Classic Poem

C OELUM B RITANNICUM .

The Description of the Scene.

The first thing that presented itself to the sight, was a rich ornament, that enclosed the scene; in the upper part of which were great branches of foliage, growing out of leaves and husks, with a coronice at the top; and in the midst was placed a large compartment, composed of grotesque work, wherein were harpies with wings and lions' claws, and their hinder parts converted into leaves and branches: over all was a broken frontispiece, wrought with scrolls and mask-heads of children; and within this a table, adorned with a lesser compartment, with this inscription, C OELUM B RITANNICUM . The two sides of this ornament were thus ordered: First, from the ground arose a square basement, and on the plinth stood a great vase of gold, richly enchased, and beautified with sculptures of great relief, with fruitages hanging from the upper part: at the foot of this sat two youths, naked, in their natural colours; each of these with one arm supported the vase, on the cover of which stood two young women, in draperies, arm in arm: the one figuring the Glory of Princes, and the other Mansuetude: their other arms bore up an oval, in which, to the King's Majesty, was this impress — a lion, with an imperial crown on his head: the word, Animum sub pectore forti . On the other side was the like composition, but the design of the figures varied; and in the oval on the top, being borne up by Nobility and Fecundity, was this impress, to the Queen's Majesty, a lily growing with branches and leaves, and three lesser lilies springing out of the stem; the word, Semper inclita Virtus . All this ornament was heightened with gold, and for the invention and various composition was the newest and most gracious that hath been done in this place.
The curtain was watchet and a pale yellow in panes; which, flying up on the sudden, discovered the scene, representing old arches, old palaces, decayed walls, parts of temples, theatres, basilicas, and thermae, with confused heaps of broken columns, bases, coronices, and statues, lying as under ground; and altogether resembling the ruins of some great city of the ancient Romans or civilized Britons. This strange prospect detained the eyes of the spectators some time, when, to a loud music, Mercury descends; on the upper part of his chariot stands a cock, in action of crowing. His habit was a coat of flame colour, girt to him, and a white mantle trimmed with gold and silver; upon his head a wreath, with small falls of white feathers, a caduceus in his hand, and wings at his heels. Being come to the ground, he dismounts, and goes up to the state.

Mercury.

F ROM the high senate of the gods, to you,
Bright glorious twins of love and majesty,
Before whose throne three warlike nations bend
Their willing knees: on whose imperial brows
The regal circle prints no awful frowns
To fright your subjects, but whose calmer eyes
Shed joy and safety on their melting hearts,
That flow with cheerful loyal reverence,
Come I, Cyllenius, Jove's ambassador;
Not, as of old, to whisper amorous tales
Of wanton love into the glowing ear
Of some choice beauty in this numerous train:
Those days are fled, the rebel flame is quench'd
In heavenly breasts; the gods have sworn by Styx
Never to tempt yielding mortality
To loose embraces. Your exemplar life
Hath not alone transfused a zealous heat
Of imitation through your virtuous court,
By whose bright blaze your palace is become
The envy'd pattern of this under-world,
But the aspiring flame hath kindled heaven;
Th' immortal bosoms burn with emulous fires,
Love rivals your great virtues, royal sir,
And Juno, madam, your attractive graces.
He his wild lusts, her raging jealousies
She lays aside, and through th' Olympic hall,
As yours doth here, their great example spreads.
And though of old, when youthful blood conspired
With his new empire, prone to heats of lust,
He acted incests, rapes, adulteries,
On earthly beauties which his raging Queen,
Swoln with revengeful fury, turn'd to beasts,
And in despite he re-transform'd to stars,
Till he had fill'd the crowded firmament
With his loose strumpets, and their spurious race,
Where the eternal records of his shame
Shine to the world in flaming characters;
When in the crystal mirror of your reign
He view'd himself, he found his loathsome stains:
And now, to expiate the infectious guilt
Of those detested luxuries, he'll chase
Th' infamous lights from their usurped sphere,
And drown in the Lethaean flood their curst
Both names and memories; in whose vacant rooms
First you succeed, and of the wheeling orb
In the most eminent and conspicuous point,
With dazzling beams and spreading magnitude,
Shine the bright Pole-star of this hemisphere.
Next, by your side, in a triumphant chair,
And crown'd with Ariadne's diadem,
Sits the fair consort of your heart and throne.
Diffused about you, with that share of light,
As they of virtue have derived from you,
He'll fix this noble train, of either sex;
So to the British stars this lower globe
Shall owe its light, and they alone dispense
To the world a pure refined influence. Enter Momus, attired in a long darkish robe, all wrought over with poniards, serpents' tongues, eyes, and ears; his beard and hair parti-coloured, and upon his head a wreath stuck with feathers, and a porcupine in the forepart.

Momus.

By your leave, Mortals. Good-den, Cousin Hermes! your pardon, good my Lord Ambassador. I found the tables of your arms and titles in every inn betwixt this and Olympus, where your present expedition is registered your nine thousandth nine hundred ninety-ninth Legation. I cannot reach the policy why your master breeds so few statesmen; it suits not with his dignity that in the whole empyraeum there should not be a god fit to send on these honourable errands but yourself, who are not yet so careful of his honour as your own, as might become your quality, when you are itinerant: the hosts upon the high-way cry out with open mouth upon you, for supporting pilfery in your train; which, though as you are the god of petty larceny, you might protect, yet you know it is directly against the new orders, and opposes the reformation in diameter.

Mercury . — Peace, railer! bridle your licentious tongue,
And let this presence teach you modesty.
Momus . — Let it, if it can; in the mean time I will acquaint it with my condition. Know, gay people, that though your poets, who enjoy by patent a particular privilege to draw down any of the deities, from Twelfth-night till Shrove-Tuesday, at what time there is annually a most familiar intercourse between the two courts, have as yet never invited me to these solemnities; yet it shall appear by my intrusion this night, that I am a very considerable person upon these occasions, and may most properly assist at such entertainments. My name is Momus-ap-Somnus-ap-Erebus-ap-Chaos-ap-Demogorgon-ap-Eternity. My offices and titles are, the supreme Theomastix, Hypercritic of manners, Protonotary of abuses, Arch-Informer, Dilator-General, Universal Calumniator, Eternal Plaintiff, and perpetual Foreman of the Grand Inquest. My privileges are an ubiquitary, circumambulatory, speculatory, interrogatory, redargutory immunity over all the privy lodgings, behind hangings, doors, curtains, through key-holes, chinks, windows, about all venereal lobbies, sconces, or redoubts: though it be to the surprise of a perdu page or chambermaid; in and at all Courts of civil and criminal judicature, all counsels, consultations, and Parliamentary assemblies, where, though I am but a Wool-sack god, and have no vote in the sanction of new laws, I have yet a prerogative of wresting the old to any whatsoever interpretation, whether it be to the behoof or prejudice of Jupiter his crown and dignity, for or against the rights of either house of patrician or plebeian gods. My natural qualities are to make Jove frown, Juno pout, Mars chafe, Venus blush, Vulcan glow, Saturn quake, Cynthia pale Phaebus hide his face, and Mercury here take his heels. My recreations are witty mischiefs, as when Saturn gelt his father; the smith caught his wife and her bravo in a net of cobwebiron; and Hebe, through the lubricity of the pavement tumbling over the half-pace, presented the emblem of the forked tree, and discovered to the tanned Ethiops the snowy cliffs of Culabria with the Grotta of Puteolum. But that you may arrive at the perfect knowledge of me by the familiar illustration of a bird of mine own feather, old Peter Aretine, who reduced all the sceptres and mitres of that age tributary to his wit, was my parallel; and Frank Rabelais sucked much of my milk too; but your modern French hospital of oratory is mere counterfeit, an arrant mountebank; for, though fearing no other tortures than his sciatica, he discourses of kings and queens with as little reverence as of grooms and chambermaids, yeThe wants their fang-teeth and scorpion's tail: I mean that fellow who, to add to his stature thinks it a greater grace to dance on his tip-toes like a dog in a doublet, than to walk like other men on the soles of his feet.

Mercury . — No more, impertinent trifler! you disturb
The great affair with your rude scurrilous chat:
What doth the knowledge of your abject state
Concern Jove's solemn message?
Momus . — Sir, by your favour, though you have a more especial commission of employment from Jupiter, and a larger entertainment from his Exchequer, yet as a free-born god I have the liberty to travel at mine own charges, without your pass or countenance legacine; and that it may appear a sedulous acute observer may know as much as a dull phlegmatic ambassador, and wears a treble key to unlock the mysterious cyphers of your dark secrecies, I will discourse the politic state of Heaven to this trim audience. — At this the scene changeth, and in the heaven is discovered a sphere, with stars placed in their several images, borne up by a huge naked figure (only a piece of drapery hanging over his thigh), kneeling and bowing forwards, as if the great weight lying on his shoulders oppressed him; upon his head a crown: by all which he might easily be known to be Atlas.
— You shall understand that Jupiter, upon the inspection of I know not what virtuous precedents, extant, as they say, here in this Court (but, as I more probably guess, out of the consideration of the decay of his natural abilities), hath before a frequent convocation of the superlunary peers in a solemn oration recanted, disclaimed, and utterly renounced, all the lascivious extravagancies and riotous enormities of his forepast licentious life; and taken his oath on Juno's Breviary, religiously kissing the two-leaved Book, never to stretch his limbs more betwixt adulterous sheets: and hath with pathetical remonstrances exhorted, and under strict penalties enjoined, a respective conformity in the several subordinate deities. And because the libertines of antiquity, the ribald poets, to perpetuate the memory and example of their triumphs over chastity to all future imitation, have in their immortal songs celebrated the martyrdom of those strumpets under the persecution of the wives, and devolved to posterity the pedigrees of their whores, bawds, and bastards; it is therefore by the authority aforesaid enacted, that this whole army of constellations be immediately disbanded and cashiered, so to remove all imputation of impiety from the celestial spirits, and all lustful influences upon terrestrial bodies; and, consequently, that there be an inquisition erected to expunge in the ancient, and suppress in the modern and succeeding poems and pamphlets, all past, present, and future mention of those abjured heresies, and to take particular notice of all ensuing incontinencies, and punish them in their high Commission Court. Am not I in election to be a tall statesman, think you, that can repeat a passage at a council-table thus punctually?

