As if you were the sole Sir Poll;
And saucily pretend to know
More than your dividend comes to.
You’ll find the thing will not be done
With ignorance and face alone;
No, though y’ have purchas’d to your name,
In history, so great a fame;
That now your talents, so well known,
For having all belief out-grown,
That ev’ry strange prodigious tale
Is measur’d by your German scale;
By which the virtuosi try
The magnitude of ev’ry lie,
Cast up to what it does amount,
And place the bigg’st to your account;
That all those stories that are laid
Too truly to you, and those made,
Are now still charg’d upon your score,
And lesser authors nam’d no more.
Alas! that faculty betrays
Those soonest it designs to raise;
And all your vain renown will spoil,
As guns o’ercharg’d the more recoil.
Though he that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence;
And put among his wants but shame
To all the world may lay his claim;
Though you have try’d that nothing’s borne
With greater ease than public scorn,
That all affronts do still give place
To your impenetrable face,
That makes your way through all affairs,
As pigs through hedges creep with theirs;
Yet as ’tis counterfeit and brass,
You must not think ’twill always pass;
For all impostors, when they’re known,
Are past their labour, and undone:
And all the best that can befal
An artificial natural,
Is that which madmen find, as soon
As once they’re broke loose from the moon,
And, proof against her influence,
Relapse to e’er so little sense,
To turn stark fools, and subjects fit
For sport of boys, and rabble wit.
Part III
Canto I
The Knight and Squire resolve at once
The one the other to renounce.
They both approach the Lady’s bower,
The Squire t’inform, the Knight to woo her.
She treats them with a masquerade,
By furies and hobgoblins made:
From which the Squire conveys the Knight,
And steals him from himself by night.
’Tis true, no lover has that pow’r
T’ enforce a desperate amour,
As he that has two strings t’ his bow,
And burns for love and money too;
For then he’s brave and resolute,
Disdains to render in his suit,
Has all his flames and raptures double,
And hangs or drowns with half the trouble,
While those who sillily pursue
The simple, downright way, and true,
Make as unlucky applications,
And steer against the stream their passions.
Some forge their mistresses of stars,
And when the ladies prove averse,
And more untoward to be won
Than by Caligula the moon,136
Cry out upon the stars, for doing
Ill offices to cross their wooing;
When only by themselves they’re hind’red,
For trusting those they made her kindred;
And still, the harsher and hide-bounder
The damsels prove, become the fonder.
For what mad lover ever dy’d
To gain a soft and gentle bride?
Or for a lady tender-hearted,
In purling streams or hemp departed?
Leap’d headlong int’ Elysium,
Through th’ windows of a dazzling room?
But for some cross, ill-natur’d dame,
The am’rous fly burnt in his flame.
This to the Knight could be no news,
With all mankind so much in use;
Who therefore took the wiser course,
To make the most of his amours,
Resolv’d to try all sorts of ways,
As follows in due time and place.
No sooner was the bloody fight,
Between the Wizard and the Knight,
With all th’ appurtenances, over,
But he relaps’d again t’ a lover;
As he was always wont to do,
When h’ had discomfited a foe;
And us’d the only antique philters,137
Deriv’d from old heroic tilters.
But now triumphant, and victorious,
He held th’ achievement was too glorious
For such a conqueror to meddle
With petty constable or beadle;
Or fly for refuge to the hostess
Of th’ inns of court and chancery, Justice;
Who might, perhaps, reduce his cause
To th’ ordeal trial of the laws;138
Where none escape, but such as branded
With red-hot irons have past bare-handed;
And, if they cannot read one verse
I’ th’ Psalms, must sing it, and that’s worse.
He therefore judging it below him
To tempt a shame the devil might owe him,
Resolv’d to leave the Squire for bail
And mainprize for him to the gaol,
To answer, with his vessel, all
That might disastrously befall;
And thought it now the fittest juncture
To give the Lady a rencounter;
T’ acquaint her with his expedition,
And conquest o’er the fierce magician;
Describe the manner of the fray,
And show the spoils he brought away;
His bloody scourging aggravate,
The number of his blows, and weight;
All which might probably succeed,
And gain belief h’ had done the deed;
Which he resolv’d t’ enforce, and spare
No pawning of his soul to swear;
But, rather than produce his back,
To set his conscience on the rack;
And in pursuance of his urging
Of articles perform’d and scourging,
And all things else, upon his part,
Demand deliv’ry of her heart,
Her goods and chattels, and good graces,
And person, up to his embraces.
Thought he, the ancient errant knights
Won all their ladies’ hearts in fights;
And cut whole giants into fritters,
To put them into amorous twitters;
Whose stubborn bowels scorn’d to yield
Until their gallants were half kill’d;
But when their bones were drub’d so sore
They durst not woo one combat more,
The ladies’ hearts began to melt,
Subdu’d by blows their lovers felt.
So Spanish heroes, with their lances,139
At once wound bulls and ladies’ fancies,
And he acquires the noblest spouse
That widows greatest herds of cows:
Then what may I expect to do,
Wh’ have quell’d so vast a buffalo?
Meanwhile, the Squire was on his way
The Knight’s late orders to obey;
Who sent him for a strong detachment
Of beadles, constables, and watchmen,
T’ attack the cunning-man, for plunder
Committed falsely on his lumber;
When he, who had so lately sack’d
The enemy, had done the fact;
Had rifled all his pokes and fobs
Of gimcracks, whims, and jiggumbobs,
When he, by hook or crook, had gather’d,
And for his own inventions father’d:
And when they should, at gaol-delivery,
Unriddle one another’s thievery,
Both might have evidence enough,
To render neither halter-proof.
He thought it desperate to tarry,
And venture to be accessary;
But rather wisely slip his fetters,
And leave them for the Knight, his betters.
He call’d to mind th’ unjust, foul play
He would have offer’d him that day,
To make him curry his own hide,
Which no beast ever did beside,
Without all possible evasion,
But of the riding dispensation;
And therefore much about the hour
The Knight (for reasons told before)
Resolv’d to leave them to the fury
Of justice, and an unpack’d jury.
The Squire concurr’d t’ abandon him,
And serve him in the self-same trim;
T’
