AN HEROICAL EPISTLE OF HUDIBRAS TO SIDROPHEL

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Ecce Iterum Crispinus.—–­
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Well!  Sidrophel, though ’tis in vain
To tamper with your crazy brain,
Without trepanning of your skull
As often as the moon’s at full
‘Tis not amiss, e’re y’ are giv’n o’er, 5
To try one desp’rate med’cine more
For where your case can be no worse,
The desp’rat’st is the wisest course. 
Is’t possible that you, whose ears
Are of the tribe of Issachar’s, 10
And might (with equal reason) either,
For merit, or extent of leather,
With William PRYN’S, before they were
Retrench’d and crucify’d, compare,
Shou’d yet be deaf against a noise 15
So roaring as the publick voice
That speaks your virtues free, and loud,
And openly, in ev’ry crowd,
As, loud as one that sings his part
T’ a wheel-barrow or turnip-cart, 20
Or your new nick-nam’d old invention
To cry green-hastings with an engine;
(As if the vehemence had stunn’d,
And turn your drum-heads with the sound;)
And ’cause your folly’s now no news, 25
But overgrown, and out of use,
Persuade yourself there’s no such matter,
But that ’tis vanish’d out of nature;
When folly, as it grows in years,
The more extravagant appears; 30
For who but you could be possest
With so much ignorance, and beast,
That neither all mens’ scorn and hate,
Nor being laugh’d and pointed at,
Nor bray’d so often in a mortar, 35
Can teach you wholesome sense and nurture;
But (like a reprobate) what course
Soever’s us’d, grow worse and worse
Can no transfusion of the blood,