satire's part; But Art curbs Nature, Nature guideth[567] Art. 10 Come down, ye apes, or I will strip you quite, Baring your bald tails to the people's sight! Ye mimic slaves, what, are you perch'd so high? Down, Jackanapes, from thy feign'd royalty! What! furr'd with beard--cast in a satin suit, Judicial Jack? How hast thou got repute Of a sound censure? O idiot times, When gaudy monkeys mow o'er spritely rhymes! O world of fools! when all men's judgment's set, And rests[568] upon some mumping marmoset! 20 Yon Athens' ape (that can but simp'ringly Yaul "_Auditores humanissimi!_" Bound to some servile imitation, Can, with much sweat, patch an oration) Now up he comes, and with his crookèd eye Presumes to squint on some fair poesy; And all as thankless as ungrateful Thames, He slinks away, leaving but reeking steams Of dungy slime behind. All as ingrate He useth it as when I satiate 30 My spaniel's paunch, who straight perfumes the room With his tail's filth: so this uncivil groom, Ill-tutor'd pedant, Mortimer's[569] numbers With muck-pit Esculine filth bescumbers.[570] Now the ape chatters, and is as malcontent As a bill-patch'd door, whose entrails out have sent And spewed their tenant. My soul adores judicial scholarship; But when to servile imitatorship Some spruce Athenian pen is prenticèd, 40 'Tis worse than apish. Fie! be not flatterèd With seeming worth! Fond affectation Befits an ape, and mumping babion.[571] O what a tricksy, learnèd, nicking strain Is this applauded, senseless, modern vein![572] When late I heard it from sage Mutius' lips, How ill, methought, such wanton jigging skips Beseem'd his graver speech. "Far fly thy fame, Most, most of me beloved! whose silent name One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style 50 I ever honour; and, if my love beguile Not much my hopes, then thy unvalued worth Shall mount fair place, when apes are turnèd forth." I am too mild. Reach me my scourge again; O yon's a pen speaks in a learned vein, Deep, past all sense. Lanthorn and candle-light![573] Here's all invisible--all mental sprite! What hotch-potch gibberidge doth the poet bring? How strangely speaks, yet sweetly doth he sing? I once did know a tinkling pewterer, 60 That was the vilest stumbling stutterer That ever hack'd and hew'd our native tongue,