CHARLES COTTON, ESQ. xiii 



gives in the Epilogue to Lucian for such " trumpery," as he calls 

 it himself, but condemns him the more : 



" In the precious age we live in, 

 The people are so lewdly given, 

 Coarse hempen trash is sooner read 

 Than poems of a finer thread. 



* * ♦ * 



Yet he is wise enough to know. 

 His muse however sings too low 

 (Though warbling in the newest fashion) ; 

 To work a work of reformation ; 

 And so writ this (to tell you true) 

 To please himself as well as you." 



That he could write most biting satire, he showed in his scath- 

 ing lines to Waller on his writing a panegyric upon Cromwell, 

 where he says : 



" Who called thee coward — much mistook 

 The characters of thy pedantic look ; 

 Thou hast at once abused thyself and us. 

 His stout that dares to flatter a tyranne thus. 



Put up thy pen and ink, muzzle thy muse, 

 Adulterate hag fit for the common stews, 

 No good man's library ; writ thou hast. 

 Treason in rhyme, has all thy works defaced ; 

 Such is thy fault, that when I think to find 

 A punishment of the severest kind 

 For thy offence, my malice cannot name 

 A greater, than once to commit the same. 



Where was thy reason then, when thou began 

 To write against the sense of God and man .' 

 Within thy guilty breast despair took place. 

 Thou wouldst despairing die despite of grace. 

 At once thou'rt judge and malefactor shown, 

 Each sentence in thy poem is thine own. 

 Then what thou hast pronounced go execute. 

 Hang up thyself, and say I bid thee do it ; 

 Fear not thy memory, that cannot die. 

 This panegyric is thy elegy. 

 Which shall be when or wheresoever read, 

 A living poem to upbraid the dead." 



Some of his minor poems display much taste. Coleridge 



