AN EXCLAMATION Against JULIAN, Secretary to the Muses; With the Character of a LIBELLER.
THou Common Shore of this Poetick Town,
Where all our Excrements of Wit are thrown;
For Sonnet, Satyr, Bawdry, Blasphemy,
Are empty'd and disburthen'd all on thee:
The Cholerick wight, untruffing in a rage,
Finds thee, and leaves his load upon thy page.
Thou,
Julian, (Oh, thou wise
Vespasian rather!)
Dost from this Dung thy well-pick'd Guineys gather.
All mischief's thine: Transcribing thou wilt stoop
From lofty
Middlesex, to lowly
Scroop.
What times are these, when, in that
Hero's room
Bow-bending
Cupid doth with Ballads come,
And little
Ashton offers to the Bum?
Can two such
Pigmies such a wight support?
Two such
Tom Thumbs of
Satyr in a Court!
Poor
George grows old; his Muse worn out of fashion;
Hoarsly she sung
Euphelia's Lamentation:
Less art thou helpt by
Dryden's Bed-rid Age;
That Drone has left his Sting upon the Stage.
[Page 2] Resolve me, poor Apostate, this main Doubt;
What hope hast thou to rub this Summer out?
Know, and be thankful then; for Providence,
By me, has sent thee this Intelligence:
A Knight there is, if thou canst gain his Grace,
Known by the Name of the
Hard-favour'd Face;
For Prowess of the Pen renown'd is he;
From
Don Quixot descended lineally:
And though, like him, unfortunate he prove,
Undaunted in Attempts of Wit and Love.
Of his unfinish'd Face, what shall I say,
But that 'twas made of
Adam's own Red Clay;
That much, much Oker was on it bestow'd?
God's Image 'tis not, but some
Indian God:
Our Christian Earth can no resemblance bring
But Ware of
Portugal for such a thing.
Such Carbuncles his fiery Face confess,
As no
Hungarian Water can redress.
A Face which should he see-But Heav'n was kind,
And, to indulge his Self-love, made him blind.
He dares not stir abroad, for fear to meet
Curses of teeming Women in the street:
The least could happen from that hidious sight,
Is, that they should miscarry with the fright;
Heav'n guard'em from the likeness of the Knight
Such is our charming
Strephon's outward man:
His inward parts, Let those describe who can;
But, by the monthly flow'rs discharg'd abroad,
'Tis full, brim full of Pastoral and Ode.
Frewhile he honour'd
Bertha with his flame;
And now, he courts no less
Louvisa's Name:
For, when his Passion has been boiling long,
The scum at last boils up into a Song:
[Page 3] And sure no mortal creature, at one time,
Was e're so far o'regone with Love and Rhyme.
To his dear self of Poetry he talks;
His hands and feet are scanning as he walks:
His squinting look his pangs of Wit accuse
The very symptoms of a breeding Muse:
And all to gain the great
Louvisa's grace;
But never Pen did pimp for such a Face.
There's not a Nymph, in City, Town, or Court,
But
Strephon's
Billet Doux's have made sport:
Still he Loves on; yet still as sure to miss
As they who wash an
Aethiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy
Strephon does attend,
Never to got a Mistress, or a Friend?
Strephon alike both Wit and Fools detest;
Because, like
Aesop's Bat, half Bird, half Beast:
For Fools, to Poetry have no pretence;
And common Wit supposes common Sense:
Not quite so low as Fools, nor quite o'top;
But hangs between 'em both, and is a Fop.
His Morals, like his Wit, are motly too:
He keeps from arrant Knave, with much ado;
But Vanity and Lying so prevail,
That one grain more of each would turn the scale.
He would be more a Villain, had he time;
But he's so wholly taken up with Rhyme,
That he mistakes his Talent: all his care
Is to be thought a Poet, fine, and fair.
Small Beer and Gruel, are his meat and drink;
The Diet he prescribes himself, to think.
Rhyme next his heart he takes at morning peep;
Some Love-
[...]pistles at his hour of sleep:
[Page 4] So, between Elegy and Ode, we see
Strephon is in a course of Poetry.
This is the Man ordain'd to do thee good;
The Pelican, to feed thee with his Blood:
Thy Wit, thy Poet; nay, thy Friend; for he
Is fit to be a Friend to none, but Thee.
Make sure of him, and of his Muse betimes;
For all his Study is hung round with Rhymes:
Laugh at him, justle him, yet still he writes;
In Rhyme he Challenges, in Rhyme he Fights:
Charg'd with the last, and basest Infamy,
His bus'ness is to think what Rhymes to Lye;
Which found, in fury he retorts again.
Strephon's a very Dragon at his Pen:
His Brother murdred, and his Mother whor'd,
his Mistress lost; yet still his Pen's his Sword.
FINIS.