THE CHARACTER Of Wit's Squint-Ey'd Maid, Pasquil-Makers.
WHat Puppy Plays are entring now the Stage?
Is this the Golden, or the Iron age?
What Planet now predomines in the Sky?
Hath
Sol's usher usurp'd Supremacy?
Are all the rest quite banished the Throne?
And she like
Alexander reigns alone;
Must all be rul'd by her, and her blind Brat?
Doth
Mars now Spin; throw'n by his Sword, and Hat?
Hath
Aristotle's Pen, and
Maro's Quill,
Parnassus left, to write on
Venus-Hill;
Are all the Muses gone,
Ʋrania dead?
Or are they all Sick of their Maidenhead?
Forgetting their love
Madrigals, and feign,
Pasquils, and
Ballads that are most obscene:
Mercurius Publicus the News book,
The
Protestant Mercury with a Squint look.
Heraclitus Ridens, Tilting each one,
Defending th' intrest of Old
Babylon,
The Curat poor Soul now goes to the Streets,
His
Bibliotheque buyes in their loose sheets.
Nothing of volums
in Folio are sold,
The Stationers books moth eaten and old.
What charming spells their giddy heads bewitch?
Is it to make the Printer only rich?
Or to Encourage
Heteroclite Wrens,
To spit the Spurious products of their Pens?
Each Jeaster now who scarce his
Grammer knows,
Sets Pamphlets forth, and Satyres blows.
Nay with his Scribling nails Scratches the Times,
And barks like
Bread-shaw that Hell's hound in rimes.
This World is full of a prepost'rous chat,
Our
English writers all are Transmigrate.
In Pamphlet penners, and diurnal Scribes,
Wanton Comedians, and foul
Gypsy Tribes;
Not like those brave Heroick sublime strains,
That wrote the
Cesars, and their noble Reigns.
Nor like those learned Poets so divine,
That pen'd
Mackduff, and famous
Cataline.
You Pedling, Petty, Sawcy Scriblers leave
You crop-ear'd, circumcised, antique slave.
Forbear to fill the World with your clipped coyn,
Let
Cesar, and his Interest alone.
Our Saviour for example patterns laid,
Tribute, and Homage unto him be paid.
You nibling fools, can you not feed on grass,
But bite the rose, and Thistle, like the
Ass?
You strive with whirling round
Vertigoes full,
Reform the World to a
Geneva Bull.
Can you not earn a Sixpence to behold
A precious Jewel of refined Gold.
But you must raise a bold adventring blood
To steal't with vengeance to your greedy head.
Like (CRUEL WORMS) not only kick the Crown,
But push the Prelates; pull the
Myter down.
Is this the Rhet'rick of this Canker'd age,
The fluent phrases of this florid Stage?
Is this the
Dialect of our newest times,
And language of your Poesy, and Rimes:
To cull a word from
Amadis de gaule,
And borrow another from Saint
Paul;
To Glean a Syllable both here and there,
Gather'd from Authors writings every where?
In sentences cements them till they meet
With bad connexion makes them up a sheet.
Composes them in a fair formal book,
But Theeves bewar, and now about yee look.
There comes a Search for stolen goods, and so
You must to
Newgate, or to
Bridewel goe,
Jack Ketch in end pleads for a snatch of those,
Puts
Hempen Spectacles upon their Nose.
This is the method of the moddish times,
Renews old Songs, Revives old rotten Rimes.
London Printed for W. Davis. 1681.