j I-1SRARY V^VERSITYOF ^/CALIFORNIA [ [SAN DIEGO ex upras W IV ELLIS A ° f\OBEf\TS SM \ THE ANNOTATED EDITION OF THE ENGLISH POETS. BY ROBERT BELL, AUTHOB OP 'THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA,' 'LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS,' ETC. In Monthly Volumes, 2s. 6d. each, in cloth. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 1854. Already Published, Poetical Woeks of John Dbyden, including the most complete collection of his Prologues and Epilogues hitherto published. Edited, with a Biographical Memoir, contain- ing New Facts and Original Letters of the Poet, now printed for the first time, with Notes, Critical and His- torical. Three Volumes, containing 904 pp. 7*. 6d. Poetical Woeks of the Eael of Subbey, of Minoe Con- TEMPOEANEOTJS POETS, AND OF SaCKVILLE, LoED BrjCK- httest. With Notes and Memoirs. In One Volume. 2s. 6d. Poetical Woeks of William Cowpee, together with Illus- trative Selections from the Works of Lloyd, Cotton, Brooke, Darwin, and Hayley. With Notes and Memoirs, and Original Letters of Cowper, now first published. Three Volumes. 75. 6d. Songs feom the Dbamatists. With Notes, Memoirs, and Index. In One Volume. 2s. 6d. Poetical Woeks of Sie Thomas Wyatt. In One Volume. 25. 6d. Poetical Woeks of John Oldham. In One Volume. 2s. 6d. On the First of November, Poetical Wobks of Edmund Wallee. In One Volume. 2*. 6d. Annotated Edition of the English Poets. rPHE necessity for a revised and carefully Annotated Edition •*- of the English Poets may be found in the fact, that no such publication exists. The only Collections we possess con- sist of naked and frequently imperfect Texts, put forth without sufficient literary supervision. Independently of other defects, these voluminous Collections are incomplete as a whole, from their omissions of many Poets whose works are of the highest interest, while the total absence of critical and illustrative Notes renders them comparatively worthless to the Student of our National Literature. A few of our Poets have been edited separately by men well qualified for the undertaking, and selected Specimens have appeared, accompanied by notices, which, as far as they go, answer the purpose for which they were intended. But these do not supply the want which is felt of a Complete Body of EnglishPoetry, edited throughoutwith judgment and integrity, and combining those features of research, typographical ele- gance, and economy of price, which the present age demands. The Edition now proposed will be distinguished from all preceding Editions in many important respects. It will include the works of several Poets entirely omitted from previous Col- lections, especially those stores of Lyrical and Ballad Poetry in which our Literature is richer than that of any other Country, and which, independently of their poetical claims, are peculiarly interesting as illustrations of Historical Events and National Customs. By the exercise of a strict principle of selection, this Edition will be rendered intrinsically more valuable than any of its pre- decessors. The Text will in all instances be scrupulously col- TIte English Poets. lated, and accompanied by Biographical, Critical, and Historical Notes. An Introductory Volume will present a succinct account of English Poetry from the earliest times down to a period which will connect it with the Series of the Poets, through whose Lives the History of our Poetical Literature will be continued to the present time. Occasional volumes will be introduced, in which Specimens, with connecting Notices and Commentaries, will be given of those Poets whose works are not of sufficient interest to be reproduced entire. The im- portant materials gathered from previously unexplored sources by the researches of the last quarter of a century will be embodied wherever they may be available in the general design ; and by these means it is hoped that the Collection will be more complete than any that has been hitherto attempted, and that it will be rendered additionally acceptable as comprising in its course a Continuous History of English Poetry. By the arrangements that will be adopted, the Works of the principal Poets may be purchased separately and independently of "the rest. The Occasional Volumes, containing, according to circumstances, Poetry of a particular Class or Period, Col- lections illustrative of Customs, Manners, and Historical events, or Specimens, with Critical Annotations, of the Minor Poets, will also be complete in themselves. As the works of each Poet, when completed, will be indepen- dent of the rest, although ultimately falling into their places in the Series, they will be issued irrespective of chronological sequence. This arrangement will present a greater choice and variety in the selection from month to month of poets of different styles and periods, and at the same time enable the Editor to take advantage of all new sources of information that may be opened to him in the progress of publication. General Title-pages will be finally supplied for combining the whole Collection into a chronological Series. London : John W. Pabkee and Son, West Strand. ^6^-7^ POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN OLDHAM. EDITED BY ROBERT BELL LONDON JOHN W. PARKER AND SON WEST STRAND 1854 LONDON : SAVILL AND EDWABDS, PBINTBBS, CHANDOS-STBEET. CONTENTS. PAGE Memoib 5 To the Memory of my dear Friend, Mr. Charles Morwent 21 Some Verses on presenting a Book to Cosmelia . . 45 The Parting 47 Complaining of Absence 48 Promising a Visit 49 A DlTHYRAMBIC 50 David's Lamentation for the Death of Saul and Jonathan, paraphrased 55 Upon the Works of Ben Jonson 62 A Letter from the Country to a Friend in Town . 72 Satires upon the Jesuits. — Prologue 80 „ „ „ Satire 1 85 )> » >f )> x± 96 » HI 104 >) )> >> >> A * lid The Careless Good Fellow 133 An Imitation of Horace 134 Paraphrase upon Horace. — Book I. — Ode XXXI. . 140 „ II. „ XIV. . 142 1-2 } v CONTENTS. PA OB 144 Horace's Art of Poetry, imitated in English . . . The Praise of Homer The Thirteenth Satire of Juvenal, imitated . . .173 A Satire, in imitation of the Third of Juvenal . . 188 The Eighth Satire of Monsieur Boileau, imitated . 203 . . 215 A Satire touching Nobility TEND . . .228 A Satire addressed to a Friend A Satire Counterpart to the Satire against Virtue .... 237 Upon the Marriage of the Prince of Orange with 244 the Lady Mary An Ode for an Anniversary of Music on St. Cecilia's 247 Day To Madam L. E. upon her Recovery from a late 249 Sickness On the Death of Mrs. E^tharine Kingscourt . . 253 Paraphrase upon the 137TH Psalm 254 Paraphrase upon the Hymn of St. Ambrose .... 258 A Sunday-Thought in Sickness 26i JOHN OLDHAM. 1653— 1683. Some student, curious in the lore of old book-stalls, may chance to have lighted upon a stout little volume of poems, printed in the seventeenth century, and bearing the name of John Oldham. Unless he happened to be familiar with the history of the period, he might never have heard the name before, and would, probably, conclude that Oldham was one of the swarm of scurrilous doggrel-mongers who abounded in those days of literary anarchy and licentiousness, and who, like other ephemera, perished as soon as they were born. The inference would be natural enough. Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since the publication of the last edition of these poems ; and in the interval they have gone down into oblivion. To the present generation of readers they are almost unknown. Yet they obtained considerable celebrity in the lifetime of the author, and present legitimate claims to a place in every complete collection of English poetry. As a satirist, Oldham possesses incontestable merits of a high order. His subjects, like those of all writers who have lashed the vices of their day, are for the most part temporary; but the spirit, point, and freedom of the treatment inspires them with permanent interest. His Satires throw a Hood of light on the politics, morals, and manners of the Restoration, and are everywhere marked by the broad hand of vigorous and original genius. Nor is this his greatest excellence. Throughout the whole of his writings he displays a courage and independence which honourably distinguish him in an a<'e of corruption and servile adulation ; and the few incidents of his life with which we are acquainted bear practical tcsti- JOHN OLDHAM. mony to that love of liberty, and scorn of the slavery of patronage, which are energetically asserted in his poems. By the force of these qualities he won his reputation, and rose from a position of obscurity to the companionship of men of rank and letters, and the intimate friendship of Dryden. John Oldham was the son of a nonconformist minister who had a congregation at Nuneaton. He was born at Shipton, near Tedbury, in Gloucestershire, on the 9th August, 1653; and, after having received the rudiments of his educa- tion at home, was placed at Tedbury school, where he re- mained for two years. He was indebted for this step in his preliminary career to an alderman of Bristol, who had a son at the school, and was anxious that the boy should have the advantage of reading with young Oldham— from which it may be inferred that the latter had already shown more than average diligence and capacity. Oldham made a rapid pro- gress at Tedbury; and in June, 1670, was entered at Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was assisted in his studies by the Bev. Mr. Stephens, who early discovered the tendency of his genius. Here he soon distinguished himself by his mastery of Greek and Latin. His favourite authors were the poets, and the success with which he cultivated them is shown in his subsequent translations and imitations. The love of poetry manifested itself strongly at this period, and at last took complete possession of his time and thoughts. Later in life, when opportunities were thrown open to him of embarking in more profitable pursuits, he confessed that his efforts in every other direction were fruitless, and that the Muse, his ' darling sin,' still drew him back to the inveterate habit of his youth : In vain I better studies there would sow ; Oft have I tried, but none will thrive or grow. In May, 1674, he took his degree of B.A.; shortly after which, much against his own wishes and remonstrances, he was summoned home by his father, who, probably, could not alford the expense of a more prolonged residence at the Uni- JOHN OLDHAM. 7 versity. No definite scheme of life appears to have heen marked out for him; and to a mind impatient of idleness and dependence, the short time he remained in Gloucestershire, especially if his sketch of an ' ugly old priest' may be accepted as a sample of the people by whom he was surrounded,* must have been intolerably irksome. In the following year, the small-pox, so frequently the subject of poetical lamenta- tions, carried off his close companion, Mr. Richard Morwent, and Oldham expressed his grief at the loss of his friend in a Pindaric Ode, which displays much tenderness of feeling and variety of illustration. This is the only poem he is known to have written during that interval ; but it is not unlikely that he found ample employment in planning some of the longer poems he afterwards produced. To this period may, probably, be assigned the germs of the Satires against the Jesuits. Living in a society of nonconformists, he was at least in a position to hear religious and sectarian topics dis- cussed with zeal and bitterness, and may have been, to some extent, led to the consideration of the subject by surrounding influences. But the intercourse with these people was, in other respects, dreary and uncongenial, and he was glad to make his escape from them when a prospect of settling in the neighbourhood of London was offered to him, although connected with a drudgery he disliked. The situation, that of * This satire, entitled Character of a certain wjhj old Priest, is in prose, and was written in 1676, two years after Oldham returned home. It is so offensively coarse that there is some difficulty in believing the traditional story that he designed it as a portrait of his father. Its exaggerations of personal ugliness are grotesque and preposterous, and look more like a hideous conception of the writer's fancy than a picture drawn from real life. The priest is described as a solecism in nature, with a foul skin, a yawning mouth, and a monstrous nose; a gruff voice that has preached half his parish deaf; a prodigious skull that would furnish a whole regiment of round-heads; and a pair of ears of a length so inordinate that he binds them over his crown at night instead of quilt night-caps. Had Oldham meant to gibbet his father in this outrageous caricature, he would, in all probability, have touched upon some of the points of temper or disposition which may be presumed to have provoked so graceless a satire; but there is not a single allusion throughout the whole that warrants such a supposition. 