Disdains t' obey the proudest wit,
Unless it chance to b' in the fit;
(Like prophecy, that can presage
Successes of the latest age,
Yet is not able to tell when
It next shall prophecy agen)
Makes all her suitors course and wait
Like a proud minister of state,
And, when she's serious in some freak,
Extravagant, and vain, and weak,
Attend her silly, lazy pleasure,
Until she chance to be at leisure:
When 'tis more easy to steal wit,
To clip, and forge, and counterfeit,
Is both the business and delight,
Like hunting sports, of those that write; 160 For thievery is but one sort,
The learned say, of hunting sport.
Hence 'tis, that some, who set up first
As raw, and wretched, and unverst;
And open'd with a stock as poor,
As a healthy beggar with one sore;
That never writ in prose or verse,
But pick'd, or cut it, like a purse;
And at the best could but commit
The petty-larceny of wit;
To whom to write was to purloin,
And printing but to stamp false coin;
Yet after long and sturdy 'ndeavours
Of being painful wit-receivers,
With gath'ring rags and scraps of wit,
As paper's made, on which 'tis writ,
Have gone forth authors, and acquir'd
The right or wrong to be admir'd;
And arm'd with confidence incurr'd
The fool's good luck, to be preferr❜d.
For as a banker can dispose
Of greater sums, he only owes,
Than he, who honestly is known
To deal in nothing but his own:
So whosoe'er can take up most,
May greatest fame and credit boast.
PHILIP NYE'S THANKSGIVING BEARD.*
A BEARD is but the vizard of a face,
That Nature orders for no other place;
The fringe and tassel of a countenance,
That hides his person from another man's;
And, like the Roman habits of their youth,
Is never worn until his perfect growth;
A privilege, no other creature has,
To wear a nat❜ral mask upon his face,
• This same Philip Nye, with the whimsical circumstance of his Thanksgiving Beard, is introduced in Hudibras's Heroical Epistle to his Lady.
So women, to surprize us, spread
The borrow'd flags of white and red;
Display them thicker on their cheeks
Than their old grandmothers the Picts;
And raise more devils with their looks,
Than conjurers' less subtle books:
Lay trains of amorous intrigues,
In towers, and curls, and perriwigs,
With greater art and cunning rear'd,
Than Philip Nye's thanksgiving beard.
From hence one may conclude with probability enough, that this poem was written before his Hudibras. Butler, in a note of his own upon this passage, observes," That Philip Nye was one of the assembly of divines, and very re
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