With William Pryn's, before they were
Retrench'd, and crucify'd, compare,
Shou'd yet be deaf against a noise
So roaring as the public voice?
That speaks your virtues free and loud,
And openly in ev'ry crowd,
As loud as one that fings his part
T'a wheel-barrow, or turnip-cart,
Or your new nick-nam'd old invention
To cry green-hastings with an engine;
As if the vehemence had stunn'd,
And torn your drum-heads with the found;
And 'cause your folly's now no news,
But overgrown, and out of use,
Persuade yourself there's no fuch matter,
But that 'tis vanish'd out of nature;
When folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears ;
For who but you could be poffeft
With fo much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's scorn and hate,
Nor being laugh'd and pointed at,
Nor bray'd fo often in a mortar,
Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture,
But, like a reprobate, what course
Soever us'd, grow worfe and worse?
Can no transfufion of the blood,
That makes fools cattle, do you good?
Nor putting pigs to a bitch to nurse,
To turn them into mongrel curs ;
Put you into a way, at least,
To make yourself a better beast?
Can all your critical intrigues,
Of trying found from rotten eggs;
Your fev'ral new-found remedies,
Of curing wounds and fcabs in trees:
Your art of fluxing them for claps,
And purging their infected saps ;
Recovering fhankers, crystallines,
And nodes and blotches in their reins,
Have no effect to operate
Upon that duller block, your pate?
But still it must be lewdly bent
To tempt your own due punishment;
And, like your whimfy'd chariots, draw
The boys to course you without law ;
As if the art you have fo long
Profefs'd, of making old dogs young,
In you had virtue to renew
Not only youth, but childhood too :
Can you, that understand all books,
By judging only with your looks,
Refolve all problems with your face,
As others do with B's and A's ;
Unriddle all that mankind knows
With folid bending of your brows?
All arts and sciences advance,
With screwing of your countenance,
And with a penetrating eye,
Into th' abftrufeft learning pry;
Know more of any trade b' a hint,
Than those that have been bred up in 't,
And yet have no art, true or false,
To help your own bad naturals?
But still the more you strive t' appear,
Are found to be the wretcheder :
For fools are known by looking wise,
As men find woodcocks by their eyes.
Hence 'tis because ye 've gain'd o' th' college
A quarter fhare, at most, of knowledge,
And brought in none, but spent repute,
Y' affume a pow'r as absolute
To judge, and cenfure, and controll,
As if you were the fole Sir Poll,
And faucily pretend to know
More than your dividend comes to:
You'll find the thing will not be done
With ignorance and face alone:
No, tho' ye 've purchas'd to your name,
In history, fo great a fame;
That now your talent's fo well-known,
For having all belief out-grown,
That ev'ry strange prodigious tale
Is meafur'd by your German fcale
By which the virtuofi try
The magnitude of ev'ry lie,
to what it does amount,
And place the bigg'st to your account ;
That all thofe ftories that are laid
Too truly to you, and thofe made,
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