ΑΝ

HEROICAL EPISTLE

OF

HUDIBRAS TO SIDROPHEL.

Ecce iterum Crifpinus.

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WELL, Sidrophel, tho' tis in vain
To tamper with your crazy brain,
Without trepanning of your fcull,
As often as the moon's at full,

'Tis not amifs, ere ye 're giv'n o’er,

To try one defp'rate med'cine more;
For where your cafe can be no worse,
The defp'rat'st is the wifest course.
Is't poffible that you, whose ears
Are of the tribe of Iffachar's,

And might, with equal reason, either
For merit, or extent of leather,

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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,

Perfuade yourself there's no fuch matter,
But that 'tis vanish'd out of nature;

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When folly, as it grows in

years,

The more extravagant appears;

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For who but you could be poffeft

With fo much ignorance and beast,
That neither all men's fcorn 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 worse 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 scabs in trees :

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