[ 57]
SATYR.[1]
Who would believe, that wicked Earth,
Where Nature only brings us forth,
To be found guilty, and forgiven,
Should be a Nursery for Heaven;
5 When all, we can expect to do,
Will not pay half the Debt we owe,
And yet more desperately dare,
As if that wretched Trifle were
Too much for the eternal Pow'rs,
10 Our great and mighty Creditors,
Not only flight what they enjoin,
But pay it in adulterate Coin?
Where Nature only brings us forth,
To be found guilty, and forgiven,
Should be a Nursery for Heaven;
5 When all, we can expect to do,
Will not pay half the Debt we owe,
And yet more desperately dare,
As if that wretched Trifle were
Too much for the eternal Pow'rs,
10 Our great and mighty Creditors,
Not only flight what they enjoin,
But pay it in adulterate Coin?
- ↑ In this Composition the Reader will have the Pleasure of viewing Butler in a Light, in which he has not hitherto appeared. Every Thing almost, that he has wrote, is indeed satirical, but in an arch and drole Manner; and he may be said rather to have laught at the Vices and Follies of Mankind, than to have rail'd at them. In this he is serious and severe, exchanges the Ridiculum for the Acri, and writes with the spirited Indignation of a Juvenal or a Persius. Good-natured Readers may perhaps think the Invective too bitter; but the same Good-nature will excuse the Poet, when 'tis considered, what an Edge must be given to his satirical Wit by the Age in which he liv'd, distinguished by the two Extremes of Hypocrisy and Enthusiasm on the one Part, and Irreligion and Immorality on the other.
21,22. And
