Complete Works of Thomas Otway Read online

  With fruitful trees after their kind; and it was so.

  The whistling winds blew fiercely round his head,

  Cold was his lodging, hard his bed;

  Aloft his eyes on the wide heav’ns he cast,

  Where we are told peace only’s found at last;

  And as he did it’s hopeless distance see,

  Sigh’d deep, and cried, How far is peace from me!

  II.

  Nor ended there his moan:

  The distance of his future joy

  Had been enough to give him pain alone;

  But who can undergo

  Despair of ease to come, with weight of present woe?

  Down his afflicted face

  The trickling tears had stream’d so fast apace,

  As left a path worn by their briny race.

  Swoln was his breast with sighs, his well

  Proportion’d limbs as useless fell.

  While the poor trunk (unable to sustain

  Itself) lay rack’d, and shaking with it’s pain;

  I heard his groans as I was walking by,

  And (urg’d by pity) went aside, to see

  What the sad cause could be

  Had press’d his state so low, and rais’d his plaints so high.

  On me he fix’d his eyes. I crav’d,

  Why so forlorn? He vainly rav’d.

  Peace to his mind I did commend.

  But, oh! my words were hardly at an end,

  When I perceiv’d it was my friend,

  My much-lov’d friend: so down I sate,

  And begg’d that I might share his fate:

  I laid my cheek to his, when with a gale

  Of sighs he eas’d his breast, and thus began his talc.

  III.

  I am a wretch of honest race [The succeeding narrative seems to contain some occurrences of the poet’s own life]; —

  My parents not obscure, nor high in titles were;

  They left me heir to no disgrace.

  My father was (a thing now rare)

  Loyal and brave; my mother chaste and fair.

  The pledge of marriage-vows was only I;

  Alone I liv’d their much-lov’d fondled boy:

  They gave me gen’rous education; high

  They strove to raise my mind; and with it grew their joy.

  The sages that instructed me in arts

  And knowledge, oft would praise my parts,

  And cheer my parents’ longing hearts.

  When I was call’d to a dispute,

  My fellow pupils oft stood mute:

  Yet never envy did disjoin

  Their hearts from me, nor pride distemper mine.

  Thus my first years in happiness I past,

  Nor any bitter cup did taste:

  But oh! a deadly potion came at last.

  As I lay loosely on my bed,

  A thousand pleasant thoughts triumphing in my head

  And as my sense on the rich banquet fed,

  A voice (it seem’d no more, so busy I

  Was with myself, I saw not who was nigh)

  Pierc’d thro’ my ears; Arise, thy good Senander’s dead.

  It shook my brain, and from their feast my frighted senses fled.

  IV.

  From thence sad discontent, uneasy fears,

  And anxious doubts of what I had to do,

  Grew with succeeding years.

  The world was wide, but whither should I go?

  I, whose blooming hopes all wither’d were,

  Who’d little fortune, and a deal of care?

  To Britain’s great metropolis I stray’d,

  Where fortune’s gen’ral game is play’d;

  Where honesty and wit are often prais’d,

  But fools and knaves are fortunate and rais’d.

  My forward spirit prompted me to find

  A converse equal to my mind:

  But by raw judgment easily misled,

  (As giddy callow boys

  Are very fond of toys)

  I miss’d the brave and wise, and in their stead,

  On ev’ry sort of vanity I fed.

  Gay coxcombs, cowards, knaves, and prating fools,

  Bullies of o’ergrown bulks, and little souls,

  Gamesters, half-wits, and spendthrifts, (such as think

  Mischievous midnight frolics bred by drink

  Are gallantry and wit,

  Because to their lewd understandings fit)

  Were those wherewith two years, at least, I spent.

  To all their fulsome follies most incorrigibly bent:

  Till at the last, myself more to abuse,

  I grew in love with a deceitful Muse.

  V.

  No fair deceiver ever us’d such charms;

  T’ensnare a tender youth, and win his heart:

  Or, when she had him in her arms,’

  Secur’d his love with greater art.

  I fancied, or I dream’d (as poets always do),

  No beauty with my Muse’s might compare.

  Lofty she seem’d, and on her front sat a majestic air,

  Awful, yet kind; severe, yet fair.

  Upon her head a crown she bore

  Of laurel, which she told me should be mine:

  And round her ivory neck she wore

  A rope of largest pearl. Each part of her did shine

  With jewels and with gold,

  Numberless to be told;

  Which in imagination as I did behold,

  And lov’d, and wonder’d more and more,

  Said she, These riches all, my darling, shall be thine,

  Riches which never poet had before.

  She promis’d me to raise my fortune and my name,

  By royal favour, and by endless fame;

  But never told

  How hard they were to get, how difficult to hold.

  Thus by the arts of this most sly

  Deluder, was I caught;

  To her bewitching bondage brought.

  Eternal constancy we swore,

  A thousand times our vows were doubled o’er!

  And as we did in our entrancements lie,

  I thought no pleasure e’er was wrought so high,

  No pair so happy as my Muse and I.

  VI.

