Avaunt, ye Criticks! we defy you here; Or will you damn yourselves, and be severe: Know, the great Preston! scorns your critick spite, Born in defiance of your rules to write. In Democratick Rage who finds one fault, Let him be branded for a sov'reign sot! Yet some I've heard, their envious spleen is such, Pronounce it a translation from the Dutch; Tho' so original, that truth must own, He seems to 'ave read no writings but his own: Nor of his former sense one trace we find, So well the subject answers to his mind; Where, in a revolution of the head, Old arbitrary Wit was laid aside. Proceed great Bard! and aid each tott'ring crown, As clanging kettles help the lab'ring moon: Proceed, and as our Sires of ancient times, Charm'd the poor rats to death with crabbed rhymes; So sing to death (and sing upon the stage) The Democratick! Vermin of the age.
