Mac Flecknoe: A Satire upon the True-blue Protestant Poet T

All human things are subject to decay,
   And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
   This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
   Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
   In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
   Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
   This aged prince now flourishing in peace,
   And blest with issue of a large increase,
   Worn out with business, did at length debate
  To settle the succession of the State:
  And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit
  To reign, and wage immortal war with wit;
  Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that he
  Should only rule, who most resembles me:
  Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
  Mature in dullness from his tender years.
  Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
  Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.
  The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
  But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
  Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
  Strike through and make a lucid interval;
  But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
  His rising fogs prevail upon the day:
  Besides his goodly fabric fills the eye,
  And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty:
  Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
  And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
  Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
  Thou last great prophet of tautology:
  Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
  Was sent before but to prepare thy way;
  And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came
  To teach the nations in thy greater name.
  My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung
  When to King John of Portugal I sung,
  Was but the prelude to that glorious day,
  When thou on silver Thames did'st cut thy way,
  With well tim'd oars before the royal barge,
  Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge;
  And big with hymn, commander of an host,
  The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd.
  Methinks I see the new Arion sail,
  The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.
  At thy well sharpen'd thumb from shore to shore
  The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar:
  Echoes from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call,
  And Shadwell they resound from Aston Hall.
  About thy boat the little fishes throng,
  As at the morning toast, that floats along.
  Sometimes as prince of thy harmonious band
  Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand.
  St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time,
  Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme:
  Though they in number as in sense excel;
  So just, so like tautology they fell,
  That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore
  The lute and sword which he in triumph bore
  And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more.
   Here stopt the good old sire; and wept for joy
  In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.
  All arguments, but most his plays, persuade,
  That for anointed dullness he was made.

      Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind,
  (The fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd)
  An ancient fabric, rais'd t'inform the sight,
  There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight:
  A watch tower once; but now, so fate ordains,
  Of all the pile an empty name remains.
  From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,
  Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys.
  Where their vast courts, the mother-strumpets keep,
  And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.
  Near these a nursery erects its head,
  Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred;
  Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry,
  Where infant punks their tender voices try,
  And little Maximins the gods defy.
  Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
  Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;
  But gentle Simkin just reception finds
  Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds:
  Pure clinches, the suburbian muse affords;
  And Panton waging harmless war with words.
  Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,
  Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne.
  For ancient Decker prophesi'd long since,
  That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,
  Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense:
  To whom true dullness should some Psyches owe,
  But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow;
  Humorists and hypocrites it should produce,
  Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.

      Now Empress Fame had publisht the renown,
  Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.
  Rous'd by report of fame, the nations meet,
  From near Bun-Hill, and distant Watling-street.
  No Persian carpets spread th'imperial way,
  But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets l