4

Weeds, and garnish that Noble Poem with the Additional Beauty and Softness of Rhyme. He, like a Blind Buzzard as he was, makes Adam perform his Addresses so ungracefully, introduces him, discourfing fo unlike a Gentleman, with that negligence of Language and stupidity of Spirit, that I' gad, you'd pity his Condition. And then for Eve, as he has drawn her Character, she talks so like an infipid Country House-keeper, whose knowledge goes no farther than the Still or the Dairy, who is as little acquainted with the Tenderness of Paffion, as the Management of an Intrigue, that one cannot chuse but wonder at it. Now, when I came to fall upon this Work, I was refolved to bestow a little good Breeding upon our First Parents, to shew them the Gallantry of a Court, and the Discipline of an Academy, to give them a turn or two in the Mall, and the Galleries at Whitehall, to entertain them with a Play in the King's Box at the Theatre, and afterwards with a fashionable Oglio at Locket's, or the Blue Pofts, that so they might be prevail'd with to leave the contemptible Frugality of feeding upon Sallads, and shake off all that clownish Rust which they had contracted in a former Education. For this Reafon, Mr. Crites, I have made that great Grand-mother of ours, difcourse after another rate than she did before; the talks of Love as feelingly as a Thrice married Widow; yet rails at Marriage with the fame Concern, as if the had feen the Misfortunes of half her Daughters; tells her Gallant, that it was the Practice of all his Sex to decoy poor innocent Maids with Sham-Stories of their Paffion; and that he'd be as apt to forget her after the Enjoyment was over,as a Sharper of the Town forgets the laft Friend he borrowed Money of: In fine, she difcourses of Flames, Darts and Transports, of the Performances of Lovers, and the Fatality of Matri

mony,

1

t

mony, (though God knows, the poor Gentlewoman had no occafion to understand them before) with as much familiarity as the Emperour Montezuma discourses of the Sea, who had scarce seen or heard of a Puddle greater than a Horse-pond in all his Life-time. And then as for Adam, I have put my self to the charges of giving him a Year or two's running at the University, made him as well acquainted with all the Arguments of the Supralapfarians, as a Justice's Clerk is with all the She-traders in his Master's Dominions : So that when the Arch-Angel Gabriel came to pay him a Visit at his Summer-house, he presently engages him, before the second Course was remov'd, in the Mysterious Controverfie about Free-will, proposes Mediums, solves Objections, tells his Guest that his Major was open enough to let a whole Shoal of Arminians in at the Breaches; that his Minor would not hold Water; and fometimes, I'gad, in plain downright English, affures him, that his Inferences had no more relation to the Premises, than the Alcoran to the Four Evangelifts.

Crites. Pray, Mr. Bays, how long ago is it fince Angels have made use of Syllogifm? I thought that those intuitive Gentlemen had never put themselves to the trouble of tracing Causes by their Effects, or drawing Conclufions from their Premises.

Bays. Why, there's the mischief on't; I knew well enough, that the Angels stand in no more need of a Grammatica Rationis, than a ready Wit does of a Common-Place Book; but such is my unhappiness now and then, that I muft run contrary to the Sentiments of all Mankind, though my whole Family fuffers for it: Nay, to aggravate the Matter, I made this great Progenitor of ours, fo baffle the Arch-Angel in the intricate Point of Freewill, that I should have been most mortally afraid,

!

that

1

that the discontented Gabriel had carried some Dregs of Calvinism along with him into Heaven, and infected the rest of his fellow Angels, but that I have heard nothing of it since : However, I am in a fair way now, I hope, to be reconciled to him, for I employ my Tutelar Genius every Morning to folicit his Pardon, and to let him know from me, that if ever this unfortunate Opera of mine Lives to a Second Edition, I design to write a Poeta loquitur on that part of the Page where the Angel Discourfes.

Eugen. That will do very well, Mr. Bays, to recover his loft Reputation with the Reader, and no question on't, but it will go a great way to incline him to better Thoughts of your Repentance: But prithee, little Bays, may I make so bold as to enquire the Reason why you are so great an Enemy to Free-will? Is it not because you are willing to plead fatal Neceffity at the Day of Judgment, and lay all your Miscarriages at your Maker's Door?