Mercury . — I shun in vain the importunity
With which this snarler vexeth all the gods;
Jove cannot 'scape him. Well, what else from heaven?
Momus . — Heaven! Heaven is no more the place it was: a cloister of Carthusians, a monastery of converted gods; Jove is grown old and fearful, apprehends a subversion of his empire, and doubts lest Fate should introduce a legal succession in the legitimate heir, by repossessing the Titanian line: and hence springs all this innovation. We have had new orders read in the presence chamber by the Vi'-President of Parnassus, too strict to be observed long. Monopolies are called in, sophistication of wares punished, and rates imposed on commodities. Injunctions are gone out to the nectar brewers, for the purging of the heavenly beverage of a narcotic weed which hath rendered the ideas confused in the divine intellects, and reducing it to the composition used in Saturn's reign. Edicts are made for the restoring of decayed house-keeping, prohibiting the repair of families to the metropolis; but this did endanger an Amazonian mutiny, till the females put on a more masculine resolution of soliciting businesses in their own persons, and leaving their husbands at home for stallions of hospitality. Bacchus hath commanded all taverns to be shut, and no liquor drawn after ten at night. Cupid must go no more so scandalously naked, but is enjoined to make him breeches, though of his mother's petticoats. Ganymede is forbidden the bed-chamber, and must only minister in public. The gods must keep no pages, nor grooms of their chamber, under the age of 25, and those provided of a competent stock of beard. Pan may not pipe, nor Proteus juggle, but by especial permission. Vulcan was brought to an Ore-tenus , and fined, for driving in a plate of iron into one of the Sun's chariot-wheels, and frost-nailing his horses upon the fifth of November last, for breach of a penal Statute prohibiting work upon holidays, that being the annual celebration of the Gigantomachy. In brief, the whole state of the Hierarchy suffers a total reformation, especially in the point of reciprocation of conjugal affection. Venus hath confessed all her adulteries, and is received to grace by her husband, who, conscious of the great disparity betwixTher perfections and his deformities, allows those levities as an equal counterpoise; but it is the prettiest spectacle to see her stroking with her ivory hand his collied cheeks, and with her snowy fingers combing his sooty beard. Jupiter too begins to learn to lead his own wife; I left him practising in the milky way; and there is no doubt of an universal obedience, where the law-giver himself in his own person observes his decrees so punctually: who, besides, to eternize the memory of that great example of matrimonial union which he derives from hence, hath on his bed-chamber door and ceiling, fretted with stars in capital letters, engraven the inscription of CARLOMARIA. This is as much, I am sure, as either your knowledge or instructions can direct you to, which I, having in a blunt round tale, without state-formality, politic inferences, or suspected rhetorical elegancies, already delivered, you may now dexterously proceed to the second part of your charge, which is the raking of yon heavenly sparks up in the embers, or reducing the etherial lights to their primitive opacity and gross dark substance; they are all unriveted from the sphere, and hang loose in their sockets, where they but attend the waving of your Caduce, and immediately they re-invest their pristine shapes, and appear before you in their own natural deformities.

Mercury . — Momus, thou shalt prevail, for since thy bold
Intrusion hath inverted my resolves,
I must obey necessity, and thus turn
My face, to breathe the Thunderer's just decree
'Gainst this adulterate sphere, which first I purge
Of loathsome monsters and mis-shapen forms:
Down from her azure concave thus I charm
The Lyrnaean Hydra, the rough unlick'd Bear,
The watchful Dragon, the storm-boding Whale,
The Centaur, the horn'd Goat-fish Capricorn,
The Snake-head Gorgon, and fierce Sagittar.
Divested of your gorgeous starry robes,
Fall from the circling orb! and e'er you suck
Fresh venom in, measure this happy earth:
Then to the fens, caves, forests, deserts, seas,
Fly, and resume your native qualities!

They dance, in those monstrous shapes, the first Antimasque, of natural deformity.

