Thus would I live, with no dull pedants curs'd,
Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst.
Back to your universities, ye fools,
And dangle arguments on strings in schools:
Those schools which Universities they call,
'Twere well for England were there none at all.
With ease that loss the nation might sustain,
Supply'd by Goodman's fields and Drury-lane.
Oxford and Cambridge are not worth one farthing,
Compar'd to Haymarket and Covent-garden:
Quit those, ye British youth, and follow these,
Turn players all, and take your 'squires degrees.
Boast not your incomes now, as heretofore,
Ye book-learn'd seats! the theatres have more:
Ye stiff-rump'd heads of colleges be dumb;
A single Eunuch gets a larger sum.
Have some of you three hundred by the year;
Booth, Rich, and Cibber, twice three thousand clear.
Should Oxford to her sister Cambridge join
A year's rack-rent, and arbitrary fine:
Thence not one winter's charge would be defray'd,
For play-house, opera, ball, and masquerade.
Glad I congratulate the judging age,
The players are the world, the world the stage.