If none do yet return th’ intended blow,

You all your safety to your dullness owe:

But whilst that armour thy poor corps defends,

’Twill make thy readers few, as are thy friends;

Those, who thy nature loath’d, yet lov’d thy art,

Who lik’d thy head, and yet abhorr’d thy heart;

Chose thee, to read, but never to converse,

And scorn’d in prose, him whom they priz’d in verse;

Even they shall now their partial error see,

Shall shun thy writings, like thy company,