8 JOHN OLDHAM. usher at the free school of Croydon, in Surrey, was not very tempting. The stipend was trifling, and the labour monoto- nous and oppressive. But it possessed the greatest of all attractions for Oldham, because, inconsiderable as it was, it secured occupation and independence. The duties of this employment, involving meaner responsi- bilities than those of tuition, left him little time for poetry; he made, notwithstanding, so profitable a use of his scanty leisure that he produced several pieces, some of which, obtaining circu- lationin MS.,found theirway into the literary coteries,and ren- dered their unknown author an object of curiosity to the town wits and critics. Oldham, shut up in his school-room, entirely unconscious of the sensation he had created in the great world of Fops'-alley and the coffee-houses, was one day surprised, in the midst of his tasks, by a visit from Rochester, Sedley, and Dorset, accompanied by other persons of celebrity, into whose hands his verses had fallen. Mr. Shepherd, the worthy master of the school, seeing Lord Rochester's card, and thinking it quite impossible that such a mark of distinction could be intended for his obscure assistant, took the whole credit of the compliment to himself, and, after carefully arranging his toilet, went to receive his visitors. The scene that followed might have been put into one of Shadwell's comedies. The old gentleman had prepared a speech for the occasion, expressing his high sense of the honour conferred upon him, and modestly deprecating his claims to so extraordinary a condescension; when Lord Dorset good-naturedly interposed, and informed him that the motive of the visit was to see his usher. By this time Mr. Shepherd had got into a little confusion in his speech, and was probably not unwilling to make his retreat, confessing, frankly enough, that he had neither the wit nor learning to qualify him for such fine company. How it fared with the poet when he was summoned to their presence is not related. But no immediate consequences followed the visit. Itwas Oldham'slirst experience of courtiers and patronage, and his manner of receiving his visitors may not have been calculated to propitiate their favour. JOHN OLDHAM. y It is certain, at least, that whatever impression he made upon them, they left him in the situation in which they found him, and that he still continued to drudge at a toil from which liis taste revolted, and which yielded him scarcely a bare sub- sistence. In one of his Satires, evidently alluding to his own case, he deplores the position of a man who is thus compelled to ' beat Greek and Latin for his life,' and whose rewards are inferior to those of a dancing-master: — But who would be to the vile drudgery bound Where there so small encouragement is found? Where you for recompense of all your pains Shall hardly reach a common fiddler's gains? For when you've toiled, and laboured all you can, To dung and cultivate a barren brain, A dancing master shall be better paid, Though he in-tructs the heels, and you the head. This thankless occupation was relieved by the secret work in which he delighted; and if the unexpected recognition of his talents had no other effect, it seems at all events to have stimu- lated him to more constant and systematic efforts. He tells us that he could not resist the infatuation of making verses; and that even when he said his prayers, he could scarcely re- frain from turning them into rhyme. After he had passed three years at Croydon, he was fortu- nate enough, in 1678, to obtain the appointment of tutor to the two grandsons of Sir Edward Thurland, a judge, re- siding in the neighbourhood of Reigate. This situation was procured for him through the interest of his friend, Mr. llarman Atwood, a barrister, whose death he afterwards lamented in an elaborate ode. It was during this period he composed those famous invectives against the Jesuits, which, appearing at a moment when the discovery of the Popish plot predisposed the public to receive such writings with avidity, at once established his reputation. Oldham remained in Judge Thurland's family till 1680; and afterwards became tutor for a short time to the son of Sir William Hicks, who lived nearer to London. At this gentleman's house he tunned an acquaintance with Dr. Richard Lower, a physician and 10 JOHN OLDHAM. medical writer, celebrated amongst his contemporaries by a con- troversy in which he was engaged on the theory of the trans- fusion of the blood* Lower appears to have infected Oldham with his enthusiasm, and to have induced him to devote his unoccupied hours to the study of medicine, which, with the caprice of a new passion, he followed sedulously for a whole year, and then abandoned to return to his first love. At the close of Oldham's engagement, Sir William Hicks proposed that he should accompany his son on his travels into Italy. But, eager to test his powers in a different arena, Oldham declined the offer. The success of his poems made him anxious to escape from the bondage of tuition; and his lite- rary ambition naturally led him to settle in London. Here Eochester, Sedley, and the rest renewed their acquaintance with him ; and through their introduction he became personally known to Dryden, who discerned in him a genius kindred to his own. A close and warm friendship grew up between them. Dryden was bringing out his Religio Laid, and his opinions had not yet undergone that change which might have placed an insuperable barrier between him and the author of the Satires on the Jesuits. Oldham was now in the midst of that brilliant society which, fixing its centre at Will's Coffee-house, radiated to all the points of dissipation and gaiety in the metropolis. It was a * Lower, in his Tractatm de Garde, Hem de motu et colore Sanguinis, ct Chilli in mm transitu, published in 1669, maintained the doctrine of the transfusion of blood from the vessels of one living animal to Hose of another, which he had experimentally demonstrated at Oxford in 1665 and afterwards upon an insane person before the Royal Society. He claimed the merit of the discovery, which was disputed by Francis Potter a native of Wiltshire, but which really belonged to neither of them having been pointed out half a century before in a work pub- lished at Frankfort by Libavius, a German physician and chemist. The faculty took a great interest in the discussion, and it ended 111 the explosion of a theory found to be practically attended with the mo>i their style.' This vindication of his ruggedness reveals one of hie most conspicuous merits — his choice of language, which is at once familiar and striking, and everywhere the faithful representative of impulsive ardour and strong convictions. 16 JOHN OLDHAM. 1 young Marcellus of our tongue,' whatever he might have done to have earned it had he lived, less happily expressed his characteristics than that by which he was better known — the ' English Juvenal ;' an appellation which is justified no less by the power and severity of his strictures, than by their ani- mated portraiture of contemporary life and manners. In this latter point of view, his poems possess an obvious his- torical value. During Oldham's life his Satires were received with great favour, and several times reprinted.* A third edition of the Satires on the Jesuits was published in 1685; and in 1686 his works were collected in a single volume by the pub- lisher who had previously issued them separately. In 17 10 they reached a seventh edition; and were republished in two volumes in 1722. The last edition, edited by Captain Edward Thompson, appeared in 1770^ They have never been included in any general collection of the English Poets; being denied admission as a whole, no doubt very * Oldham had some admirers who considered him entitled to take rank amongst the first poets in the language. Winstanley says of liini that he was ' the delight of the muses, and glory of these last times ; a man utterly unknown to me, but only by works, which none can read but with wonder and admiration ; so pithy his strains, so senten- tious his expressions, so elegant his oratory, so reviving his language, so smooth his lines, in translation outdoing the original, and in inven- tion matchless.' Winstanley's critical opinion, it is scarcely necessary to say after this indiscriminate panegyric, is not worth much, but it indicates how highly Oldham was esteemed in some quarters by his contemporaries. t Thompson, whose critical pretensions brought upon him the mer- ciless ridicule of his critics, also edited the works of Marvel] and Paul Whitehead. He belonged to the maritime service, and appear* to have resorted to literature as & pis aikr when the peace of 176Z threw him out of employment His first venture was a licentious poem called the Merrtriciad, in which he celebrated the most notorious women of the town; this was followed by the Courtezan and t lie Jh mirep, the subjects of which may be inferred from their titles, lie also published a sort of rambling account of his own life, called Sailors' Letters. I" his professional capacity he acquired a more cre- ditable reputation, and was considered a man of ability and courage. As a writer, the best things he produced were some sea-songs, excel- lent in their kind. ' The topsails shiver in the wind,' and a few others, still retain llieir popularity. JOHN OLDHAM. 17 properly, in consequence of the coarseness objected to by Pope. It might be expected, nevertheless, that Oldham would have been recognised in the Anthologies, which, composed of picked specimens, afforded the means of bringing the public acquainted with him without compromising the taste of readers or editors. Yet here also he has been passed over in silence. If the principle of exclusion had been consistently acted upon in all instances, there would be less reason to complain of his rejection; but it is not easy to understand by what rule of taste or morality he was refused a place in collections that presented the public with the obscenities of Swift in full, suffering not a scrap to escape ; nor is that fastidiousness very intelligible which saw no ob- jection to confer on such men as Rochester, whose lives and writings were saturated with grossness, a distinction denied to a poet who dragged their delinquencies before the bar of public opinion.* It must be admitted that Oldham wrote some pieces which deserve the obloquy they have incurred, and that there are expressions and allusions in his Satires which would be un- pardonable in a writer of the nineteenth century. In this respect, however, he is not more open to censure than the most famous of his contemporaries: and, although such trans- gressions are not to be excused by examples, it would be obviously unjust to hold up to particular condemnation in him » Amongst Oldham's poems there is a lamentation on the death of Rochester, imitated from a Greek pastoral, and conceived in the usual vein of extravagant panegyric. Rochester was the first man of rank or influence that noticed Oldham, who in these stanzas discharges the obligations he owed to his memory. No personal considerations for Rochester, however, restrained him during the lifetime of that distill- ed profligate from exposing the vices he practised, or the s<«i;il delinquencies of the order to which he belonged. Pope has insti- tuted a comparison between Oldham, Dorset, and Kochestcr, as poets which curio isly exemplifies the special character of his own t;i>te. Rochester, he says, had much more delicacy and knowledge of mankind than Oldham, and was the medium between him and Dorset, who was better than either. The regularity of Dorset, and the wit of Rochester, were, as might be expected, preferred by Pope to the rough energy of Oldham. OLDHAM. *>£ ■ig JOHN OLDHAM. a corrupt taste which has not excluded the works of Dryden from general circulation. Indeed, making a reasonable allmv- an™ for the common language and usages of the period, Oldha n is entitled to credit, not only for having written so "hat is offensive in this way, hut for the general tendency Id writings in an opposite direction. The end he had in v ew should be taken into account in farming an estimate of the means he employed. If he descended to ««*« not to stimulate a prurient or depraved appetite b t to turn a-dnst vice its own weapons. The licentiousness of the age, S ndUty of pandering authors, the neglect of literature, the mde and profligacy of the nobility, and the degradation of ?he loter ordei-s of the clergy, are the topics upon which Te o-ives free scope to his honest satire; and he knew that if h-^ted them with delicacy and reserve he must inevitably mt taking the impression he desired. j^*-* in earnest to pick and choose his phrases, or turn hw versiti at on He thought only of the matter, and was induTeren to tlfe manner. 2 he has himself frankly acknowledged, the indignation is everywhere paramount to the art : Nor needs there art or genius here to use, Where indignation can create a muse. In the core of his bold and vehement Satires there is a sou^d and permanent material which may be safely libera ed frl incidental impurities, and which it is the *-***£ Resent volume to preserve. The poems retained in th* X on comprise the whole of his published works w,ti the «Z on of a few pieces which may be omit ted wi h advan- t?to his fame, and would be productive of no pleaau* to Naders. The principle upon which they nave Wn ex eluded can hardly require any justification ; but it is propel o add that no 'liberties have been taken With the pom beyond the exercise of that discretion which has been found u > usable in the case of Rochester and others, and which "Sed by an evident necessity. The text winch in all for^SioL is full of errors and corruptions, has been care- fully revised throughout. JOHN OLDHAM. 