  Ne’er was young lover half so fond,

  When first his pusilage he lost;

  Or could of half my pleasure boast.

  We never met but we enjoy’d,

  Still transported, never cloy’d.

  Chambers, closets, fields and groves,

  Bore witness of our daily loves;

  And on the bark of ev’ry tree

  You might the marks of our endearments see:

  Distichs, posies, and the pointed bits

  Of satire, (written when a poet meets

  His Muse in caterwauling fits)

  You might on ev’ry rind behold, and swear

  I and my Clio had been at it there.

  Nay, by my Muse too I was blest,

  With offsprings of the choicest kinds,

  Such as have pleas’d the noblest minds,

  And been approv’d by judgments of the best.

  But in this most transporting height,

  Whence I look’d down and laugh’d at fate,

  All of a sudden I was alter’d grown;

  I round me look’d, and found myself alone:

  My faithless Muse, my faithless Muse was gone!

  I tried if I a verse could frame:

  Oft I in vain invok’d my Clio’s name.

  The more I strove, the more I fail’d.

  I chaf’d, I bit my pen, curs’d my dull scull, and rail’d,

  Resolv’d to force m’untoward thought, and at the last prevail’d.

  A line came forth, but such a one,

  No traveling matron in her child-birth pains,

  Full of the joyful hopes to bear a son,

  Was more astonish’d at th’ unlook’d-for shape

 
; Of some deform’d baboon or ape,

  Than I was at the hideous issue of my brains.

  I tore my paper, stabb’d my pen,

  And swore I’d never write again;

  Resolv’d to be a doating fool no more.

  But when my reck’ning I began to make,

  I found too long I’d slept, and was too late awake;

  I found m’ungrateful Muse, for whose false sake

  I did myself undo,

  Had robb’d me of my dearest store,

  My precious time, my friends and reputation too;

  And left me helpless, friendless, very proud, and poor.

  VII.

  Reason, which in base bonds my folly had enthrall’d,

  I straight to council call’d;

  Like some old faithful friend, whom long ago

  I had cashier’d, to please my flatt’ring fair.

  To me with readiness he did repair;

  Express’d much tender cheerfulness, to find

  Experience had restor’d him to my mind;

  And loyally did to me show,

  How much himself he did abuse,

  Who credited a flatt’ring, false, destructive, treach’rous Muse.

  I ask’d the causes why? He said,

  ’Twas never known a Muse e’er staid

  When Fortune fled; for Fortune is a bawd

  To all the Nine that on Parnassus dwell,

  Where those so fam’d, delightful fountains swell

  Of poetry, which there does ever flow;

  And where Wit’s lusty, shining god

  Keeps his choice seraglio.

  So whilst our fortune smiles, our thoughts aspire,

  Pleasure and fame’s our bus’ness, and desire.

  Then too, if we find

  A promptness in the mind,

  The Muse is always ready, always kind.

  But if th’ old harlot Fortune once denies

  Her favour, all our pleasure and rich fancy dies;

  And then th’ young, slippery jilt, the Muse too from us flies.

  VIII.

  To the whole tale I gave attention due;

  And as right search into myself I made,

  I found all he had said

  Was very honest, very true.

  Oh, how I hugg’d my welcome friend!

  And much my Muse I could not discommend;

  For I ne’er liv’d in Fortune’s grace,

  She always turn’d her back, and fled from me apace,

  And never once vouchsaf’d to let me see her face.

  Then to confirm me more,

  He drew the veil of dotage from my eyes:

  See here, my son (said he), the valu’d prize;

  Thy fulsome Muse behold, be happy, and be wise.

  I look’d, and saw the rampant, tawdry quean,

  With a more horrid train

  Than ever yet to satire lent a tale,

  Or haunted Chloris in the mall.

  The first was he who stunk of that rank verse

  In which he wrote his Sodom farce [see Note I];

  A wretch whom all diseases did so bite,

  That he writ bawdry sure in spite,

  To ruin and disgrace it quite.

  Philosophers of old did so express

  Their art, and shew’d it in their nastiness.

  Next him appear’d that blundering sot [Lord Rochester],

  Who a late Session of the Poets wrote.

  Nature has mark’d him for a heavy fool;

  By’s flat broad face you’ll know the owl.

  The other birds have hooted him from light;

  Much buffeting has made him love the night,

  And only in the dark he strays;

  Still wretch enough to live; with worse fools spends his days;

  And for old shoes and scraps repeats dull plays.

  Then next there follow’d, to make up the throng,

  Lord Lampoon, and Monsieur Song,

  Who sought her love, and promis’d for’t

  To make her famous at the court.

  The City-Poet [see Note II] too was there,

  In a black satin cap and his own hair,

  And begg’d that he might have the honour

  To beget a pageant on her,

  For the city’s next lord mayor.

  Her favours she to none denied:

  They took her all by turns aside.

  Till at the last up in the rear there came

  The poet’s scandal, and the muse’s shame;

  A beast of monstrous guise, and Libel was his name.

  But let me pause, for ‘twill ask time to tell

  How he was born, how bred, and where, and where he now does dwell.