Momus . — Are not these fine companions, trim play-fellows for the deities? Yet these and their fellows have made up all our conversation for some thousands of years. Do not you, fair ladies, acknowledge yourselves deeply engaged now to those poets, your servants, that, in the height of commendation, have raised your beauties to a parallel with such exact proportions or at least ranked you in their spruce society? Hath not the consideration of these inhabitants rather frighted your thoughts utterly from the contemplation of the place? But now that those heavenly mansions are to be void, you that shall hereafter be found unlodged will become inexcusable; especially since virtue alone shall be sufficient title, fine, and rent: yet if there be a lady, not competently stocked that way, she shall not on the instant utterly despair, if she carry a sufficient pawn of handsomeness; for however the letter of the law runs, Jupiter, notwithstanding his age and present austerity, will never refuse to stamp beauty, and make it current with his own impression; but to such as are destitute of both, I can afford but small encouragement. Proceed, cousin Mercury; what follows?

Merc. — Look up, and mark where the bright zodiac
Hangs like a belt about the breast of heaven;
On the right shoulder, like a flaming jewel,
His shell with nine rich topazes adorn'd,
Lord of this tropic, sits the scalding Crab:
He, when the Sun gallops in full career
His annual race, his ghastly claws uprear'd,
Frights at the confines of the torrid zone,
The fiery team, and proudly stops their course,
Making a solstice, till the fierce steeds learn
His backward paces, and so retrograde
Post down-hill to th' opposed Capricorn.
Thus I depose him from his haughty throne:
Drop from the sky into the briny flood;
There teach thy motion to the ebbing sea!
But let those fires that beautified thy shell
Take human shapes, and the disorder show
Of thy regressive paces here below.

The second Antimasque is danced in retrograde paces, expressing obliquity in motion.

Momus . — This Crab, I confess, did ill become the heavens; but there is another that more infests the earth, and makes such a solstice in the politer arts and sciences, as they have not been observed for many ages to have made any sensible advance. Could you but lead the learned squadrons with a masculine resolution past this point of retrogradation, it were a benefit to mankind, worthy the power of a god, and to be paid with altars; but that not being the work of this night, you may pursue your purposes. What now succeeds?

Mercury . — Vice that, unbodied, in the appetite
Erects his throne, hath yet in bestial shapes,
Branded by Nature with the character
And distinct stamp of some peculiar ill,
Mounted the sky, and fix'd his trophies there:
As fawning flattery in the little dog,
I' th' bigger, churlish murmur; cowardice
I' th' timorous hare; ambition in the eagle;
Rapine and avarice in th' advent'rous ship
That sail'd to Colchis for the golden fleece.
Drunken distemper in the goblet flows;
I' th' Dart and Scorpion, biting calumny;
In Hercules and the Lion, furious rage;
Vain ostentation in Cassiope:
All these I to eternal exile doom,
But to this place their emblem'd vices summon,
Clad in those proper figures, by which best
Their incorporeal nature is express'd.

The third Antimasque is danced of these several Vices, expressing the deviation from Virtue.

Momus . — From henceforth it shall be no more said in the proverb, when you would express a riotous assembly, thaThell, buTheaven, is broke loose. This was an arrant Gaol-delivery; all the prisons of your great cities could not have vomited more corrupt matter; but, Cousin Cylleneus, in my judgment it is not safe that these infectious persons should wander here, to the hazard of this island; they threatened less danger when they were nailed to the firmament. I should conceive it a very discreet course, since they are provided of a tall vessel of their own, ready rigged, to embark them all together in that good ship called the Argo, and send them to the plantation in New England, which hath purged more virulent humours from the politic body, than Guiacum and all the West-Indian drugs have from the natural bodies of this kingdom. Can you devise how to dispose them better?

Mercury . — They cannot breathe this pure and temperate air,
Where Virtue lives; but will, with hasty flight,
'Mongst fogs and vapours, seek unsound abodes.
Fly after them, from your usurped seats,
You foul remainders of that viperous brood!
Let not a star of the luxurious race
With his loose blaze stain the sky's crystal face.

All the Stars are quenched, and the Sphere darkened. Before the entry of every Antimasque, the stars in those figures in the sphere which they were to represent, were extinct; so as, by the end of the Antimasques, in the sphere no more stars were seen.

Momus . — Here is a total eclipse of the eighth sphere, which neither Booker, Allestre, nor any of your prognosticators, no, nor their great master, Tycho, were aware of; but yet, in my opinion, there were some innocent, and some generous constellations, that might have been reserved for noble uses; as the Scales and Sword to adorn the statue of Justice, since she resides here on earth only in picture and effigy. The Eagle had been a fit present for the Germans, in regard their bird hath mew'd most of her feathers lately. The Dolphin, too, had been most welcome to the French; and then, had you but clapt Perseus on his Pegasus, brandishing his sword, the Dragon yawning on his back under the horse's feet, with Python's dart through his throat, there had been a divine St. George for this nation! but since you have improvidently shuffled them altogether, it now rests only that we provide an immediate succession; and to that purpose I will instantly proclaim a free election.