19 The rank Oldham may be considered entitled to hold amongst English satirists must not be determined by a critical examination of the quality of his verse. He is not one of those writers who advanced the art of poetry, or whose example stimulated its cultivation. He abounds in faults of negligence, and wilful violations of metrical laws. Content with the condensed force he threw at the hrst heat into his lines, he took no further trouble about their structure. He was as indifferent to accuracy in his rhymes as to melody in his versification; and wounds the sensitive ear no less by such discords as ' give' and ' unbelief,' ' long' and ' gone,' than by the irregularity of his rhythm. His language, always nervous, and well suited to his purpose by its idiomatic freedom, is never governed in the selection by any consideration of euphony or purity of taste ; and, giving way to the overwhelming rage that is the prevailing characteristic of his Satires, he frequently repeats the same terms of objur- gation and obloquy, which might have been easily varied by the exercise of a calmer judgment. These faults lie upon the surface. They strike the most careless reader ; who soon, however, begins to perceive that they are the faults of an impetuous temperament, and not of ignorance or incapacity, and that Oldham's merits must be estimated by a very different test. Of all the fugitive writers on the Protestant side who contributed to foment the agitation produced by the revela- tions of Titus Oates, Oldham is the ablest and boldest. He is not merely the most honest representative of the spirit that actuated his party, at a period when the kingdom was convulsed by religious feuds, but the only one whose works, addressed to the passions of the hour, are worth repro- duction. He belongs wholly to the terrible episode of the Popish Plot. The entire term of his literary life did not spread over more than four or five years; and throughout that time the public mind was absorbed by the topics upon which he has dilated witli such zealous frenzy in his attack on the Jesuits. As Dryden, a little later, espoused the 2-2 20 JOHN OLDHAM. interests of the Duke of York's adherents, so Oldham asserted the views of their opponents; and in this aspect his Satires possess a special interest, and supply an important deside- ratum. They exhibit at its height the fury that pervaded the Protestant party, and enable us to balance the account of violence between them and the Roman Catholics, writings of Dryden have transmitted to posterity an im- pression, too hastily adopted by modern historians, that the Tories immeasurably transcended the Whigs in malignity and intemperance; but in the invectives of Oldham we find a display of bitterness and rancour which even Dryden himself has not surpassed. The advantage of superior skill was with the greater poet ; but Oldham rivals him m the breadth and torrent of his vituperation. _ Nor are these Satires less curious as a picture of living manners. They reflect with minute fidelity the Me of the Restoration. In his sketches of the modes and habits ot London, Oldham enters into a variety of particulars that bear upon the moral and social attributes of the time The panorama he thus brings before us is full of il ustrative details From the incidents of the streets, the shghtness ot the house architecture, the frequency of fires, the insecurity of passengers by night and day, and the exploits of scourers, roarers, and padders, he ascends to the delinquencies of the hi"her orders, the corruptions at court, the venality of authors and parasites, the neglect of literature, and the servile homage that was paid to wealth. The vividness of his por- traiture of the contemporary age, and the stern justice he executes upon its vices, invest his Satires with a lasting historical value that abundantly compensates for the rugged- ness of his verse, and vindicates his right to a high place amongst English satirists. POEMS OP JOHN OLDHAM. TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND, MR. CHARLES MORWENT.* A PINDARIC. Ostendunt terris hunc tantum fata, nee ultra Esse sinunt. Virg. I BEST Friend ! could my unbounded grief but rate With due proportion thy too cruel fate ; Could I some happy miracle bring forth, Great as my wishes and thy greater worth, All Helicon should soon be thine, And pay a tribute to thy shrine. The learned sisters all ti-ansformed should be, No longer nine, but one Melpomene : * This is the earliest poem that can he traced to a date. It was written in 1675, when Oldham was twenty years of age, and published in his Re/mama, four years after his death. It is carefully constructed on the models then in vogue, and shows considerable skill in the ex- haustive process of extravagant panegyric. The germs of future excellence strike root boldly in this piece, which is remarkable for variety and fertility of illustration, and has many passages of sweetness and beauty, l'ope considered this ode one of the best of Oldham's compositions, and noted it on a fly-leaf of a copy in his possession, tor special commendation, together with the Fourth Satire on the Jesuits, the Satire on Virtue, the translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, and the Impertinent from Horace. This note of Pope's was commuuicated to Captain Thompson by Mr. Wilkes. 22 TO THE MEMORY OF Each should into a Niobe relent, At once thy mourner and thy monument : Each should become Like the famed Memnon's speaking tomb, To sing thy well-tuned praise ; Nor should we fear their being dumb, Thou still wouldst make them vocal with thy rays. 2 O that I could distil my vital juice in tears! Or waft away my soul in sobbing airs ! Were I all eyes, To flow in liquid elegies ; That every limb might grieve, And dying sorrow still retrieve ; My life should be but one long mourning day, And like moist vapours melt in tears away. I'd soon dissolve in one great sigh, And upwards fly, Glad so to be exhaled to heaven and thee : A sigh which might well-nigh reverse thy death, And hope to animate thee with new breath ; Powerful as that which heretofore did give A soul to well-formed clay, and made it live. 3 Adieu, blest Soul ! whose hasty flight away Tells heaven did ne'er display Such happiness to bless the world with stay. Death in thy fall betrayed her utmost spite, [white. And showed her shafts most times are levelled at the She saw thy blooming ripeness time prevent ; She saw, and envious grew, and straight her arrow sent : So buds appearing ere the frosts are past, Nipped by some unkind blast, Wither in penance for their forward haste. Thus have I seen a morn so bright, So decked with all the robes of light, As if it scorned to think of night, MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 23 Wliicli a rude storm ere noon did shroud, And buried all its early glories in a cloud. The day in funeral blackness mourned, And all to sighs, and all to tears it turned. 4 But why do we thy death untimely deem ; Or fate blaspheme ? We should thy full ripe virtues wrong, To think thee young. Fate, when she did thy vigorous growth behold, And all thy forward glories told, Forgot thy tale of years, and thought thee old. The brisk endowments of thy mind, Scorning in the bud to be confined, Out-ran thy age, and left slow time behind ; "Which made thee reach maturity so soon, And, at first dawn, present a full spread noon. So thy perfections with thy soul agree, Both knew no non-age, knew no infancy. Thus the first pattern of our race began His life in middle-age, at 's birth a perfect man. 5 So well thou actedst in thy span of days, As calls at once for wonder and for praise. Thy prudent conduct had so learnt to measure The different whiles of toil and leisure, No time did action want, no action wanted pleasure. Thy busy industry could time dilate, And stretch the thread of fate : Thy careful thrift could only boast the power To lengthen minutes, and extend an hour. No single sand could e'er slip by Without its wonder, sweet as high : And every teeming moment still brought forth A thousand rarities of worth. While some no other cause for life can give, But a dull habitude to Live ; 24 TO THE MEMOKY OF Thou scornedst such laziness while here beneath, And livedst that time which others only breathe. 6 Next our just wonder does commence, How so small room could hold such excellence. Nature was proud when she contrived thy frame, In thee she laboured for a name : Hence 'twas she lavished all her store, As if she meant hereafter to be poor, And, like a bankrupt, run o' th' score. Her curious hand here drew in straits, and joined All the perfections lodged in human kind; Teaching her numerous gifts to lie Cramped in a short epitome. So stars contracted in a diamond shine, And jewels in a narrow point confine The riches of an Indian mine. Thus subtle artists can Draw nature's larger self within a span : A small frame holds the world, earth, heavens and all Shrunk to the scant dimensions of a ball. 7 Those parts which never in one subject dwell, But some uncommon excellence foretell, Like stars, did all constellate here, And met together in one sphere. Thy judgment, wit and memory conspired To make themselves and thee admired ; And could thy growing height a longer stay have known, Thou hadst all other glories, and thyself out-done. While some to knowledge by degrees arrive, Through tedious industry improved, Thine scorned by such pedantic rules to thrive, But swift as that of angels moved, And made us think it was intuitive. Thy pregnant mind ne'er struggled in its birth, But quick, and while it did conceive, brought forth ; MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 25 The gentle throes cf thy prolific brain Were all unstrained, and without pain. Thus when great Jove the Queen of Wisdom bare, So easy and so mild his travails were. 8 Nor were these fruits in a rough soil bestown, As gems are thickest in rugged quarries sown. Good nature, and good parts, so shared thy mind, A muse and grace were so combined, 'Twas hard to guess which with most lustre shined. A genius did thy whole comportment act, Whose charming complaisance did so attract, As every heart attacked. Such a soft air thy well-tuned sweetness swayed, As told thy soul of harmony was made ; All rude affections that disturbers be, That mar or disunite society, Were foreigners to thee. Love only in their stead took up its rest; Nature made that thy constant guest, And seemed to form no other passion for thy breast. 9 This made thy courteousness to all extend, And thee to the whole universe a friend. Those who were strangers to thy native soil and thee, No strangers to thy love could be, Whose bounds were wide as all mortality. Thy heart no island was, disjoined (Like thine own nation) from all human kind ; But 'twas a continent to other countries fixed As firm by love, as they by earth annexed. Thou scornedst the map should thy affection guide, Like theirs who love by dull geography, Friends but to whom by soil they are allied : Thine reached to all beside, To every member of the world's great family. Heaven's kindness only claims a name more general, 26 TO THE MEMORY OP Which we the nobler call, Because 'tis connnon, and vouchsafed to all. 10 Such thy ambition of obliging was, Thou seemedst corrupted with the very power to please. Only to let thee gratify, At once did bribe and pay thy courtesy. Thy kindness by acceptance might be bought, It for no other wages sought, But would its own be thought. No suitors went unsatisfied away But left thee more unsatisfied than they. Brave Titus ! thou mightst here thy true portraiture And view thy rival in a private mind. [find, Thou heretofore deservedst such praise, When acts of goodness did compute thy days, Measured not by the sun's, but thine own kinder rays. Thou thoughtest each hour out of life's journal lost, Which could not some fresh favour boast, And reckonedst bounties thy best Clepsydras. ii Some fools, who the great art of giving want, Deflower their largess with too slow a grant : Where the deluded suitor dearly buys What hardly can defray The expense of importunities, Or the suspense of torturing delay. Here was no need of tedious prayers to sue, Or thy too backward kindness woo. It moved with no formal state, Like theirs whose pomp does for entreaty wait : But met the swift'st desires half way, And wishes did well-nigh anticipate; And then as modestly withdrew, Nor for its due reward of thanks would stay. MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 27 12 Yet might this goodness to the happy most accrue ; Somewhat was to the miserable due, Which they might justly challenge too. Whate'er mishap did a known heart oppress, The same did thine as wretched make ; Like yielding wax, thine did the impression take, And paid its sadness in as lively dress. Thou couldst afflictions from another breast translate, And foreign grief impropriate ; Oft-times our sorrows thine so nmch have grown, They scarce were more our own ; Who seemed exempt, thou sufferedst all alone. 13 Our smallest misfortunes scarce could reach thy ear, But made thee give in alms a tear; And when our hearts breathed their regret in sighs, As a just ti'ibute to their miseries, Thine with their mournful airs did symbolize, Like throngs of sighs did for its fibres crowd, And told thy grief from our each grief aloud : Such is the secret sympathy We may betwixt two neighbouring lutes descry, If either, by unskilful hand too rudely bent, Its soft complaint in pensive murmurs vent, As if it did that injury resent, Untouched, the other straight returns the moan, And gives an echo to each groan; From its sweet bowels a sad note's conveyed, Like those which to condole are made, As if its bowels too a kind compassion had. 14 Nor was thy goodness bounded with so small extent, Or in such narrow limits pent. Let female frailty in fond tears distill, Who think that moisture which they spill 28 TO THE MEMORY OP Can yield relief, Or shrink the current of another's grief, Who hope that breath which they in sighs convey Should blow calamities away ; Thine did a manlier form express, And scorned to whine at an unhappiness ; Thou thoughtst it still the noblest pity to redress. So friendly angels their relief bestow On the unfortunate below, For whom those purer minds no passion know : Such nature in that generous plant is found, Whose every breach does with a salve abound, And wounds itself to cure another's wound. In pity to mankind it sheds its juice, Glad with expense of blood to serve their use : First, with kind tears our maladies bewails, And after heals; And makes those very tears the remedy produce. 15 Nor didst thou to thy foes less generous appear, (If there were any durst that title wear,) They could not offer wrongs so fast, But what were pardoned with like haste; And by thy acts of amnesty defaced. Had he who wished the art how to forget, Discovered its new worth in thee, He had a double value on it set, And justly scorned the ignobler art of memory. No wrongs could thy great soul to grief expose, 'Twas placed as much out of the reach of those, As of material blows. No injuries could thee provoke, Thy softness always damped the stroke : As flints on feather-beds are easiest broke. Affronts could ne'er thy cool connexion heat, Or chase thy temper from its settled state : But still thou stoodst unshocked by all, MR. CHARLES MORWEXT. 