IN THE MOON.
7
These silly ranting Privolvans,
Have every Summer their Campains,
And muster, like the warlike Sons
90 Of Raw-head and of Bloody-bones,
As numerous as Soland Geese
I' th' Islands of the Orcades,
Couragiously to make a Stand,
And face their Neighbours Hand to Hand;
95 Until the long'd-for Winter's come,
And then return in Triumph home,
And spend the rest o'th' Year in Lies,
And vapouring of their Victories.
From th' old Arcadians th' are believ'd
100 To be, before the Moon, deriv'd;
And when her Orb was new created,
To people her, were thence translated.
For, as th' Arcadians were reputed
Of all the Grecians the most stupid,
105 Whom nothing in the World could bring
To civil Life, but fiddling,
They still retain the antique Course,
And Custom of their Ancestors;
Have every Summer their Campains,
And muster, like the warlike Sons
90 Of Raw-head and of Bloody-bones,
As numerous as Soland Geese
I' th' Islands of the Orcades,
Couragiously to make a Stand,
And face their Neighbours Hand to Hand;
95 Until the long'd-for Winter's come,
And then return in Triumph home,
And spend the rest o'th' Year in Lies,
And vapouring of their Victories.
From th' old Arcadians th' are believ'd
100 To be, before the Moon, deriv'd;
And when her Orb was new created,
To people her, were thence translated.
For, as th' Arcadians were reputed
Of all the Grecians the most stupid,
105 Whom nothing in the World could bring
To civil Life, but fiddling,
They still retain the antique Course,
And Custom of their Ancestors;
obliged to learn and practise it from their Infancy, till they were thirty Years old; and that they introduced it into all their public Meetings upon every Occasion. See Polybius, b. 8.
With what particular View our Author introduc'd this Circumstance of the Privolvans being akin to the old Arcadians, and of their both being fond of Music, I must leave to the Conjectures of future Annotators. I shall only add, that I find by many satyrical Flings among his loose Papers, that he was no Friend to Musicians—and perhaps, he only intended to hint, that they are a Sort of Lunatics.
113.