O yes, O yes, O yes!
By the Father of the gods,
and the King of Men.
Whereas we having observed a very commendable practice taken into frequent use by the princes of these latter ages, of perpetuating the memory of their famous enterprises, sieges, battles, victories, in picture, sculpture, tapestry, embroideries, and other manufactures, wherewith they have embellished their public palaces, and taken into our more distinct and serious consideration the particular Christmas hanging of the Guard-Chamber of this Court, wherein the naval victory of '88 is, to the eternal glory of this nation, exactly delineated; and whereas we likewise, out of a prophetical imitation of this so laudable custom, did, for many thousand years before, adorn and beautify the eighth room of our celestial mansion, commonly called the Star-Chamber, with the military adventures, stratagems, achievements, feats, and defeats, performed in our own person, whilst yet our standard was erected, and we a combatant in the amorous warfare: It hath, notwithstanding, after mature deliberation and long debate, held first in our own inscrutable bosom, and afterwards communicated with our Privy Council, seemed meet to our omnipotency, for causes to our self best known, to unfurnish and dis-array our foresaid Star-Chamber of all those ancient constellations which have for so many ages been sufficiently notorious, and to admit into their vacant places such persons only as shall be qualified, with exemplar virtue and eminent desert, there to shine in indelible characters of glory to all posterity. It is therefore our divine will and pleasure, voluntarily, and out of our own free and proper motion, mere grace and special favour, by these presents, to specify and declare to all our loving people, that it shall be lawful for any person whatsoever, that conceiveth him or her self to be really endued with any heroical virtue or transcendent merit, worthy so high a calling and dignity, to bring their several pleas and pretences before our right-trusty and well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor, Don Mercury and god Momus, &c., our peculiar delegates for that affair; upon whom we have transferr'd an absolute power to conclude and determine, without appeal or revocation, accordingly as to their wisdoms it shall in such cases appear behoveful and expedient. Given at our palace in Olympus the first day of the first month, in the first year of the Reformation. Plutus enters, an old man full of wrinkles, a bald head, a thin white beard, spectacles on his nose, with a bunched back, and attired in a robe of cloth of gold.

Plutus appears.

Mercury . — Who's this appears?
Momus . — This is a subterranean fiend, Plutus, in this dialect term'd Riches, or the god of gold; a poison hid by Providence, in the bottom of seas and navel of the earth, from man's discovery; where, if the seeds began to sprout above-ground, the excrescence was carefully guarded by Dragons; yet at last, by human curiosity, brought to light to their own destruction, this being the true Pandora's box, whence issued all those mischiefs that now fill the universe.

Plutus . — That I prevent the message of the gods
Thus with my haste, and not attend their summons,
Which ought in justice call me to the place
I now require of right, is not alone
To show the just precedence that I hold
Before all earthly, next th' immortal, powers;
But to exclude the hope of partial grace
In all pretenders, who, since I descend
To equal trial, must by my example,
Waiving your favour, claim by sole desert.
If Virtue must inherit, she's my slave;
I lead her captive in a golden chain,
About the world; she takes her form and being
From my creation; and those barren seeds
That drop from Heaven, if I not cherish them
With my distilling dews and fotive heat,
They know no vegetation; but, exposed
To blasting winds of freezing poverty,
Or not shoot forth at all, or, budding, wither.
Should I proclaim the daily sacrifice
Brought to my temples by the toiling rout,
Not of the fat and gore of abject beasts
But human sweat and blood pour'd on my altars,
I might provoke the envy of the gods.
Turn but your eyes, and mark the busy world,
Climbing steep mountains for the sparkling stone,
Piercing the centre for the shining ore,
And th' ocean's bosom to rake pearly sands;
Crossing the torrid and the frozen zones,
'Midst rocks and swallowing gulfs, for gainful trade,
And through opposing swords, fire, murd'ring cannon,
Scaling the walled towns for precious spoils.
Plant, in the passage to your heavenly seats,
These horrid dangers, and then see who dares
Advance his desperate foot; yet am I sought,
And oft in vain, through these and greater hazards:
I could discover how your deities
Are for my sake slighted, despised, abused;
Your temples, shrines, altars, and images,
Uncover'd, rifled, robb'd and disarray'd
By sacrilegious hands; yet is this treasure
To th' golden mountain, where I sit adored,
With superstitious solemn rites convey'd,
And becomes sacred there; the sordid wretch
Not daring touch the consecrated ore,
Or with profane hands lessen the brighTheap:
But this might draw your anger down on mortals,
For rend'ring me the homage due to you;
Yet what is said may well express my power,
Too great for earth, and only fit for Heaven.
Now, for your pastime, view the naked root
Which, in the dirty earth and base mould drown'd,
Sends forth this precious plant and golden fruit.
You lusty swains, that to your grazing flocks
Pipe amorous roundelays; you toiling hinds,
That barb the fields, and to your merry teams
Whistle your passions; and you mining moles,
That in the bowels of your mother earth
Dwell, the eternal burden of her womb,
Cease from your labours, when Wealth bids you play,
Sing, dance, and keep a cheerful holiday.

