by any sudden and
desperate resolution, you do, that then you shall not under the
batoon, or in the next presence, being an honourable assembly of
his favourers, be brought as voluntary gentlemen to undertake the
for-swearing of it. Neither shall you, at any time, ambitiously
affecting the title of the Untrussers or Whippers of the age,
suffer the itch of writing to over-run your performance in libel,
upon pain of being taken up for lepers in wit, and, losing both
your time and your papers, be irrecoverably forfeited to the
hospital of fools. So help you our Roman gods and the Genius of
great Caesar.

Virg. So! now dissolve the court.

Bor. Tib. Gal. Mec. And thanks to Caesar, That thus hath exercised
his patience.

Caes.
We have, indeed, you worthiest friends of Caesar.
It is the bane and torment of our ears,
To hear the discords of those jangling rhymers,
That with their bad and scandalous practices
Bring all true arts and learning in contempt.
But let not your high thoughts descend so low
As these despised objects; let them fall,
With their flat grovelling souls: be you yourselves;
And as with our best favours you stand crown'd,
So let your mutual loves be still renown'd.
Envy will dwell where there is want of merit,
Though the deserving man should crack his spirit.

Blush, folly, blush; here's none that fears
The wagging of an ass's ears,
Although a wolfish case he wears.
Detraction is but baseness' varlet;
And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet. [Exeunt.

Rumpatur, quisquis rumpitur invidi!

"Here, reader, in place of the epilogue, was meant to thee an
apology from the author, with his reasons for the publishing of
this book: but, since he is no less restrained than thou deprived
of it by authority, he prays thee to think charitably of what thou
hast read. till thou mayest hear him speak what he hath written."

HORACE AND TREBATIUS.
A DIALOGUE.
Sat. 1. Lib. 2.

Hor.
There are to whom I seem excessive sour,
And past a satire's law t' extend my power:
Others, that think whatever I have writ
Wants pith and matter to eternise it;
And that they could, in one day's light, disclose
A thousand verses, such as