29 As if thou hadst unlearned the power to hate, Or, like the dove, were bom without a galL 16 Vain stoics who disclaim all human sense, And own no passions to resent offence, May pass it by with unconcerned neglect, And virtue on those principles erect, Where 'tis not a perfection, but defect. Let these themselves in a dull patience please, Which their own statues may possess, And they themselves when carcasses. Thou only couldst to that high pitch arrive, To court abuses, that thou mightst forgive: Wrongs thus in thy esteem seemed courtesy, And thou the first was e'er obliged by injury. *7 Nor may we think these godlike qualities Could stand in need of votaries, Which heretofore had challenged sacrifice. Each assignation, each converse Gained thee some new idolaters. Thy sweet obkgingness could supple hate, And out of it, its contrary create. Its powerful influence made quarrels cease, And feuds dissolved into a calmer peace. Envy resigned her force, and vanquished spite Became thy speedy proselyte. Malice could cherish enmity no more ; And those which were thy foes before, Now wished they might adore. Caesar may tell of nations took, And troops by force subjected to his yoke: We read as great a conqueror in thee, Who couldst by milder ways all hearts subdue, The nobler conquest of the two ; Thus thou whole legions mad'st thy captives be, And, like him too, couldst look, and speak thy victory. 30 TO THE MEMORY OF 18 Hence may we calculate the tenderness Thou diclst express To all, whom thou didst with thy friendship bless. To think of passion by new mothei-s bore • To the young offspring of their womb, Or that of lovers to what they adore, Ere duty it become : We should too mean ideas frame, Of that which thine might justly claim, And injure it by a degrading name : Conceive the tender care Of guardian angels to their charge assigned, Or think how dear To heaven expiring martyrs are; These are the emblems of thy mind, The only types to show how thou wast kind. x 9 On whomsoe'er thou didst confer this tie, 'Twas lasting as eternity, And firm as the unbroken chain of destiny. Embraces would faint shadows of your union show, Unless you could together grow. That union which is from alliance bred, Does not so fastly wed, Though it with blood be cemented : That link wherewith the soul and body's joined, Which twists the double nature in mankind, Only so close can bind. That holy fire which Romans to their Vesta paid, Which they immortal as the goddess made, Thy noble flames most fitly parallel ; For thine were just so pure, and just so durable. Those feigned pairs of faithfulness, which claim So high a place in ancient fame, Had they thy better pattern seen, MR. CHARLES MORWEXT. 31 They'd made their friendship more divine, And strove to mend their characters by thine. 20 Yet had this friendship no advantage been, Unless 'twere exercised within; What did thy love to other objects tie, The same made thy own powers agree, And reconciled thyself to thee. No discord in thy soul did rest, Save what its harmony increased. Thy mind did with such regular calmness move, As held resemblance with the greater mind above. Reason there fixed its peaceful throne, And reigned alone. The will its easy neck to bondage gave, And to the ruling faculty became a slave. The passions raised no civil wars, Nor discomposed thee with intestine jars: All did obey, And paid allegiance to its rightful sway. All threw their resty tempers by, And gentler figures drew, Gentle as nature in its infancy, As when themselves in their first beings grew. 21 Thy soul within such silent pomp did keep, As if humanity were lulled asleep ; So gentle was thy pilgrimage beneath, Time's unheard feet scarce make less noise, Or the soft journey which a planet goes; Life seemed all calm as its last breath, A still tranquillity so hushed thy breast, As if some Halcyon were its guest, And there had built her nest; It hardly now enjoys a greater rest. As that smooth sea which wcai's the name of peace, Still with one even face appears, 32 TO THE MEMORY OF And feels no tides to change it from its place, No waves to alter the fair form it bears : As that unspotted sky, Where Nile does want of rain supply, Is free from clouds, from storms is ever free : So thy unvaried mind was always one, And with such clear serenity still shone, As caused thy little world to seem all temperate zone. 22 Let fools their high extraction boast, [cost ; And greatness, which no travail, but their mothers, Let them extol a swelling name, Which theirs by will and testament became— At best but mere inheritance, As oft the spoils, as gift, of chance ; Let some ill-placed repute on scutcheons rear, As fading as the colours which those bear, And prize a painted field, Which wealth as soon as fame can yield ; Thou scornedst at such low rates to purchase worth, Nor couldst thou owe it only to thy birth, Thy self-born greatness was above the power Of parents to entail, or fortune to deflower. Thy soul, which, like the sun, heaven moulded bright, , Disdained to shine with borrowed light: Thus from himself the eternal being grew, And from no other cause his grandeur drew. 23 Howe'er, if true nobility Eather in souls than in the blood does lie : If from thy better part we measures take, And that the standard of our value make, Jewels and stars become low heraldry To blazon thee. Thy soul was big enough to pity kings, And looked on empires as poor humble things; MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 33 Great as his boundless mind, Who thought himself in one wide globe confined, And for another pined ; Great as that spirit whose large powers roll Through the vast fabric of this spacious bowl, And tell the world as well as man can boast a soul 24 Yet could not this an haughtiness beget, Or thee above the common level set. Pride, whose alloy does best endowments mar, (As things most lofty smaller still appear) With thee did no alliance bear. Low merits oft are by too high esteem belied, Whose owners lessen while they raise their price; Thine were above the very guilt of pride, Above all others, and thy own hyperbole : In thee the widest extremes were joined, The loftiest, and the lowliest mind. Thus though some part of heaven's vast round Appear but low, and seem to touch the ground, Yet 'tis well known almost to bound the spheres, 'Tis truly held to be above the stars. 25 While thy brave mind preserved this noble frame, Thou stoodst at once secure From all the flattery and obloquy of fame, [same : Its rough and gentler breath were both to thee the Nor this could thee exalt, nor that depress thee lower ; But thou, from thy great soul, on both lookedst dow 1 1 , Without the small concernment of a smile or frown. Heaven less dreads that it should fired be By the weak flitting sparks that upwards fly, Less the bright goddess of the night Fears those loud bowlings that revile her light, Than thou malignant tongues thy worth should blast, Which was too great for envy's cloud to overcast. OLDHAM. y g4_ TO THE MEMORY OP 'Twas thy brave method to despise contempt, And make what was the fanlt the punishment, What more assaults could weak detraction raise, When thou couldst saint disgrace, And turn reproach to praise. So clouds which would obscure the sun, oft gilded be, And shades are taught to shine as bright as he ; So diamonds, when envious night Would shroud their splendour, look most bright, And from its darkness seem to borrow light. 26 Had heaven composed thy mortal frame, Free from contagion as thy soul or fame : ^ Could virtue been but proof against death s arms, Thou hadst stood unvanquished by these harms, Safe in a circle made by thy own charms. Fond pleasure, whose soft magic oft beguiles Raw inexperienced souls, And with smooth flattery cajoles, Could ne'er ensnare thee with her wiles, Or make thee captive to her soothing smiles. Iu vain that pimp of vice essayed to please, In hope to draw thee to its rude embrace. Thy prudence still that syren past Without being pinioned to the mast : All its attempts were ineffectual found; Heaven fenced thy heart with its own mound, And forced the tempter still from that forbiddei ground. The mad Capricios of the doting age Could ne'er in the same frenzy thee engage; But moved thee rather with a generous rage. Gallants, who their high breeding prize, Known only by their gallanture and vice, Whose talent is to court a fashionable sin, And act some fine transgression with a jaunty mien, May by such methods hope the vogue to win. MR. CHARLES MORWEXT. 35 Let those gay fops who deem Their infamies accomplishment, Grow scandalous to get esteem, And by disgrace strive to be eminent. Here thou disdainest the common road, Nor wouldst by aught be wooed To wear the vain iniquities of the mode. Vice with thy practice did so disagree, Thou scarce couldst bear it in thy theory. Thou didst such ignorance 'bove knowledge prize, And here to be unskilled, is to be wise. Such the first founders of our blood, While yet untempted, stood Contented only to know good. 28 Virtue alone did guide thy actions here, Thou by no other card thy life didst steer: No sly decoy would serve, To make thee from her rigid dictates swerve ; Thy love ne'er thought her worse Because thou hadst so few competitors ; Thou couldst adore her when adored by none, Content to be her votary alone; When 'twas proscribed the unkind world, And to blind cells, and grottos hurled, When thought the phantom of some crazy brain, Fit for grave anchorets to entertain, A thin chimera, whom dull gown-men frame To gull deluded mortals with an empty name. 29 Thou ownedst no crimes that shunned the light, Whose horror might thy blood affright, And force it to its known retreat. While the pale cheeks do penance in their white, And tell that blushes are too weak to expiate; Thy faults might all be on thy forehead wore, And the whole world thy confessor. 3—2 36 TO THE MEMORY OP Conscience within still kept assize, To punish and deter impieties : That inbred judge such strict inspection bore, So traversed all thy actions o'er, The Eternal Judge could scai*ce do more : Those little escapades of vice, "Which pass the cognizance of most, In the crowd of following sins forgot and lost, Could ne'er its sentence or arraignment miss : Thou didst prevent the young desires of ill, And them in their first motions kill : The very thoughts, in others unconfined And lawless as the wind, Thou couldst to rule and order bind ; They durst not any stamp but that of virtue bear, And free from stain, as thy most public actions, were. Let wild debauchees hug their darling vice, And court no other paradise, Till want of power Bids them discard the stale amour, And when disabled strength shall force A short divorce, Miscall that weak forbearance abstinence, Which wise morality, and better sense, Styles but, at best, a sneaking impotence. Thine a far nobler pitch did fly, 'Twas all free choice, nought of necessity. Thou didst that puny soul disdain Whose half-strain virtue only can restrain ; Nor wouldst that empty being own, Which springs from negatives alone, But truly thoughtst it always virtue's skeleton. 30 Nor didst thou those mean spirits more approve, Who virtue only for its dowry love ; Unbribed thou didst her sterling self espouse, Nor wouldst a better mistress choose. MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 37 Thou coulclst affection to her bare idea pay, The first that e'er caressed her the Platonic way. To see her in her own attractions dressed, Did all thy love arrest, Nor lacked there new efforts to storm thy breast. Thy generous loyalty "Would ne'er a mercenary be, But chose to serve her still without a livery. Yet wast thou not of recompense debarred, But countedst honesty its own reward ; Thou didst not wish a greater bliss to accrue, For to be good to thee was to be happy too ; That secret triumph of thy mind, Which always thou in doing well didst find, Were heaven enough, were there no other heaven designed. 3i What virtues few possess but by retail, In gross could thee their owner call ; They all did in thy single circle fall. Thou wast a living system where were wrote All those high morals which in books are sought. Thy practice did more virtues shai-e Than heretofore the learned porch e'er knew, Or in the Stagyrite's scant ethics grew : Devout thou wast as holy hermits are, Which share their time 'twixt ecstasy and prayer; Modest as infant roses in their bloom, Which in a blush their lives consume ; So chaste, the dead are only more, Who lie divorced from objects, and from power; So pure, that if blest saints could be Taught innocence, they'd gladly learn of thee. Thy virtue's height in heaven alone could grow, Nor to aught else would for accession owe : Tt only now's more perfect than it was below. 38 TO THE MEMORY OF 32 Hence, though at once thy soul lived here and there, Yet heaven alone its thoughts did share ; It owned no home, but in the active sphere. Its motions always did to that bright centre roll, And seemed to inform thee only on parole. Look how the needle does to its dear north incline, As, wer't not fixed, 'twould to that region climb; Or mark what hidden force Bids the flame upwards take its course, And makes it with that swiftness rise, As if 'twere winged by the air through which it flies. Such a strong virtue did thy inclinations bend, And made them still to the blest mansions tend. That mighty slave, whom the proud victor's rage Shut prisoner in a golden cage, Condemned to glorious vassalage, Ne'er longed for dear enlargement more, Nor his gay bondage with less patience bore, Than this great spirit brooked its tedious stay, While fettered here in brittle clay, And wished to disengage and fly away. It vexed and chafed, and still desired to be Released to the sweet freedom of eternity. 33 Nor were its wishes long unheard, Fate soon at its desire appeared, And straight for an assault prepared. A sudden and a swift disease First on thy heart, life's chiefest fort, does seize, And then on all the suburb -vitals preys : Next it corrupts thy tainted blood, And scatters poison through its purple flood. Sharp aches in thick troops it sends, And pain; which like a rack the nerves extends. ME. CHARLES MORWENT. 