Bays. I must give you the fame Answer to this Question, as a Country-Physician gave a Friend of mine, who came to enquire of him how he cured himself of his last Ague; for you must note, that this fame Blunderbuss by fome accident or other had dropt upon a right Medicine: No Sir (faid he) I beg your pardon, for I am under an obligation never to disclose the Secret to any Person breathing; but if you are so lucky as to name the true Remedy, for our old Acquaintance-fake, I'll not conceal it from you. Is it (says the Gentleman) Octabis Hilarii? No, I protest. Why then, I'll lay all that I'm worth in the World, continues he, that it is Quindena Pafcha. Neither is it that upon my Life; but for your comfort, it is something as like Quindena Pafchæ as may be; nay, to satisfie you farther in the cafe, Quindena Pafchæ is one of the chief Ingredients. In like manner, Mr. Eugenius, I must tell you, that you have not pitch'd upon the true Reason why I am so bitter an Enemy to Free-Will, (for that relates to a particular Affront which I receiv'd from an Arminian Divine ;) but I can assure you upon my Integrity, that it comes as nigh to the true Reason, as any thing in the World can come nigh another. I am sure it is not only my own Interest, but the Interest of half Mankind, that we carried no such troublesome thing as Free-Will about us, for then I know who must bear the Blame of our Extravagancies another Day; it would remove all those peevish, melancholy Distinctions of Good and Evil, and score the frequent Sallies and Excesses of our Life upon the unavoidable Influences and Failures of Humane Nature. But Gentlemen, I have somewhere, in the compass of four Lines, urged this Opinion, unless I am mightily deceiv'd, with all the Accuracy and Strength of Reason, which so nice a Subject can well allow of. Oh now I remember them!

The Priesthood großly cheat us with Free

Will,

٦

Will to do what, but what Heaven first Spanish Fryar,

decreed;

Our Actions then are neither good nor ill,

Since from Eternal Causes they proceed.

P. 40.

Σ

Crites. I fancy, Mr. Bays, that these Verses, with some little alteration, would not be amiss in a young Poet's Prologue, who is to excuse the Errors of his

Essay to an Audience.

The Criticks bafely charge us with Free-Will,

Will to write what, but what our Stars decreed;

Our Poems then are neither good nor ill,

Since from All-ruling Planets they proceed.

Ha! Mr. Bays, What think you now? Wou'd not this mollifie the cruel Hearts of the most prejudiced

Spectators?

D

Bays.

Bays. Mollifie 'em! No question on't, Mr. Crites, unless the Old Gentleman in Black poffefs'd them all. I could inlarge very copiously upon this Hint of yours, but that I am desirous to finish the Relation of my Conquests, before I proceed to any other Business: And therefore to draw my Victories into a narrower Compass, I have affronted the Men of Wit in my Gallants, expos'd the Men of Valour in my Heroes, ridicul'd the Men of Love and Ecstacy in my Jealous Coxcombs, the Ladies in my Complying Females, Country Parsons in all my Pagan Priefts, and Princes in my Lawless Maximines of the Theatre; I have lashed the State of Matrimony in my Marriage A-la-Mode, the State of Celibacy and a Monastic Life in my Spanish Fryar, and Love in a Nunnery, the State of Cuckoldom in my Limberbam, the State of Innocence in my Opera of Adam. In a word, (if you'll be pleaf'd to allow me the Benefit of the Clergy, that is, the Christian Privilege of one single Quibble at parting) I have lashed the States of Holland in my Tragedy of Amboyna.

Eugen. But Mr. Bays, this long Digression of yours, has clearly put you beside the Story you promised us.

Bays. 'Dfookers, so it has! Oh this treacherous forgetful Head of mine! It serves me more unhandfome Tricks i-gad, than a young Lawyer's Memory, who has not attained to his WestminsterHall Compass of Fitz, Pere, and Ayle. But how to fall exactly into the fame Place where I left off, the Lord knows, unless you can afsist me, Gentle

men.

Eugen. Very easily Sir, for all that we have hitherto heard concerning your Story, only comes to this, That some Three Weeks before your Conversion in 1685, it was your Fortune to go down the