To Richard Brome, on his Comedy of the " Northern Lass "

I had you for a servant once, Dick Brome,
And you performed a servant's faithful parts;
Now you are got into a nearer room
Of fellowship, professing my old arts.
And you do do them well, with good applause,
Which you have justly gained from the stage,
By observation of those comic laws
Which I, your master, first did teach the age.
You learnt it well, and for it serv'd your time,
A prenticeship,- which few do now a days:
Now each court hobby-horse will wince in rhyme,
Both learned, and unlearned, all write plays.
It was not so of old: men took up trades
That knew the crafts they had been bred in right;
An honest bilboe-smith would make good blades,
And the physician teach men spew and
The cobler kept him to his awl; but now,
He'll be a poet, scarce can guide a plough.