39 Anguish through eveiy member flies, And all those inward gemonies Whereby frail flesh in torture dies. All the staid glories of thy face, Where sprightly youth lay checked with manly grace, Are now impaired, And quite by the rude hand of sickness marred. Thy body, where due symmetry In just proportions once did lie, Now hardly could be known, Its very figure out of fashion grown ; And should thy soul to its old seat return, And life once more adjourn, 'Twould stand amazed to see its altered frame, And doubt (almost) whether its own carcass were the same. 34 And here thy sickness does new matter raise Both for thy virtue and our praise ; 'Twas here thy picture looked most neat, When deep'st in shades 'twas set, Thy virtues only thus could fairer be Advantaged by the foil of misery. Thy soul, which hastened now to be enlarged, And of its grosser load discharged, Began to act above its wonted rate, And gave a prelude of its next unbodied state. So dying tapers near their fall, When their own lustre lights their funeral, Contract their strength into one brighter fire, And in that blaze triumphantly expire; So the bright globe that rules the skies, Though he gild heaven with a glorious rise, Reserves his choicest beams to grace his set ; And then he looks most great, And then in greatest splendour dies. 40 TO THE MEMOKT OF 35 Thou sharpest pains didst with that courage bear, And still thy looks so unconcerned didst wear, Beholders seemed more indisposed than thee; For they were sick in effigy. Like some well-fashioned arch thy patience stood, And purchased firmness from its greater load. Those shapes of torture, which to view in paint Would make another faint, Thou couldst endure in true reality, And feel what some could hardly bear to see. Those Indians who their kings by tortures chose, Subjecting all the royal issue to that test, Could ne'er thy sway refuse, If he deserves to reign that suffers best. Had those fierce savages thy patience viewed, Thou'dst claimed their choice alone ; They with a crown had paid thy fortitude, And turned thy death-bed to a throne. 36 All those heroic pieties, Whose zeal to truth made them its sacrifice : Those nobler Scsevolas, whose holy rage Did their whole selves in cruel flames engage, Who did amidst their force unmoved appear, As if those fires but lambent were, Or they had found their empyreum thei'e; Might these repeat again their days beneath, They'd seen their fates out-acted by a natural death, And each of them to thee resign his wreath. In spite of weakness and harsh destiny, To relish torment, and enjoy a misery : So to caress a doom, As makes its sufferings delights become : So to triumph o'er sense and thy disease, As amongst pains to revel in soft ease : MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 41 These wonders did thy virtue's worth enhance, And sickness to high martyrdom advance. 37 Yet could not all these miracles stern fate avert, Or make 't without the dart. Only she paused awhile, with wonder strook, Awhile she doubted if that destiny was thine, And turned o'er again the dreadful book, And hoped she had mistook ; And wished she might have cut another line. But dire necessity Soon cried 'twas thee, And bade her give the fatal blow. Straight she obeys, and straight the vital powers grow Too weak to grapple with a stronger foe, And now the feeble strife forego. Life's sapped foundation every moment sinks, And every breath to lesser compass shrinks; Last panting gasps grow weaker each rebound, Like the faint tremblings of a dying sound : And doubtful twilight hovers o'er the Ught, Ready to usher in eternal night. 38 Yet here thy courage taught thee to outbrave All the slight horrors of the grave : Pale death's arrest Ne'er shocked thy breast ; Nor could it in the dreadfullest figure dressed. That ugly skeleton may guilty spirits daunt, Whom the dire ghosts of crimes departed haunt ; Armed with bold innocence thou couldst that mormo* dare, And on the barefaced King of Terrors stare, As free from all effects as from the cause of fear. • Bugbear. 42 TO THE MEMORY OF Thy soul so willing from thy body went, As if both parted by consent, No murmur, no complaining, no delay, Only a sigh, a groan, and so away. Death seemed to .glide with pleasure in, As if in this sense too 't had lost her sting. Like some well-acted comedy, life swiftly passed, And ended just so still and sweet at last. Thou, like its actors, seemedst in borrowed habit here beneath, And couldst, as easily As they do that, put off mortality. Thou breathedst out thy soul as free as common breath, As unconcerned as they are in a feigned death. 39 Go, happy soul, ascend the joyful sky, Joyful to shine with thy bright company : Go, mount the spangled sphere, And make it brighter by another star : Yet stop not there, till thou advance yet higher, Till thou art swallowed quite In the vast unexhausted ocean of delight : Delight, which there alone in its true essence is, Where saints keep an eternal carnival of bliss ; Where the regalios of refined joy, Which fill, but never cloy ; Where pleasure's ever growing, ever new, Immortal as thyself, and boundless too ; There mayst thou learned by compendium grow, For which in vain below We so much time, and so much pains bestow. There mayst thou all ideas see, All wonders which in knowledge be, In that fair beatific mirror of the deity. 40 Meanwhile, thy body mourns in its own dust, And puts on sables for its tender trust. MR. CHARLES MORWENT. 43 Though dead, it yet retains some untouched grace, Wherein we may thy soul's fair footsteps trace, Which no disease can frighten from its wonted place : Even its deformities do thee become, And only serve to consecrate thy doom. Those marks of death which did its sui'face stain, Now hallow, not profane. Each spot does to a ruby turn ; What soiled but now, would now adorn. Those asterisks, placed in the margin of thy skin, Point out the nobler soul that dwelt within : Thy lesser, like the greater, world appears All over bright, all over stuck with stars. So Indian luxury, when it would be trim, Hangs pearls on every limb. Thus, amongst ancient Picts, nobility In blemishes did lie ; Each by his spots more honourable grew, And from their store a greater value drew : Their kings were known by the royal stains they bore, And in their skins their ermine wore.* 4i Thy blood where death triumphed in greatest state, Whose purple seemed the badge of tyrant fate, * In this stanza, Oldham appears to have closely imitated Dryden's lines on the death of Lord Hastings. Thus Dryden : — ' So many spots, like naeves on Venus' soil, One jewel set off with so many a foil Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within? No comet need foretel his change drew on, Whose corpse might seem a constellation.' It is not a little remarkable that this was also Dryden's first poem, written in his seventeenth year, on a similar occasion. Oldham appears to considerable advantage in comparison. His ode is a more elaborate and correct composition, abounding quite as much in conceits, but with this difference, that Dryden's are for the most part forced and pre- posterous, and huddled together, while Oldham's have a certain kind of dignity and appropriateness, and are usually kept clear of incon- sistency and confusion. Dryden's versification suffers equally by contrast. Oldham seems to have taken particular pains with this piece. 44 TO THE MEMORY OF MR. CHARLES MORWENT. And all thy body o'er Its ruling colours bore : That which infected with the noxious ill, But lately helped to kill, Whose circulation fatal grew, And through each part a swifter ruin threw, Now conscious, its own murder would arraign, And throngs to sally out at every vein. Each drop a redder than its native dye puts on, As if in its own blushes 'twould its guilt atone. A sacred rubric does thy carcass paint, And death in every member writes the saint. So Phoebus clothes his dying rays each night, And blushes he can live no longer to give light. 42 Let fools, whose dying fame requires to have, Like their own carcasses, a grave, Let them with vain expense adorn Some costly urn, Which shortly, like themselves, to dust shall turn. Here lacks no Carian sepulchre, Which ruin shall ere long in its own tomb inter; No fond Egyptian fabric built so high As if 'twould climb the sky, And thence reach immortality. Thy virtues shall embalm thy name, And make it lasting as the breath of fame. When frailer brass Shall moulder by a quick decrease; When brittle marble shall decay, And to the jaws of time become a prey; Thy praise shall live, when graves shall buried lie, Till time itself shall die, And yield its triple empire to eternity. 45 SOME VERSES ON PRESENTING A BOOK TO COSMELIA.* f^ 0, humble gift, go to that matchless saint, ^-" Of whom thou only wast a copy meant : And all that's read in thee, more richly find Comprised in the fair volume of her mind; That living system, where are fully writ All those high morals, which in books we meet:t Easy, as in soft air, there writ they are, Yet firm, as if in brass they graven were. Nor is her talent lazily to know, As dull divines, and holy canters do; She acts what they only in pulpits px*ate, And theory to practice does translate: Not her own actions more obey her will, Than that obeys strict virtue's dictates still : Yet does not virtue from her duty flow, But she is good, because she will be so : Her virtue scorns at a low pitch to fly, 'Tis all free choice, nought of necessity : J By such soft rides are saints above confined, Such is the tie, which them to good does bind. * These verses were written in September, 1676; and the three pieces immediately following these have reference, probably, to the same person, and to the same period. They are the only ' love verses' in the collection. The Parting seems to apply to Oldham's departure for Croydon, which took place a short time before ; and in the lines complaining of absence, he directly alludes to the drudgeries in which he is engaged, and which leave him few opportunities of seeing the lady. Oldham's strength did not lie in pathos of tenderness ; yet there is much feeling and delicacy in these little pieces, and a purity of sentiment very rare in the poetical hive-making of the period. t In this passage, and one or two others, Oldham appropriated, as equally applicable to the lady, certain images lie had already addressed in the preceding (at that time unpublished) poem to the memory of his friend Moment. Thus, in the Ode: — ' Thou wast a living system where were wrote All those high morals which in books are sought.' t Thine a far nobler pitch did fly, 'Twas all free choice, nought of necessity. — Ode. 46 VERSES TO COSMELIA. The scattered glories of her happy sex In her bright soul as in their centre mix : And all that they possess but by retail, She hers by just monopoly can call; Whose sole example does more virtues shew, Than schoolmen ever taught, or ever knew. No act did e'er within her practice fall, Which for the atonement of a blush could call : No word of hers e'er greeted any ear, But what a saint at her last gasp might hear : Scarcely her thoughts have ever sullied been With the least print or stain of native sin : Devout she is, as holy hermits are, Who share their time 'twixt ecstasy and prayer ; Modest, as infant roses in their bloom, Who in a blush their fragrant lives consume : So chaste, the dead themselves are only more, Who lie divorced from objects, and from power;* So pure, could virtue in a shape appear, 'Twould choose to have no other form, but her ; So much a saint, T scarce dare call her so, For fear to wrong her with a name too low : Such the seraphic brightness of her mind, I hardly can believe her womankind : But think some nobler being does appear, Which, to instruct the world, has left the sphere, And condescends to wear a body here; Or, if she mortal be, and meant to show The greater art, by being formed below; Sure Heaven preserved her, by the fall uncurst, To tell how good the sex was made at first. * Devout thou wast as holy hermits are, Which share their time 'twixt ecstasy and prayer; Modest as infant roses in their bloom, Which in a blush their lives consume, So chaste, the dead are only more, Who lie divorced from objects, and from power. — Ode. 47 THE PAETING. TOO happy had I been indeed, if fate Had made it lasting, as she made it great; But 'twas the plot of unkind destiny, To lift me to, then snatch me from my j oy : She raised my hopes, and brought them just in view, And then, in spite, the charming scene withdrew. So he of old the promised land surveyed, Which he might only see, but never tread : So heaven was by that damned caitiff seen, He saw't, but with a mighty gulf between, He saw't, to be more wretched and despair again. Not souls of dying sinners, when they go, Assured of endless miseries below, Their bodies more unwillingly desert, Than I from you, and all my joys did part. As some young merchant, whom his sire uukind Resigns to every faithless wave and wind, If the kind mistress of his vows appear, And come to bless his voyage with a prayer, Such sighs he vents as may the gale increase, Such floods of tears as may the billows raise ; And when at length the launching vessel flies, And severs first his lips, and then his eyes, Long he looks back to see what he adores, And, while he may, views the beloved shores. Such just concern I at your parting had, With such sad eyes your turning face surveyed : Reviewing, they pursued you out of sight, Then sought to trace you by left tracks of light ; And when they could not looks to you convey, Towards the loved place they took delight to stray, And aimed uncertain glances still that way. 48 COMPLAINING OF ABSENCE. TEN days (if I forget not) wasted are (A year in any lover's calendar) Since I was forced to part, and bid adien To all my joy and happiness