Pol. 
   No! why, they say you tax’d
   The law and lawyers, captains and the players,
   By their particular names.

Aut.  It is not so. 
   I used no name.  My books have still been taught
   To spare the persons, and to speak the vices. 
   These are mere slanders, and enforced by such
   As have no safer ways to men’s disgraces. 
   But their own lies and loss of honesty: 
   Fellows of practised and most laxative tongues,
   Whose empty and eager bellies, in the year,
   Compel their brains to many desperate shifts,
   (I spare to name them, for their wretchedness
   Fury itself would pardon).  These, or such,
   Whether of malice, or of ignorance,
   Or itch t’ have me their adversary, I know not,
   Or all these mixt; but sure I am, three years
   They did provoke me with their petulant styles
   On every stage:  and I at last unwilling,
   But weary, I confess, of so much trouble,
   Thought I would try if shame could win upon ’em,’
   And therefore chose Augustus Caesar’s times,
   When wit and area were at their height in Rome,
   To shew that Virgil, Horace, and the rest
   Of those great master-spirits, did not want
   Detractors then, or practicers against them: 
   And by this line, although no parallel,
   I hoped at last they would sit down and blush;
   But nothing I could find more contrary. 
   And though the impudence of flies be great,
   Yet this hath so provok’d the angry wasps,
   Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets,
   That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils,
   And, like so many screaming grasshoppers
   Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise. 
   And what? those former calumnies you mention’d. 
   First, of the law:  indeed I brought in Ovid
   Chid by his angry father for neglecting
   The study of their laws for poetry: 
   And I am warranted by his own words: 

       Saepe pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas! 
          Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes.

   And in far harsher terms elsewhere, as these: 

Non me verbosas leges ediscere, non me
Ingrato voces prostituisse foro.

But how this should relate unto our laws,
Or the just ministers, with least abuse,
I reverence both too much to understand! 
Then, for the captain, I will only speak
An epigram I here have made:  it is

Unto true soldiers. 
That’s the lemma:  mark it. 
Strength of my country, whilst I bring to view
Such:  as are miss-call’d captains, and wrong you,
And your high names; I do desire, that thence,
Be nor put on you, nor you take offence: 
I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love
Your great profession which I once did prove;
And did not shame it with my actions then,
No more than I dare now do with my pen.