SATIRE UPON GAMING.
What fool would trouble Fortune more,
when she has been too kind before;
or tempt her to take back again
what she had thrown away in vain,
by idly vent'ring her good graces
to be dispos'd of by ames-aces;
or settling it in trust to uses
out of his pow'r, on trays and deuses;
to put it to the chance and try,
i' th' ballot of a box and dye,
whether his money be his own,
and lose it, if he be o'erthrown;
as if he were betray'd and set
by his own stars to ev'ry cheat,
or wretchedly condemn'd by Fate
to throw dice for his own estate;
as mutineers, by fatal doom,
do for their lives upon a drum?
for what less influence can produce
so great a monster as a chouse,
or any two-legg'd thing possess
with such a brutish sottishness?
unless those tutelary stars,
entrusted by astrologers
to have the charge of man, combin'd
to use him in the self-same kind;
as those that help'd them to the trust,
are wont to deal with others just.
For to become so sadly dull
aud stupid, as to fine for gull,
(not as, in cities, to b'excus'd,
but to be judg'd fit to be us'd)
that whosoe'er can draw it in
is sure inevitably t' win,
and, with a curs'd half-witted fate,
to grow more dully desperate,
the more 't is made a common prey,
and cheated foppishly at play,
is their condition, Fate betrays
to Folly first, and then destroys.
For what but miracles can serve
so great a madness to preserve,
as his, that ventures goods and chattels
(where there's no quarter giv'n) in battles,
and knights with moneybags as bold,
as men with sandbags did of old;
puts lands, and tenements, and stocks,
into a paltry juggler's box;
and, like an alderman of Gotham, embarketh in so vile a bottom; engages blind and senseless hap 'gainst high, and low, and slur, and knap, (as Tartars with a man of straw
encounter lions hand to paw)
with those that never venture more
than they 'ad safely' ensur'd before
who, when they knock the box, and shake, do, like the Indian rattlesnake,
but strive to ruin and destroy
those that mistake it for fair play;
that have their fulhams at command,
brought up to do their feats at hand;
that understand their calls and knocks,
and how to place themselves i' th' box;
can tell the oddses of all games,
and when to answer to their names;
and, when he conjures them t' appear,
like imps are ready ev'ry where;
when to play foul, and when run fair
(out of design) upon the square,
and let the greedy cully win,
only to draw him further in;
while those with which he idly plays,
have no regard to what he says,
although he jernie and blaspheme,
when they miscarry, heav'n and them,
and damn his soul, and swear, and curse
and crucify his Saviour worse
than those Jew-troopers that threw out,
when they were raffling for his coat;
denounce revenge, as if they heard,
and rightly understood and fear'd,
and wou'd take heed another time
how to commit to bold a crime;
when the poor bones are innocent
of all he did, or said, or meant,
and have as little sense, almost,
as he that damns them when he 'as lost;
as if he had rely'd upon
their judgment rather than his own ;
and that it were their fault, not his,
that manag'd them himself amiss,
and gave them ill insructions how
to run, as he wou'd have them do
and then condemns them sillily
for having no more wit than he?
SATIRE UPON DRUNKENNESS.
'Tis pity wine, which Nature meant
to man in kindness to present,
and gave him kindly to caress
and cherish his frail happiness,
of equal virtue to renew
his weary'd mind and body too,
shou'd (like the cyder-tree in Eden,
which only grew to be forbidden)
no sooner came to be enjoy'd,
but th' owner's fatally destroy'd;
and that which she for good design'd,
becomes the ruin of mankind,
that for a little vain excess
runs out of all its happiness,
and makes the friend of Truth and Love their greatest adversary prove; t' abuse a blessing she bestow'd so truly essentially to his good, to countervail his pensive cares, and slavish drudgery of affairs; to teach him judgment, wit, and sense, and more than all these, confidence; to pass his times of recreation in choice and noble conversation, catch truth and reason unawares, as men do health in wholesome airs; (while fools their conversants possess as unawares with sottishness) to gain access a private way to man's best sense, by its own key, which painful judgers strive in vain
by any other course t' obtain;
to pull off all disguise, and view
things as they're natural and true;
discover fools and knaves, allow'd
for wise and honest in the crowd;
with innocent and virtuous sport
make short days long, and long nights short, and mirth, the only antidote
against diseases e'er they 're got
to save health harmless from th' access both of the med'cine and disease; or make it help itself, secure against the desperat'st fit, the cure. All these sublime prerogatives of happiness to human lives, he vainly throws away, and slights for madness, noise, and bloody fights; when nothing can decide, but swords and pots, the right or wrong of words, like princes' titles; and he's outed the justice of his cause that's routed. No sooner has a charge been founded With-Son of a whore, and Damn'd confounded, and the bold signal giv'n, the lie,
but instantly the bottles fly,
where cups and glasses are small shot,
and cannon-ball a pewter-pot:
that blood, that's hardly in the vein,
is now remanded back again;
though sprung from wine of the same piece
and near akin, within degrees,
strives to commit assassinations
on its own natural relations;
and those twin-spirits, so kind-hearted,
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