SATYR.
75
And had no other Way but Sin and Vice,
100 To be restor'd again to Paradise.
How copious is our Language lately grown,
To make blaspheming Wit, and a Jargon?
And yet how expressive and significant,
In Damme at once to curse, and swear, and rant?
105 As if no way exprest Mens Souls so well,
As damning of them to the Pit of Hell;
Nor any Asseveration were so civil,
As mortgaging Salvation to the Devil;
Or that his Name did add a charming Grace,
110 And Blasphemy a Purity to our Phrase.
For what can any Language more enrich,
Than to pay Souls for vitiating Speech;
When the great'st Tyrant in the World made those
But lick their Words out, that abus'd his Prose?[1]
100 To be restor'd again to Paradise.
How copious is our Language lately grown,
To make blaspheming Wit, and a Jargon?
And yet how expressive and significant,
In Damme at once to curse, and swear, and rant?
105 As if no way exprest Mens Souls so well,
As damning of them to the Pit of Hell;
Nor any Asseveration were so civil,
As mortgaging Salvation to the Devil;
Or that his Name did add a charming Grace,
110 And Blasphemy a Purity to our Phrase.
For what can any Language more enrich,
Than to pay Souls for vitiating Speech;
When the great'st Tyrant in the World made those
But lick their Words out, that abus'd his Prose?[1]
- ↑ 113, 114. When the greatest Tyrant in the World made those———But lick their Words out, that abus'd his Prose?] This Tyrant was Caligula; and the Fact alluded to is recorded by Suetonius in the Life of him.—"Edidit et peregre spectacula in Sicilia: Syracusis "astycos ludos, et in Gallia Lugduni miscellos. Sed et certamen quoque Græcæ, Latinæque facundiæ. Quo certamine ferunt victoribus præmia victos contuliffe, corundem et laudes componere coactos. Eos autem, qui maxime displicuissent, scripta sua, spongia linguave delere jussos, nisi ferulis objurgari, aut flumine proximo mergi maluissent."
Suet. Cal. c. 21.
One