They dance the fourth Antimasque, consisting of Country people, music, and measures.

Mercury . — Plutus, the gods know and confess your power,
Which feeble virtue seldom can resist;
Stronger than towers of brass or chastity:
Jove knew you when he courted Danae,
And Cupid wears you on that arrow's head
That still prevails. But the gods keep their thrones
To install Virtue, noTher enemies.
They dread thy force, which even themselves have felt:
Witness Mount Ida, where the martial maid
And frowning Juno did to mortal eyes
Naked for gold their sacred bodies show,
Therefore for ever be from heaven banish'd:
But since with toil from undiscover'd worlds
Thou art brought hither, where thou first did'st breathe
The thirst of empire into regal breasts,
And frightedst quiet Peace from her meek throne,
Filling the world with tumult, blood, and war;
Follow the camps of the contentious earth,
And be the conqueror's slave: buThe that can
Or conquer thee, or give thee virtue's stamp,
Shall shine in heaven a pure immortal lamp.
Momus . — Nay, stay, and take my benediction along with you! I could, being here a co-judge, like others in my place, now that you are condemned, either rail at you, or break jests upon you; but I rather choose to loose a word of good counsel, and entreat you to be more careful in your choice of company; for you are always found either with misers, that not use you at all, or with fools, that know not how to use you well. Be noThereafter so reserved and coy to men of worth and parts, and so you shall gain such credit, as at the next Sessions you may be heard with better success. But till you are thus reformed, I pronounce this positive sentence, That wheresoever you shall choose to abide, your society shall add no credit or reputation to the party, nor your discontinuance or total absence be matter of disparagement to any man; and whosoever shall hold a contrary estimation of you, shall be condemned to wear perpetual motley, unless he recant his opinion. Now you may void the Court. Penia enters, a woman of pale colour, large brims of a hat upon her head, through which her hair started up like a fury; her robe was of a dark colour, full of patches; about one of her hands was tied a chain of iron, to which was fastened a weighty stone, which she bore up under her arm.

Penia enters.

Mercury . — What creature's this?
Momus . — The Antipodes to the other: they move like two buckets, or as two nails drive out one another. If riches depart, poverty will enter.
Poverty . — I nothing doubt, great and immortal Powers,
But that the place your wisdom hath denied
My foe, your justice will confer on me;
Since that which renders him incapable
Proves a strong plea for me. I could pretend,
Even in these rags, a larger sovereignty
Than gaudy Wealth in all his pomp can boast;
For mark how few they are that share the world;
The numerous armies, and the swarming ants
That fight and toil for them, are all my subjects,
They take my wages, wear my livery:
Invention too and Wit are both my creatures,
And the whole race of Virtue is my offspring:
As many mischiefs issue from my womb,
And those as mighty, as proceed from gold.
Oft o'er his throne I wave my awful sceptre,
And in the bowels of his state command,
When, midst his heaps of coin and hills of gold,
I pine and starve the avaricious fool.
But I decline those titles, and lay claim
To heaven by right of divine contemplation:
She is my darling, I, in my soft lap,
Free from disturbing cares, bargains, accounts,
Leases, rents, stewards, and the fear of thieves
That vex the rich, nurse her in calm repose,
And with her all the virtues speculative,
Which but with me find no secure retreat.
For entertainment of this hour, I'll call
A race of people to this place, that live
At Nature's charge, and not importune heaven
To chain the winds up, or keep back the storms,
To stay the thunder, or forbid the hail
To thresh the unreap'd ear, but to all weathers,
Both chilling frost and scalding sun, expose
Their equal face. Come forth, my swarthy train!
In this fair circle dance, and as you move,
Mark and foretell happy events of love.
They dance the fifth Antimasque, of Gipsies.

Momus . — I cannot but wonder, that your perpetual conversation with poets and philosophers hath furnished you with no more logic, or that you should think to impose upon us so gross an inference, as because Plutus and you are contrary, therefore whatsoever is denied of the one must be true of the other; as if it should follow of necessity, because he is not Jupiter, you are. No, I give you to know, I am better versed in cavils with the gods than to swallow such a fallacy; for though you two cannot be together in one place, yet there are many places that may be without you both, and such is heaven, where neither of you are likely to arrive: therefore let me advise you to marry yourself to Content, and beget sage apophthegms and goodly moral sentences, in dispraise of riches, and contempt of the world.

