Would't thou, to run the gauntlet, these expofe Should teach them more good-nature to their fhins. A witness may be brought to fwear a lye, Enter by violence my fruitful grounds, Or take the facred land-mark from my bounds, Till mine is call'd; and that long look'd-for day That judge is hot, and doffs his gown, while this For hearing, and the tedious fuit goes on: Remains, beyond their boundless right to kill, To cherish valour, and reward defert: Let him be daub'd with lace, live high, and whore; Sometimes be loufy, but be never poor. TRANS THE defign of the author was to conceal his name and quality. He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero; and aims particularly at him in most of his fatires. For which reafon, though he was a Roman knight, and of a plentiful fortune, he would appear in this prologue but a beggarly poet, who writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the bufinefs of the firft fatire; which is chiefly to decry the poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world. |