in you : And still by the same hindrance am detained, Which me at first from your loved sight constrained : Oft I resolve to meet my bliss, and then My tether stops, and pulls me back again : So when our raised thoughts to heaven aspire, Earth stifles them, and chokes the good desire. Curse on that man whom business first designed, And by't enthralled a freeborn lover's mind ! A curse on fate who thus subjected me, And made me slave to any thing but thee ! Lovers should be as unconfined as air, Free as its wild inhabitants from care : So free those happy lovers are above, Exempt from all concerns but those of love : But I, poor lover militant below, The cares and troubles of dull life must know ; Must toil for that which does on others wait, And undergo the drudgery of fate. Yet I'll no more to her a vassal be, Thou now shalt make and rule my destiny : Hence troublesome fatigues ! all business hence ! This very hour my freedom shall commence : Too long that jilt has thy proud rival been, And made me by neglectful absence sin; But I'll no more obey its tyranny, Nor that, nor fate itself shall hinder me, Henceforth from seeing and enjoying thee. 49 PROMISING A VISIT. COONER. may art, and easier far, divide ^ The soft embracing waters of the tide, Which with united friendship still rejoin, Than part my eyes, my arms, or lips from thine : Sooner it may time's headlong motion force, In which it marches with unaltered course, Or sever this from the succeeding day, Than from thy happy presence force my stay. Not the touched needle (emblem of my soul) With greater reverence trembles to its pole, Nor flames with surer instinct upwards go, Than mine, and all their motives tend to you. Fly swift, ye minutes, and contract the space Of time, which holds me from her dear embrace : When I am there I'll bid you kindly stay, I'll bid you rest, and never glide away. Thither, when business gives me a release To lose my cares in soft and gentle ease, I'll come, and all arrears of kindness pay, And live o'er my whole absence in one day. Not souls, released from human bodies, move With quicker haste to meet their bliss above, Than I, when freed from clogs that bind me now, Eager to seize my happiness, will go. Should a fierce angel armed with tlmnder stand. And threaten vengeance with his brandished hand, To stop the entrance to my paradise, I'll venture, and his slighted bolts despise. Swift as the wings of fear shall be my love, And me to her with equal speed remove ; Swift as the motions of the eye or mind, I'll thither fly, and leave slow thought behind ! OLDHAM. 50 A DITHYRAMBIC. A DRUNKARD'S SPEECH IN A MASK.* 'Ovk £ of liis own time, Dryden setting him above them all. The charge of plagiarism, in the instance of Albumazar, is wholly set aside by the conclusive fact that it was not printed or acted till four years after the production of the Ak/icmint . 64 UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. 2 Never till thee, tlie theatre possessed A prince with equal power and greatness blessed; No government, or laws it had To strengthen and establish it, Till thy great hand the sceptre swayed,* But groaned under a wretched anarchy of wit: Unformed and void was then its poesy, Only some pre-existing matter we Perhaps could see, That might foretel what was to be ; A rude and undigested lump it lay, Like the old chaos, e'er the birth of light and day, Till thy brave genius like a new creator came, And undertook the mighty frame. No shuffled atoms did the well-built work compose, It from no lucky hit of blundering chance arose, (As some of this great fabric idly dream) _ But wise, all seeing judgment did contrive, And knowing art its graces give : No sooner did thy soul with active force and fire The dull and heavy mass inspire, But straight throughout it let us see Proportion, order, harmony, And every part did to the whole agree, LP ^- And straight appeared a beauteous, new-made world oi 3 Let dull and ignorant pretenders art condemn ; (Those only foes to art, and art to them) • Jonson himself asserted his claim to the honour of having been the founder of the stage, and the first to give it laws. The passage occurs in his well-known lines to Richard Brome : « 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 observations of those comic laws Which I, your master, first did teach the age.' UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. 65 The mere fanatics, and enthusiasts in poetry, (For schismatics in that, as in religion be) Who make 't all revelation, trance, and dream; Let them despise her laws, and think That rules and forms the spirit stint : Thine was no mad, unruly frenzy of the brain, Which justly might deserve the chain, 'Twas brisk, and mettled, but a managed rage, Sprightly as vigorous youth, and cool as temperate age : Free, like thy will, it did all force disdain, But suffered reason's loose and easy rein, By that it suffered to be led, Which did not curb poetic liberty, but guide : Fancy, that wild and haggard faculty, Untamed in most, and let at random fly, Was wisely governed, and reclaimed by thee ; Restraint and discipline was made endure, And by thy calm and milder judgment brought to lure; Yet when 'twas at some nobler quarry sent, With bold and towering wings it upward went, Not lessened at the greatest height, Not turned by the most giddy flights of dazzling wit. Nature and art, together met and joined, Made up the character of thy great mind : That, like a bright and glorious sphere, Appeared with numerous stars embellished o'er, And much of light to thee, and much of influence bore ; This, was the strong intelligence, whose power Turned it about, and did the unerring motions steer ; Concurring both, like vital seed and heat, The noble births they jointly did beget, And hard 'twas to be thought, Which most of force to the great generation brought. OLDHAM. 5 66 UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. So mingling elements compose our bodies frame, Fire, water, earth, and air, Alike their just proportions share. Each undistinguished still remains the same, Yet can't we say that either's here, or there, But all, we know not how, are scattered everywhere. 5 Sober and grave was still the garb thy muse put on, No tawdry careless slattern dress, Nor starched, and formal with affectedness, Nor the cast mode, and fashion of the court and town , But neat, agreeable, and jaunty twas, Well fitted, it sate close in every place, And all became, with an uncommon air and grace: Rich, costly and substantial was the stun, Not barely smooth, nor yet too coarsely roiigh : " No refuse, ill-patched shreds of the schools, The motley wear of read and learned fools No French commodity which now so much does take, And our own better manufacture spoil; Nor was it aught of foreign soil, But staple all, and all of English growth and make : What flowers soe'er of art it had, were found No tinsel slight embroideries, But all appeared either the native ground, Or twisted, wrought, and interwoven with the piece. 6 Plain humour, shown with her whole various face, Not masked with any antic dress, Nor screwed in forced ridiculous grimace (The gaping rabble's dull delight^ And more the actor's than the poets wit) Such did she enter on thy stage, And such was represented to the wondering age: Well wast thou skilled and read in human kind, In every wild fantastic passion of his mind, UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. 67 Didst into all his hidden inclinations dive, What each from nature does receive, Or age, or sex, or quality, or country give ; What custom too, that mighty sorceress, Whose powerful witchcraft does transform Enchanted man to several monstrous images, Makes this an odd, and freakish monkey turn, And that a grave and solemn ass appear, And all a thousand beastly shapes of folly wear : Whate'er caprice or whimsey leads awry Perverted and seduced mortality, Or does incline, and bias it From what's discreet, and wise, and right, and good and fit; All in thy faithful glass were so expressed, As if they were reflections of thy breast, As if they had been stamped on thy own mind, And thou the universal vast idea of mankind. 7 Never didst thou with the same dish repeated cloy, Though every dish, well-cooked by thee, Contained a plentiful variety; To all that could sound relishing palates be, Each regale with new delicacies did invite, Courted the taste, and raised the appetite : Whate'er fresh dainty fops in season were, To garnish and set out thy bill of fare ; (Those never found to fail throughout the year, For seldom that ill-natured planet rules, That plagues a poet with a dearth of fools) What thy strict observation e'er surveyed, From the fine, luscious spark of high and courtly breed, Down to the dull insipid cit, Made thy pleased audience entertainment fit, Served up with all the grateful poignancies of wit. 5—2 68 UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. 8 Most plays are writ like almanacks of late, And serve one only year, one only state ; Another makes them useless, stale and out of date, But thine were wisely calculated, fat For each meridian, every clime of wit, For all succeeding time, and after-age, And all mankind might thy vast audience sit, And the whole world be justly made thy stage : Still they shall taking be, and ever new, Still keep in vogue in spite of all the damning crew ; Till the last scene of this great theatre, Closed and shut down, The numerous actors all retire, And the grand play of human life be done. 9 Beshrew those envious tongues who seek to blast thy Who^pots in thy bright fame would find, or raise, And say it only shines with borrowed rays; Rich in thyself, to whose unbounded store Exhausted nature could vouchsafe no more, Thou couldst alone the empire of the stage maintain, Couldst all its grandeur, and its port sustain, Nor needest others subsidies to pay, Needest no tax on foreign, or thy native country lay, To bear the charges of thy purchased tame, But thy own stock could raise the same, Thv sole revenue all the vast expense defray: Yet like some mighty conqueror in poetry, ' Designed by fate of choice to be Founder of its new universal monarchy. Boldly thou didst the learned world invade, Whilst all around thy powerful genius swayed, Soon vanquished Rome, and Greece were made Both were thy humble tributaries made, [submit, And thou returnedst in triumph with her captive wit. UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. 69 IO Unjust, and more ill-natured those, Thy spiteful and malicious foes, Who on thy happiest talent fix a lie, And call that slowness, which was care and industry. Let me (with pride so to be guilty thought) Share all thy wished reproach, and share thy shame, If diligence be deemed a fault, If to be faultless must deserve their blame : Judge of thyself alone (for none there were, Could be so just, or could be so severe) Thou thy own works didst strictly try By known and uncontested rules of poetry, And gavest thy sentence still impartially : With rigour thou arraignedst each guilty line, And sparedst no criminal sense, because 'twas thine: Unbribed with labour, love, or self-conceit, (For never, or too seldom we, Objects too near us, our own blemishes can see) Thou didst no small delinquencies acquit, But saw'st them to correction all submit, Saw'st execution done on all convicted crimes of wit ii Some curious painter, taught by art to dare, (For they with poets in that title share) When he would undertake a glorious frame Of lasting worth, and fadeless as his fame, Long he contrives, and weighs the bold design, Long holds his doubting hand e'er he begin, And justly, then, proportions every stroke and line, And oft he brings it to review, And oft he does deface, and dashes oft anew, And mixes oils to make the flitting colours dure, To keep 'em from the tarnish of injurious time secure ; Finished, at length, in all that care and skill can do, The matchless piece is set to public view, 70 UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. And all surprised about it wondering stand. And though no name be found below, Yet straight discern the inimitable hand, ^nd straight they cry 'tis Titian, or 'tis Angelo : So thy brave soul, that scorned all cheap and easy ways, And trod no common road to praise, Would not with rash, and speedy negligence proceed, (For whoe'er saw perfection grow in haste? Or that soon done, which must for ever last?) But gently did advance with wary heed, And shewed that mastery is most in justness read: Noxight ever issued from thy teeming breast, But what had gone full time, could write exactly best, And stand the sharpest censure, and defy the ngidest test. 12 'Twas thus the Almighty Poet (if we dare Our weak, and meaner acts with His compare) When He the world's fair poem did of old design, (That work, which now must boast no longer date than thine,) Though 'twas in Him alike to will and do, _ Though the same Word that spoke, could make it too, Yet would He not such quick, and hasty measures use, Nor did an instant (which it might) the great effect produce; But when the All-wise himself in council sate, Vouchsafed to think and be deliberate. When Heaven considered, and the Eternal Wit and Sense, Seemed to take time, and care, and pains, It shewed that some uncommon birth, That something worthy of a God was coming forth ; Nought incorrect there was, nought faulty there, No point amiss did in the large voluminous piece appear; And when the glorious Author all surveyed, Surveyed whate'er His mighty labours made, UPON THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. 