Epigrams of Martial, Englished with some other pieces, ancient and modern.

The foregoing Verses English'd.

THat thy wise and modest Muse Flys the Stages looser Use, Not Baudry, Wit, does falsly name, And to move Laughter; puts off shame; That thy Theaters loud Noise, May be Virgins chast Applause;

And the stol'd Matron, grave Divine, Their Lectures done, may tend to thine; That no Actor's made profane, To debase God, to raise thy Strain;

And People forc'd, that hear thy Play, They Money and their Souls to pay; That thou leav'st affected Phrase, To the Shops to use and praise,

And breath'st a Noble Courtly Vein, Such as may Caesar entertain, When he, weari'd, would lay down, The Burdens that attend a Crown,

Disband his Soul's severer Powers, In Mirth and Ease dissolve two Hours.

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These are thy inferior Arts, These I call thy Second Parts:

But when thou carry'st on the Plot, And all are lost i'th' subtile Knot, When the Scene sticks to ev'ry Thought, And can to no Event be brought;

When thus of old, the Plot betray'd, Poets call'd God's unto their aid, Who, by Power, might do the thing, Art could to no Issue bring:

As the Pelean Prince, that broke With a rude and boisterous stroke. The prophetick Gordian Noose, Which his Skill could not unloose.

Thou do'st a Nobler Art profess, And the coyl'd Serpent can'st no less Stretch out from ev'ry twisted fold, In which he lay inwove and roll'd▪

Induce a Night, and then a Day; Wrap all in Clouds, and then display Th'easie and the even Design, A Plot, without a God, Divine.

••et others bold pretending Pens Write Acts of Gods, that know not Mens: In this to thee all must resign, Th' Intrigue o'th' Scene is wholy thine.