Rally with horror, and, in sport,
Rebellion and destruction court,
And make fanatics, in despite
Of all their madness, reason right,
And vouch to all they have foreshown,
As other monsters oft have done,
Although from truth and sense as far,
As all their other maggots are:
For things said false, and never meant,
Do oft prove true by accident.
That wealth that bounteous Fortune sends
As presents to her dearest friends,
Is oft laid out upon a purchase
Of two yards long in parish churches;
And those too happy men that bought it,
Had lived, and happier too, without it.
For what does vast wealth bring, but cheat,
Law, luxury, disease, and debt,
Pain, pleasure, discontent, and sport,
An easy-troubled life, and short?
But all these plagues are nothing near
Those far more cruel and severe,
Unhappy man takes pains to find,
T' inflict himself upon his mind;
And out of his own bowels spins
A rack and torture for his sins:
Torments himself, in vain, to know
That most, which he can never do;
And the more strictly 'tis deny'd,
The more he is unsatisfy'd :
Is busy in finding scruples out,
To languish in eternal doubt;
Sees spectres in the dark, and ghosts,
And starts, as horses do at posts;
And, when his eyes assist him least,
Discerns such subtle objects best:
On hypothetic dreams and visions
Grounds everlasting disquisitions,
And raises endless controversies
On vulgar theorems and hearsays:
Grows positive and confident
In things so far beyond th' extent
Of human sense, he does not know
Whether they be at all, or no;
And doubts as much in things that are
As plainly evident and clear:
Disdains all useful sense and plain,
T' apply to th' intricate and vain ;
And cracks his brains in plodding on
That which is never to be known;
To pose himself with subtleties,
And hold no other knowledge wise;
Although, the subtler all things are,
They're but to nothing the more near:
And the less weight they can sustain,
The more he still lays on in vain ;
And hangs his soul upon as nice
And subtle curiosities,
As one of that vast multitude,
That on a needle's point have stood:
Weighs right and wrong, and true and false,
Upon as nice and subtle scales,
As those that turn upon a plane
With th' hundredth part of half a grain ;
And still the subtiler they move,
The sooner false and useless prove.
So man, that thinks to force and strain
Beyond its natural sphere his brain,
In vain torments it on the rack,
And, for improving, sets it back;
Is ignorant of his own extent,
And that to which his aims are bent,
Is lost in both, and breaks his blade
Upon the anvil, where 'twas made:
For as abortions cost more pain
Than vigorous births; so all the vain
And weak productions of man's wit,
That aim at purposes unfit,
Require more drudgery, and worse,
Than those of strong and lively force.
SATIRE ON THE LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE AGE OF CHARLES II.1
Tis a strange age we've lived in, and a lewd
As e'er the Sun in all his travels view'd;
An age as vile as ever Justice urged,
Like a fantastic lecher, to be scourged:
Nor has it 'scaped, and yet has only learn'd,
The more 'tis plagued to be the less concern'd.
Twice have we seen two dreadful judgments2 rage,
Enough to fright the stubborn'st-hearted age;
1 Here is another proof of what we say in the 'Life,'-that Butler was beginning to sicken of the Cavaliers, and that his fingers were itching for an opportunity to attack them.—2 Two dreadful judgments: the poet alludes here to the Plague and Fire of London in the years 1665 and 1666; but what the 'two mighty miracles' were which succeeded, is not with so much preciseness to be ascertained. It is, however, very probable, that he means the prodigious expedition with which the city was rebuilt, and the very healthy season which followed.
The one to mow vast crowds of people down,
The other (as then needless) half the town;
And two as mighty miracles restore,
What both had ruin'd and destroy'd before:
In all as unconcern'd, as if they'd been
But pastimes for diversion to be seen ;
Or, like the plagues of Egypt, meant a curse,
Not to reclaim us, but to make us worse.
Twice have men turn'd the World (that silly blockhead!)
The wrong side outward, like a juggler's pocket,
Shook out hypocrisy, as fast and loose,
As e'er the Devil could teach, or sinners use,
And on the other side at once put in
As impotent iniquity1 and sin,
As skulls that have been crack'd are often found,
Upon the wrong side to receive the wound,
And, like tobacco-pipes at one end hit,
To break at th' other still that's opposite :
So men, who one extravagance would shun,
Into the contrary extreme have run;
And all the difference is, that as the first,
Provokes the other freak to prove the worst ;
So, in return, that strives to render less
The last delusion, with its own excess;
And, like two unskill'd gamesters, use one way
With bungling t' help out one another's play.
For those, who heretofore sought private holes,
Securely in the dark to damn their souls,
Wore vizards of hypocrisy, to steal
And slink away, in masquerade, to Hell,
Now bring their crimes into the open Sun,
For all mankind to gaze their worst upon;
16 Impotent iniquity:' the term 'impotent' is here used in the Latin sense
of it, for ungovernable or unrestrained.
As eagles try their young against his rays,
To prove, if they're of generous breed, or base;
Call Heav'n and Earth to witness, how they've aim'd
With all their utmost vigour to be damn'd,
And by their own examples, in the view
Of all the world, strived to damn others too;
On all occasions sought to be as civil,
As possible they could, t' his grace the Devil,
To give him no unnecessary trouble,
Nor in small matters use a friend so noble,
But with their constant practice done their best
T'improve and propagate his interest:
For men have now made vice so great an art,
The matter of fact's become the slightest part;
And the debauched'st actions they can do,
Mere trifles, to the circumstance and show.
For 'tis not what they do that's now the sin,
But what they lewdly affect and glory in ;
As if prepost'rously they would profess
A forced hypocrisy of wickedness:
And affectation, that makes good things bad,
Must make affected shame accurst, and mad:
For vices for themselves may find excuse,
But never for their compliment, and shows,
That, if there ever were a mystery
Of moral secular iniquity,
And that the churches may not lose their due
By being encroach'd upon, 'tis now, and new.
For men are now as scrupulous, and nice,
And tender-conscienced of low paltry vice,
Disdain as proudly to be thought to have
To do in any mischief, but the brave,
As the most scrup'lous zealot of late times
appear in any, but the horrid'st crimes;
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