71 Well pleased He was to find All answered the great model and idea of His mind : Pleased at himself He in high wonder stood, And much His power, and much His wisdom did applaud, To see how all was perfect, all transcendent good. Let meaner spirits stoop to low precarious fame, Content on gross and coarse applause to live, And what the dull and senseless rabble give ; Thou didst it still with noble scorn contemn, Nor wouldst that wretched alms receive, The poor subsistence of some bankrupt, sordid name : Thine was no empty vapour, raised beneath, And formed of common breath, The false and foolish fire, that's whisked about By popular air, and glares a while, and then goes out ; But 'twas a solid, whole, and perfect globe of light, That shone all over, was all over bright, And dared all sullying clouds, and feared no darkening night; Like the gay monarch of the stars and sky, Who wheresoe'er he does display His sovereign lustre, and majestic ray, Straight all the less, and petty glories nigh "Vanish, and shrink away, [day. Overwhelmed and swallowed by the greater blaze of With such a strong, an awful and victorious beam Appeared, and ever shall appear, thy fame, Viewed, and adored, by all the undoubted race of wit, Who only can endure to look on it; The rest o'ercome with too much light, [quite. With too much brightness dazzled, or extinguished Restless and uncontrolled, it now shall pass As wide a course about the world as he ; And when his long-repeated travels cease, Begin a new and vaster race, And still tread round the endless circle of eternity. 72 A LETTER FROM THE COUNTRY TO A FRIEND IN TOWN, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S INCLINATIONS TO POETEY* AS to that poett (if so great a one as he, May suffer in comparison with me) When heretofore in Scythian exile pent, To which he by ungrateful Home was sent. If a kind paper from his country came, And wore subscribed some known and faithful name, That, like a powerful cordial, did infuse New life into his speechless gasping muse, And straight his genius, which before did seem Bound up in ice, and frozen as the clime, By its warm force and friendly influence thawed, Dissolved apace, and in soft numbers flowed ; Such welcome here, dear sir, your letter had With me, shut up in close constraint as bad : Not eager lovers, held in long suspense, With warmer joy, and a more tender sense, Meet those kind" lines which all their wishes bless, And sign and seal delivered happiness : My grateful thoughts so throng to get abroad, They overrun each other in the crowd : To you with hasty flight they take their way, And hardly for the dress of words will stay. Yet pardon, if this only fault I find, That while you praise too much, you are less kind : Consider, sir, 'tis ill and dangerous thus To over-lay a young and tender muse : Praise, the fine diet which we're apt to love, If given to excess, does hurtful prove : » Written in July, 1678. At this time Oldham had left Croydon, and was residing in the house of Judge Thurhind, near Reigate. Not- withstanding the improved circumstances in which he was placed, we still find him lamenting the close constraint of his situation, and long- ing for freedom. t Ovid. A LETTER FROM THE COUNTRY. td Where it does weak distempered stomachs meet, That surfeits, which should nourishment create. Your rich perfumes such fragrancy dispense, Their sweetness overcomes and palls my sense; On my weak head you heap so many bays, I sink beneath 'em, quite oppressed with praise, And a resembling fate with him receive, Who in too kind a triumph found his grave, Smothered with garlands, which applauders gave. To you these praises justlier all belong, By alienating which yourself you wrong : Whom better can such commendations fit Than you, who so well teach and practise wit 1 ? Verse, the great boast of drudging fools, from some, Nay most of scribblers, with much straining come : They void 'em dribbling, and in pain they write, As if they had a stranguary of wit : Your pen, uncalled, they readily obey, And scorn your ink should flow so fast as they: Each strain of yours so easy does appear, Each such a graceful negligence does wear, As shews you have none, and yet want no care; None of your serious pains or time they cost, But what thrown by, you can afford for lost. If such the fruits of your loose leisure be, Your careless minutes yield such poetry, We guess what proofs your genius would impart, Did it employ you, as it does divert : But happy you, more prudent and more wise, With better aims have fixed your noble choice. While silly I all thriving arts refuse, And all my hopes and all my vigour lose In service on that worst of jilts, a muse, For gainful business court ignoble ease, And in gay trifles waste my ill-spent days. Little I thought, my dearest friend, that you Would thus contribute to my ruin too : 74 A LETTER FROM THE COUNTRY O'errun with filthy poetry and rhyme, The present reigning evil of the time, I lacked, and (well I did myself assure) From your kind hand I should receive a cure: When, lo ! instead of healing remedies, You cherish, and encourage the disease : Inhuman, you help the distemper on, Which was hefore but too inveterate grown : As a kind looker on, who interest shares, Though not in's stake, yet in his hopes and fears, Would to his friend a pushing gamester do, Recall his elbow when he hastes to throw; Such a wise course you should have took with me, A rash and venturing fool in poetry. ^ Poets are cullies, whom rook fame draws in, And wheedles with deluding hopes to win: But, when they hit, and most successful are, They scarce come off with a bare saving share. Oft, I remember, did wise friends dissuade, And bid me quit the trifling barren trade ; Oft have I tried, Heaven knows ! to mortify This vile and wicked lust of poetry ; But still unconquered it remains within, Fixed as a habit, or some darling sin. In vain I better studies there would sow, Often I've tried, but none will thrive or grow : All my best thoughts, when I'd most serious be, Are never from its foul infection free : Nay God forgive me! when I say my prayers, I scarce can help polluting them with verse: That fabulous wretch of old reversed I seem, Who turn whate'er I touch to dross and rhyme. * The verb to cully-to cuddle or wheedle-is still in use in some of tJe provincial Elects. Rook, to designate a cheat or sharper s frequently employed by Wycherley and the comedy wnters of the seventeenth century. TO A FRIEND IN TOWN. 75 Oft to divert the wild caprice, I try If sovereign wisdom and philosophy Rightly applied, will give a remedy : Straight the great Stagyrite I take in hand, Seek nature, and myself to understand : Much I reflect on his vast worth and fame, And much my low and grovelling aims condemn, And quarrel, that my ill-packed fate should be This vain, this worthless thing called poetry : But when I find this unregarded toy Could his important thoughts and pains employ, By reading there, I am but more undone, And meet that danger which I went to shun. Oft when ill humour, chagrin, discontent, Give leisure my wild follies to resent, I thus against myself my passion vent : ' Enough, mad rhyming sot, enough for shame, Give o'er, and all thy quills to tooth-picks damn ; Didst ever thou the altar rob, or worse, Kill the priest there, and maids receiving force? What else could merit this so heavy curse 1 ? The greatest curse, I can, I wish on him, (If there be any greater than to rhyme) Who first did of the lewd invention think, First made two lines with sounds resembling clink, And, swerving from the easy paths of prose, Fetters and chains did on free sense impose : Cursed too be all the fools, who since have went Misled in steps of that ill precedent : Want be entailed their lot :' and on I go, Wreaking my spite on all the jingling crew : Scarce the beloved Cowley 'scapes, though I Might sooner my own curses fear, than he : And thus resolved against the scribbling vein, I deeply swear never to write again. But when bad company and wine conspire To kindle and renew the foolish fire, 76 A LETTER FROM THE COUNTRY Straightways relapsed, I feel the raving fit Return, and straight I all my oaths forget : The spirit, which I thought cast out before, Enters again with stronger force and power, Worse than at first, and tyrannizes more. No sober good advice will then prevail, Nor from the raging frenzy me recall : Cool reason s dictates me no more can move Than men in drink, in Bedlam, or in love: Deaf to all means which might most proper seem Towards my cure, I run stark mad in rhyme: A sad poor haunted wretch, whom nothing less Than prayers of the Church can dispossess. Sometimes, after a tedious day half spent, When fancy long has hunted on cold scent, Tired in the dull and fruitless chase of thought, Despairing I grow weary, and give out: As a dry lecher pumped of all my store, I loathe the thing, 'cause I can do't no more: But, when I once begin to find again Recruits of matter in my pregnant brain, A<*ain, more eager, I the hunt pursue, And with fresh vigour the loved sport renew : Tickled with some strange pleasure, which 1 imd, And think a secrecy to all mankind, I please myself with the vain, false delight, And count none happy, but the fops that write. 'Tis endless, sir, to tell the many ways Wherein my poor deluded self I please : How, when the fancy labouring for a birth, With unfelt throes brings its rude issue forth : How after, when imperfect shapeless thought Is by the judgment into fashion wrought ; When at first search I traverse o'er my mind, Nought but a dark and empty void I find : Some little hints at length, like sparks, break thence, And glimmering thoughts just dawning into sense : TO A FRIEND IN TOWN. 77 Confused a while the mixed ideas lie, With nought of mark to be discovered by, Like colours undistinguished in the night, Till the dusk images, moved to the light, Teach the discerning faculty to choose, Which it had best adopt, and which refuse.* Here, rougher strokes, touched with a careless dash, Resemble the first setting of a face : There, finished draughts in form more full appear, And to their justness ask no further care. Meanwhile with inward joy I proud am grown, To see the work successfully go on : And prize myself in a creating power, That could make something, what was nought before. Sometimes a stiff, unwieldy thought I meet, Which to my laws will scarce be made submit : But when, after expense of pains and time, 'Tis managed well, and taught to yoke in rhyme, I triumph more than joyful warriors would, Had they some stout and hardy foe subdued, And idly think, less goes to their command, That make armed troops in well-placed order stand, * Mr. Cornish, in a communication to A'otes and Queries, refers to two passages in the writings of Dryden and Lord Byron in which the idea thrown out in these excellent lines is to be found. The passage in Dryden occurs in the dedication of the Rival Ladies, and is as fol- lows : ' When it was only a confused mass of thoughts tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was as yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards the light, there to be distin- guished, and there to be chosen or rejected by the judgment.' 'Had Oldham or Dryden the prior claim to the thought ?' asks Mr. Cornish. The question is easily answered. The Rival Ladies was acted at the King's House in 1664, and printed in the same year. Oldham's poem was written in 1678. Byron s appropriation of the idea is in the Marino Faliero, and it is clear from the verbal evidence that he took it from the original source : ' — as yet 'tis but a chaos Of darkly brooding thoughts ; my fancy is In her first ivor k, more nearly to the light Holding the sleeving images of things For the selection of the pausing judgment.' — Act. i. sc. a. 78 A LETTEE FROM THE COUNTRY Than to the conduct of my words, when they March in due ranks, are set in just array. Sometimes on wings of thought I seem on high, As men in sleep, though motionless they lie, Fledged by a dream, believe they mount and fly: So witches some enchanted wand bestride, And think they through the airy regions ride, Where fancy is both traveller, way, and guide: Then straight I grow a strange exalted thing, And equal in conceit at least a king : As the poor drunkard, when wine stums* his brains, Anointed with that liquor, thinks he reigns. Bewitched by these delusions 'tis I write, (The tricks some pleasant devil plays in spite) And when I'm in the freakish trance, which I, Fond silly wretch, mistake for ecstasy, I find all former resolutions vain, And thus recant them, and make new again : • What was't I rashly vowed 1 shall ever I Quit my beloved mistress, poetry 1 ? Thou sweet beguiler of my lonely hours, Which thus glide unperceived with silent course ; Thou gentle spell, which undisturbed dost keep My breast, and charm intruding care asleep ; They say, thou'rt poor and unendowed ; what though 1 For thee, I this vain, worthless world forego : Let wealth and honour be for fortune's slaves, The alms of fools, and prize of crafty knaves : To me thou art whate'er the ambitious crave, And all that greedy misers want, or have : In youth or age, in travel or at home, Here or in town, at London or at Rome, Rich or a beggar, free or in the Fleet, Whate'er my fate is, 'tis my fate to write.' » Stum— the unfermented juice of the grape; or new wine, some- times used to raise a fermentation in wines that have lost their strength. TO A FRIEND IN TOWN. 79 Thus I have made my shrifted muse confess, Her secret feebleness, and weaknesses : All her hid faults she sets exposed to view, And hopes a gentle confessor in you : She hopes an easy pardon for her sin, Since 'tis but what she is not wilful in, Nor yet has scandalous nor open been. Tiy if your ghostly counsel can reclaim The heedless wanton from her guilt and shame : At least be not ungenerous to reproach That wretched frailty which you've helped debauch. 'Tis now high time to end, for fear I grow More tedious than old doters, when they woo, Than travelled fops, when far-fetched lies they prate, Or flattering poets, when they dedicate. No dull forgiveness I presume to crave, Nor vainly for my tiresome length ask leave : Lest I, as often formal coxcombs use, Prolong that very fault I would excuse : May this the same kind welcome fiod with you, As yours did here, and ever shall; adieu. 80 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. PROLOGUE.