Why should I help the ill-natured world to laugh? 30
'Tis all alike to them, who get the day;
They love the spite and mischief of the fray.
No; I have cured myself of that disease;
Nor will I be provoked, but when I please:
But let me half that cure to you restore;
You gave the salve, I laid it to the sore.

Our kind relief against a rainy day,
Beyond a tavern, or a tedious play,
We take your book, and laugh our spleen away.
If all your tribe, too studious of debate, 40
Would cease false hopes and titles to create,
Led by the rare example you begun,
Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone.

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FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: 'Higden:' author of a bad comedy, which was condemned.]

[Footnote 19: 'Yours:' Juvenal, the tenth satire of whom Higden had
translated.]

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EPISTLE X.