Mercury . — Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch,
To claim a station in the firmament,
Because thy humble cottage or thy tub
Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue,
In the cheap sun-shine or by shady springs,
With roots and pot-herbs; where thy rigid hand,
Tearing those human passions from the mind,
Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish,
Degradeth Nature, and benumbeth sense,
And Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.
We not require the dull society
Of your necessitated temperance,
Or that unnatural stupidity
That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forced
Falsely exalted, passive fortitude
Above the active. This low abject brood,
That fix their seats in mediocrity,
Become your servile minds; but we advance
Such virtues only as admit excess,
Brave bounteous acts, regal magnificence,
All-seeing prudence, magnanimity
That knows no bound, and thaTheroic virtue
For which antiquity hath left no name,
But patterns only, such as Hercules,
Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loathed cell!
And when thou seest the new enlighten'd sphere,
Study to know but what those worthies were. Tyche enters: her head bald behind, and one great lock before; wings aTher shoulders, and in her hand a wheel; her upper parts naked, and the skirt of her garment wrought all over with crowns, sceptres, books, and such other things as express both her greatest and smallest gifts.
Momus . — See where Dame Fortune comes; you may know her by her wheel, and that veil over eyes, with which she hopes, like a sealed pigeon, to mount above the clouds and perch in the eighth sphere. Listen! she begins.

Fortune . — I come noThere, you gods, to plead the right
By which antiquity assign'd my deity,
Though no peculiar station 'mongst the stars,
Yet general power to rule their influence;
Or boast the title of omnipotent,
Ascribed me then, by which I rivall'd Jove,
Since you have cancell'd all those old records:
But, confident in my good cause and merit,
Claim a succession in the vacant orb.
For since Astraea fled to heaven, I sit
Her deputy on earth; I hold her scales,
And weigh men's fates out, who have made me blind,
Because themselves want eyes to see my causes;
Call me inconstant, 'cause my works surpass
The shallow fathom of their human reason;
YeThere, like blinded Justice, I dispense
With my impartial hands their constant lots:
And if desertless impious men engross
My best rewards, the fault is yours, you gods,
That scant your graces to mortality,
And, niggards of your good, scarce spare the world
One virtuous for a thousand wicked men.
It is no error to confer dignity,
But to bestow it on a vicious man;
I gave the dignity, but you made the vice:
Make you men good, and I'll make good men happy.
That Plutus is refused, dismays me not;
He is my drudge, and the external pomp
In which he decks the world proceeds from me,
Not him; like Harmony, that not resides
In strings or notes, but in the hand and voice.
The revolutions of empires, states,
Sceptres and crowns, are but my game and sport,
Which as they hang on the events of war,
So those depend upon my turning wheel.
You warlike squadrons, who, in battles join'd,
Dispute the right of kings, which I decide,
Present the model of that martial frame,
By which, when crowns are staked, I rule the game!

They dance the sixth Antimasque, being the representation of a battle.

Momus . — Madam, I should censure you, pro falso clamore , — for preferring a scandalous cross-bill of recrimination against the gods; but your blindness shall excuse you. Alas! what would it advantage you, if virtue were as universal as vice is? It would only follow that, as the world now exclaims upon you for exalting the vicious, it would then rail as fast at you for depressing the virtuous; so they would still keep their tune, though you changed their ditty.

Mercury . — The mists in which future events are wrapp'd,
That oft succeed beside the purposes
Of him that works (his dull eyes not discerning
The first great cause), offer'd thy clouded shape
To his enquiring search; so in the dark
The groping world first found thy deity,
And gave thee rule over contingencies,
Which to the piercing eye of Providence
Being fixed and certain, where past and to-come
Are always present, thou dost disappear,
Losest thy being, and art not all.
Be thou then only a deluding phantom,
At best a blind guide, leading blinder fools:
Who, would they but survey their mutual wants,
And help each other, there were left no room
For thy vain aid. Wisdom, whose strong-built plots
Leave nought to hazard, mocks thy futile power;
Industrious Labour drags thee by the locks,
Bound to his toiling car, and, not attending
Till thou dispense, reaches his own reward;
Only the lazy sluggard yawning lies
Before thy threshold, gaping for thy dole,
And licks the easy hand that feeds his sloth;
The shallow, rash, and unadvised man
Makes thee his stale, disburdens all the follies
Of his mis-guided actions on thy shoulders.
Vanish from hence, and seek those idiots out
That thy fantastic god-head hath allow'd,
And rule that giddy superstitious crowd. Hedone, Pleasure, a young woman with a smiling face, in a light lascivious habit, adorned with silver and gold; her temples crowned with a garland of roses, and over that a rainbow circling her head down to her shoulders.

Hedone enters.

Mercury . — What wanton's this?
Momus . — This is the sprightly Lady Hedone, a merry gamester: this people call her Pleasure.

