Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
"But let no alien Sedley interpose,
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
"Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part—
What share have we in nature or in art?
When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,
As thou whole Etheridge dost transfuse to thine?
But so transfused, as oil and waters flow,
His always floats above, thine sinks below.
"A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,
But sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit;
Like mine, thy gentle members feebly creep,
Thy tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep."
In the person of Og, Shadwell's political merits are descanted upon.
"Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,
For here's a tun of midnight work to come,
Og from a treason-tavern rolling home.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before cursed him;
And if man could have reason, none has more
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
"But though Heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,
He never was a poet of God's making.
The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing:—Be thou dull.
Drink, swear, and roar: forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk—do anything but write.
Eat opium, mingle arsenic with thy drink,
Still thou may'st live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, may be thy bane.
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.
"A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull,
For writing treason, and for writing dull.
To die for faction is a common evil,
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
