Introduction 



Nor was Cotton's muse always so mild, as this manly rebuke of 

 Waller, censure so well-deserved, will show : 



Ti? Poet E. W., occasioned for his writing a Panegyric 

 on Oliver Cromwell 



From whence, vile Poet, didst thou glean the wit, 



And words for such a vitious poem jit ? 



Where couldst thou paper find was not too white, 



Or ink that could be black enough to write ? 



What servile devil tempted thee to be 



A flatterer of thine own slavery ? 



To kiss thy bondage and extol the deed, 



At once that made thy prince and country bleed? 



I wonder much thy false heart did not dread, 



And shame to write what all men blush to read ; 



Thus with a base ingratitude to rear 



Trophies unto thy master's murtherer? 



Who called thee coward much mistook 



The characters of thy pedantic look ; 



Thou hast at once abused thyself and us, 



He's stout that dares to Jlatter 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 tbou'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. 

 Ixxxii 



