Heir to his plays, his fables, and his tales,
Congreve is the poetic prince of Wales;
Not at St. Germains, but at Will's, his court,
Whither the subjects of his dad resort;
Where plots are hatched, and councils yet unknown,
How young Ascanius may ascend the throne,
That in despite of all the Muses' laws,
He may revenge his injured father's cause,
Go, nauseous rhymers, into darkness go,
And view your monarch in the shades below,
Who takes not now from Helicon his drink,
But sips from Styx a liquor black as ink;
Like Sisyphus a restless stone he turns,
And in a pile of his own labours burns;
Whose curling flames most ghastly fiends do raise,
Supplied with fuel from his impious plays;
And when he fain would puff away the flame,
One stops his mouth with bawdy Limberham;
There, to augment the terrors of the place,
His Hind and Panther stare him in the face;
They grin like devils at the cursed toad,
Who made [them] draw on earth so vile a load.
Could some infernal painter draw the sight,
And once transmit it to the realms of light,
It might our poets from their sins affright;
Or could they hear, how there the sons of verse
In dismal yells their tortures do express;
How scorched with ballads on the Stygian shore,
They horrors in a dismal chorus roar;
Or see how the laureate does his grandeur bear,
Crowned with a wreath of flaming sulphur there.
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