Pleasure . — The reasons, equal judges, here alleged
By the dismiss'd pretenders, all concur
To strengthen my just title to the sphere.
Honour or wealth, or the contempt of both,
Have in themselves no simple real good,
But as they are the means to purchase Pleasure,
The paths that lead to my delicious palace.
They for my sake, I for mine own, am prized.
Beyond me nothing is; I am the goal,
The journey's end, to which the sweating world
And wearied Nature travels. For this, the best
And wisest sect of all philosophers
Made me the seat of supreme happiness;
And though some, more austere, upon my ruins
Did, to the prejudice of Nature, raise
Some petty low-built virtues, 'twas because
They wanted wings to reach my soaring pitch.
Had they been princes born, themselves had proved
Of all mankind the most luxurious;
For those delights, which to their low condition
Were obvious, they with greedy appetite
Suck'd and devour'd: from offices of state,
From cares of family, children, wife, hopes, fears,
Retired, the churlish Cynic in his tub
Enjoy'd those pleasures which his tongue defamed.
Nor am I rank'd 'mongst the superfluous goods;
My necessary offices preserve
Each single man, and propagate the kind.
Then am I universal, as the light,
Or common air we breathe; and since I am
The general desire of all mankind,
Civil felicity must reside in me.
Tell me what rate my choicest pleasures bear
When, for the short delight of a poor draught
Of cheap cold water, great Lysimachus
Rendered himself slave to the Scythians?
Should I the curious structure of my seats,
The art and beauty of my several objects,
Rehearse at large, your bounties would reserve
For every sense a proper constellation;
But I present their persons to your eyes;
Come forth, my subtle organs of delight!
With changing figures please the curious eye,
And charm the ear with moving harmony.

They dance the seventh Antimasque, of the five Senses.

Mercury . — Bewitching Syren, gilded rottenness!
Thou hast with cunning artifice display'd
Th' enamel'd outside and the honied verge
Of the fair cup, where deadly poison lurks:
Within, a thousand sorrows dance the round,
And like a shell, pain circles thee without;
Grief is the shadow waiting on thy steps,
Which, as thy joys 'gin tow'rds their west decline,
Doth to a giant's spreading form extend
Thy dwarfish stature. Thou thyself art Pain,
Greedy, intense desire, and the keen edge
Of thy fierce appetite oft strangles thee,
And cuts thy slender thread; but still the terror
And apprehension of thy hasty end
Mingles with gall thy most refined sweets:
Yet thy Circean charms transform the world.
Captains, that have resisted war and death,
Nations, that over fortune have triumph'd,
Are by thy magic made effeminate:
Empires, that knew no limit but the Poles,
Have in thy wanton lap melted away.
Thou wert the author of the first excess
That drew this reformation on the gods.
Can'st thou then dream, those powers that from heaven have
Banish'd th' effect, will there enthrone the cause?
To thy voluptuous den, fly, Witch, from hence!
There dwell, for ever drown'd in brutish sense.
Momus . — I concur; and am grown so weary of these tedious pleadings, as I'll pack up too and be gone. Besides, I see a crowd of other suitors pressing hither; I'll stop 'em, take their petitions, and prefer 'em above; and as I came in bluntly, without knocking, and nobody bid me welcome, so I'll depart as abruptly, without taking leave, and bid nobody farewell.

Mercury . — These, with forced reasons and strain'd arguments,
Urge vain pretences, whilst your actions plead,
And with a silent importunity
Awake the drowsy justice of the gods,
To crown your deeds with immortality.
The growing titles of your ancestors,
These nations' glorious acts, join'd to the stock
Of your own royal virtues, and the clear
Reflex they take from th' imitation
Of your famed court, make honour's story full,
And have to that secure fix'd state advanced
Both you and them, to which the labouring world,
Wading through streams of blood, sweats to aspire.
Those ancient worthies of these famous isles,
That long have slept, in fresh and lively shapes
Shall straight appear, where you shall see yourself
Circled with modern heroes, who shall be
In act, whatever elder times can boast,
Noble or great, as they in prophecy
Were all but what you are. Then shall you see
The sacred hand of bright Eternity
Mould you to stars, and fix you in the sphere.
To you, your royal half, to them she'll join
Such of this train, as with industrious steps
In the fair prints your virtuous feet have made,
Though with unequal paces, follow you.
This is decreed by Jove, which my return
Shall see perform'd; but first behold the rude
And old abiders here, and in them view
The point from which your full perfections grew.
You naked, ancient, wild inhabitants,
That breathed this air and press'd this flowery earth,
Come from those shades where dwells eternal night,
And see what wonders Time hath brought to light! Atlas and the sphere vanisheth, and a new scene appears, of mountains, whose eminenTheight exceed the clouds, which past beneath them; the lower parts were wild and woody: out of this place comes forth a more grave Antimasque of Picts, the natural inhabitants of this isle, ancient Scots and Irish: these dance a Pyrrhica, or martial dance. When this Antimasque was past, there began to arise out of the earth the top of a hill, which, by little and little, grew to be a huge mountain, that covered all the scene; the under-part of this was wild and craggy, and above somewhat more pleasant and flourishing; about the middle part of this mountain were seated the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, all richly attired in regal habits, appropriated to the several nations, with crowns on their heads, and each of them bearing the ancient arms of the kingdoms they represented. At a distance above these, sat a young man in a white embroidered robe; upon his fair hair an olive garland, with wings at his shoulders, and holding in his hand a cornucopia filled with corn and fruits, representing the Genius of these kingdoms.