  IX.

  He paus’d, and thus renew’d his tale.

  Down in an obscure vale,

  Midst fogs and fens, whence mists and vapours rise,

  Where never sun was seen by eyes,

  Under a desart wood,

  Which no man own’d, but all wild beasts were bred,

  And kept their horrid dens, by prey far-forag’d fed,

  An ill pil’d cottage stood,

  Built of men’s bones, slaughter’d in civil war,

  By magic art brought thither from afar.

  There liv’d a widow’d witch,

  That us’d to mumble curses eve and morn,

  Like one whom wants and care had worn [See Note III];

  Meagre her looks, and sunk her eyes,

  Yet mischiefs studied, discords did devise.

  She appear’d humble, but it was her pride:

  Slow in her speech, in semblance sanctified.

  Still when she spoke she meant another way;

  And when she curs’d, she seem’d to pray.

  Her hellish charms had all a holy dress,

  And bore the name of godliness.

  All her familiars seem’d the sons of peace.

  Honest habits they all wore,

  In outward show most lamb-like and divine:

  But inward of all vices they had store,

  Greedy as wolves, and sensual too as swine.

  Like her, the sacred scriptures they had all by heart,

  Most easily could quote, and turn to any part;

  Backward repeat it all, as witches prayers do,

  And, for their turn, interpret backward too.

  Idolatry with her was held impure,

  Because, besides herself, no idol she’d endure [see Note IV].

  Tho’ not to paint, she had arts to change the face,

  And alter it in heav’nly fashion.

  Lewd whining she defin’d a mark of grace,

  And making ugly faces was mortification.

  Her late dead pander was of well-known fame,

  Old Presbyter Rebellion was his name:

  She a sworn foe to King, his peace, and laws,

  So will be eve, and was call’d (bless us!) The Good Old Cause.

  X.

  A time there was, (a sad one too)

  When all things wore the face of woe,

  When many horrors rag’d in this our land,

  And a destroying angel was sent down [see Note V],

  To scourge the pride of this rebellious town.

  He came, and o’er all Britain stretch’d his conqu’ring hand.

  Till in th’ untrodden streets unwholesome grass

  Grew of great stalk, it’s colour gross,

  And melancholic pois’nous green;

  Like those coarse sickly weeds on an old dunghill seen,

  Where some murrain-murther’d hog,

  Poison’d cat, or strangled dog,

  In rottenness had long unburied laid,

  And the cold soil productive made.

  Birds of ill omen hover’d in the air,

  And by their cries bad us for graves prepare;

  And as our destiny they seem’d t’ unfold,

  Dropt dead of the same fate they had foretold.

  That dire co
mmission ended, down there came

  Another angel with a sword of flame:

  Desolation soon he made,

  And our new Sodom low in ashes laid.

  Distractions and distrusts then did amongst us rise,

  When, in her pious old disguise,

  This witch, with all her mischief-making train,

  Began to shew herself again.

  The sons of old rebellion straight she summon’d all;

  Straight they were ready at her call:

  Once more th’ old bait before their eyes she cast,

  That and her love they long’d to taste;

  And to her lust she drew them all at last. —

  So Reuben (we may read of heretofore)

  Was led astray, and had pollution with his father’s whore.

  XI.

  The better to conceal her lewd intent

  In safety from observing eyes,

  Th’ old strumpet did herself disguise

  In comely weeds, and to the city went,

  Affected truth, much modesty, and grace,

  And (like a worn-put suburb-trull) past there for a new face.

  Thither all her lovers flock’d,

  And there for her support she found

  A wight, of whom Fame’s trumpet much does sound [see Note VI],

  With all ingredients for his bus’ness stock’d:

  Not unlike him whose story has a place

  In th’ annals of Sir Hudibras.

  Of all her bus’ness he took care,

  And ev’ry fool or knave that to her did repair,

  Had by him admittance there.

  By his contrivance, to her did resort

  All who had been disgusted at the court.

  Those whose ambition had been crost,

  Or by ill manners had preferments lost,

  Were those on whom she practis’d most her charms,

  Lay nearest to her heart, and oft’nest in her arms.

  Int’rest in ev’ry faction, ev’ry sect she sought:

  And to her lure, flatt’ring their hopes, she brought

  All those who use religion for a fashion,

  All such as practise forms, and take great pains

  To make their godliness their gains [see Note VII],

  And thrive by the distractions of a nation,

  She by her art-ensnar’d and fettered in her chains.

  Thro’ her the atheist hop’d to purchase toleration,

  The rebel pow’r, the beggar’d spendthrift lands,

  Out of the king’s or bishops’ hands.

  Nay, to her side at last she drew in all the rude,

  Ungovernable, headlong multitude:

  Promis’d strange liberties, and sure redress

  Of never-felt, unheard-of grievances:

  Pamper’d their follies, and indulg’d their hopes,

  With May-day routs, November squibs, and burning

  pasteboard popes [see Note VIII].

  XII.

  With her in common lust did mingle all the crew,