* FOR who can longer hold? when every press, The bar and pulpit too, has broke the peace? When every scribbling fool at the alarms Has drawn his pen, and rises up in arms? And not a dull pretender of the town, But vents his gall in pamphlet up and down? When all with licence rail, and who will not, Must be almost suspected of the plot,t And bring his zeal or else his parts in doubt? In vain our preaching tribe attack the foes, In vain their weak artillery oppose ; « Oldham tells us that he designed this prologue 'in imitation of Persrns who has prefixed somewhat by that name before his book of Satires ••and that he drew the first Satire from that of Sylla's ghost in Sen Jonsonl tragedy of Catiline. It will be admitted that he kept close to his original in the accumulation of horrors. t The popish plot was disclosed to the King in August, .678, and from that time till the dissolution of parliament in the following Jamiarv t kept the country in a state of consternation The agita- tion wis renewed by the elections, and so great was the terror of ZerTlnspired by the revelations of Tonge, Oates, and the rest that the cana Ja e« who were supported by the influence of the court were everywhere defeated. At this election, it is said, the practice of Sins freeholders for the purpose of multiplying votes was adopted for "first time- When parliament met again in March I 679, articles ^ impeachment were exhibited by the Commons against toe Roman CatX peers ; and the King, in the hope of pacifying the hostility of S.e opposition dismissed his chief adviser, Danby, and formed a new founcTv, th a strong infusion of protestant zeal in it Tins device wm reKaroed in most quarters as a juggle, and detestation of the Sm£ Catholics, especially of the Jesuits, broke out with greater fury than ever It was at this moment Oldham published his Satires. Their appearance was opportune, and they were read with avidity. T „ am .hleteers alluded to in the prologue, who deluged the town S3i Aolent and ribald tracts, merely addressed themselves to the temporary passions of the. occasion ; while Oldham assailed the whole Sm of the Jesuits with a fearlessness of invective scarcely paral eled n tlTlanguage. He had the field to himself. Dryden had not yet .1 Irwue of the King, and two vears elapsed before the pub- Son TJSn ^aTm&M. '» the meanwhile the Satires still continued to sell, and a third edition was called for in .685. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 81 Mistaken honest men, who gravely blame, And hope that gentle doctrine should reclaim. Are texts, and such exploded trifles, fit To impose, and sham upon a Jesuit? Would they the dull old fishermen compare With mighty Suarez, and great Escobar?* Such threadbare proofs, and stale authorities May us, poor simple heretics, suffice ; But to a seared Ignatian's conscience, Hardened, as his own face, with impudence, Whose faith in contradiction bore, whom lies, Nor nonsense, nor impossibilities, Nor shame, nor death, nor damning can assail, Not these mild fruitless methods will avail. 'Tis pointed satire, and the shafts of wit For such a prize are the only weapons fit ; Nor needs there art, or genius here to use, Where indignation can create a muse : Should parts, and nature fail, yet very spite Would make the arrantest Wild,t or Wither X write. » Suarez and Escobar were Spanish Jesuits who flourished in the sixteenth century. The former, a voluminous author, held in high esteem by his own order for his learning, rendered himself particularly obnoxious in England by a book he wrote against the errors of the English church, which James I. caused to be burned at St. Paul's. Escobar was distinguished as a casuist, and published numerous works on divinity, the most remarkable of which was his Moral Theology, turned into ridicule by Pascal. t Robert Wild, commonly called Dr. Wild, a nonconformist divine and poet, who held the rectory of Aynho, in Northamptonshire, and was ejected at the Restoration. He died at Oundle, at the age of 70, in the year when this poem was published. He wrote some sermons, but was better known by sundry indifferent poems, of which the Iter Boreale, written on Monk's journey out of Scotland, was the most pro- minent. This piece obtained extraordinary popularity. Drydcn called Wild the Wither of the City, and said that they bought more editions of his works than would lie under all the pies at the Lord Mayor's Christmas. ' When his famous poem first came out in 1660, I have seen them reading it in the midst of 'Change time ; nay, so vehemently were they at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles' ends.' He adds that it was equally well received amongst great people. Wood says that Wild was a ' fat, jolly, and boon presbyterian.' X George Wither, the author of Abuses Stript and H'hi/>t, for which OLDHAM. 6 g2 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. It is resolved : henceforth an endless war, I and my muse with them, and theirs declare; Whom neither open malice of the foes, Nor private daggers, nor St. Orner s dose. Nor all that Godfrey* felt, or monarchs fear Shall from my vowed and sworn revenge deter. in fsir Sa Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate who took the depo- . 8ir n *dmumiDnry u , immediately afterwards disappeared. " XS ^vX^^^rS^ape^tion. of the people TJXv^X^lu &S r^ extracted ^^!lSSi by rogues Jhe >mp. es ™ that Godfre y had been unwilling to STlA,, H . £ ™ exhibited in the public street, f« M> Uoairey was represented New Homney in Parliament. ing m Kent. HisfathCTjepre^ ^ at Wistlllillster s"hooi S5S££& olEE A « ft ™- ds b - ame vr?s School, travelica on x before he completed hl9 of Gray's Inn, but «turnca 10 ' portion, about ioooJ.. terms, and havjng ob tamed *JJ3" -J* P Mr . IIarris on, a near finally set led in London^ n p bU ' hed a w00 d-vvharf. At the Te TZ*L IvySheydssolved partnership, and Godfrey removed end of a few yea rs iney u Har t s i 10r n-lane, or Alley, close on the sirs »S ssa£-ssa SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 83 Sooner shall false court favourites prove just, Aud faithful to their king's and country's trust; Sooner shall they detect the tricks of state, And knavery, suits, and bribes, and flattery hate ; street,' was built in their place. But Godfrey's house at the end of this street, overlooking the river, is still standing, and is now occupied by the .Metropolitan Police. Here the wood-merchant acquired wealth and importance, and became a justice of the peace. lie dis- tinguished himself by his activity on several occasions, and was presented with a silver goblet by the King for his zeal in checking the ravages of the plague, and knighted for his services at the time of the Great Fire. He was a man of excellent character, and indefatiga- ble in his station. Dr. Lloyd, who preached his funeral sermon, says that he was the best justice of the peace in the kingdom ; that he dedicated himself wholly to it, and spared no labour to sustain law and justice, safety and liberty. It appears from the particulars relating to the murder which came out upon confession and examination of witnesses, that the per- sons who actually committed it, Hill, an ale-house keeper, Girald, an Irish priest. Green, cushion-man to the Queen's Chapel, and Berry, the porter of Somerset House, were instigated by the priests, who urged it as an act of devotion to religion, and promised the murderers that they should get rewards from the Lord Bella.-ds. The conspirators beset Godfrey as he was passing Somerset House at night. Hill, affecting great haste and alarm, stepped up to him, and entreated his inter- ference between two men who were quarrelling. Godfrey at first refused, but at last yielded to Hill's importunities, and followed him down a lane. Girald and Green went after, and as Sir Edmundbury was going down the stairs, Green threw a twisted handkerchief round his neck from behind, and flung him to the ground. Having succeeded in strangling him, t.iey carried him to a room in an upper court, where they were joined by Prance, a silversmith in Prince's-street, Drury-lane. They afterwards conveyed the body to Primrose Hill, and flung it into a ditch, with his sword run through it, and his scabbard and gloves laid on the bank, that it might be supposed he had destroyed himself. Green, Berry, and Hill were executed for the murder; and Coleman and others for being concerned in the conspiracy. There is a silver tankard in the possession of the Corporation of Sudbury, in Suffolk, which appears to have belonged to Godfrey, and which is apparently the same that was presented to him by the King. It is inscribed and engraved with memorials Of tho Plague and the Fire. Godfrey's Christian name is sometimes written Edmondsbury, but this is a mistake. It should properly be Edmund Berry, both of which names he was called after his two godfathers, his father's cousin, Captain John Berrie, and Mr. Edmund Harrison, the King's embroiderer. His signature to the affidavit made by Oates, in 1678, shows that the two names were distinct — it is Edm. B. Godfrey. By a curious coincidence one of his murderers bore one of bis own names. 6—2 g4 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Bawds shall turn nuns, salt duchesses grow chaste,* And paint, and pride, and lechery detest; Popes shall for kings' supremacy decide, And cardinals for Huguenots be tried; Sooner (which is the greatest impossible) Shall the vile brood of Loyola and hell Give o'er to plot, be villains, and rebel; Than I with utmost spite, and vengeance cease To prosecute, and plague their cursed race. The rage of poets damned, of women s pride Contemned and scorned, or proffered lust denied; The malice of religious angry zeal, And all cashiered resenting statesmen feel ;T What prompts dire hags in their own blood to write, And sell their very souls to hell for spite; All this urge on my rank envenomed spleen, And with keen satire edge my stabbing pen, That its each home-set thrust their blood may draw, Each drop of ink like aquafortis gnaw. Red hot with vengeance thus, I'll brand disgrace So deep, no time shall e'er the marks deface; Till my severe and exemplary doom Spread wider than their guilt, till it become More dreaded than the bar, and frighten worse Than damning Pope's anathemas and curse. ♦ Of the many duchesses to whom this allusion might with m-Lietv apply the Ducl.ess of Portsmouth, Louise de Querouaille, Re one du 2 y referred to. She had just supplanted the Duchess of Cleveland at Whitehall, and was at this time Lady of the Bed- Ch t m The r LoS'SsTrer Darnley. charged with being concerned in an IhVpHo,, from the Court of Whitehall to the Court of Versailles for tftan o a sum of money, had just been removed from his office by *C Kin« in the hope of saving him from the vengeance of the Commoni Par iam'nt, hlever.las not to be diverted from it, .prey. A WU of attainder was brought in against him, and at last, chafed for hil fe he surrendered, and appeared on his knees at the bar of Se House of Lords, from whence he was committed to the lower. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 85 SATIRE I. GARNET'S GHOST* ADDRESSING TO THE JESUITS, MET IN PRIVATE CABAL JUST AFTER THE MURDER OF GODFREY. BY hell 'twas bravely done ! what less than this, What sacrifice of meaner worth, and price Could we have offered up for our success? So fare all they, who e'er provoke our hate, Who by like ways presume to tempt their fate; Fare each like this bold meddling fool, and be As well secured, as well dispatched as he : Would he were here, yet warm, that we might drain His reeking gore, and drink up every vein ! That were a glorious sanction, much like thine, Great Roman ! made upon a like design : Like thine ; we scorn so mean a sacrament, To seal and consecrate our high intent, We scorn base blood should our great league, cement : Thou didst it with a slave, but we think good To bind our treason with a bleeding god. Would it were his (why should I fear to name, Or you to hear 't?) at which we nobly aim! Lives yet that hated enemy of our cause? Lives he our mighty projects to oppose? Can his weak innocence, and heaven's care Be thought security from what we dare? Are you then Jesuits? are you so for nought, In all the Catholic depths of treason taught, In orthodox, and solid poisoning read? In each profounder art of killing bred? And can you fail, or bungle in your trade ? Shall one poor life your cowardice upbraid? t * Henry Garnet, a provincial of the Jesuits, who was executed in 1606, for being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot. t ' Three or four schemes had been formed for assassinating tin' King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poisoned in his medicine. He was to be shot with silver bullets.' — Macaulay's HLit. of Bng- land,i. Hi. These schemes were only a part of what Mr. Macaulay calls ' the hideous romance' of Titus Oates. 86 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Tame dastard slaves ! who your profession shame, And fix disgrace on our great founder's name. Think what late sectaries (an ignoble crew, Not worthy to be ranked in sin with you) Inspired with lofty wickedness, durst do : How from his throne they hurled a monarch down, And doubly eased him of both life and crown : They scorned in covert their bold act to hide, In open face of heaven the work they did, And braved its vengeance, and its powers defied. This is his son, and mortal too like him ; Durst you usurp the glory of the crime, And dare ye not? I know, you scorn to be By such as they outdone in villany, Your proper province ; true, you urged them on, Were engines in the fact, but they alone Shared all the open credit and renown. [need But hold! I wrong our church and cause, which No foreign instance, nor what others did. Think on that matchless assassin, whose name "We with just pride can make our happy claim ; He, who at killing of an emperor, To give his poison stronger force and power Mixed a god with 't, and made it work more sure : Blessed memory ! which shall through age to come Stand sacred in the lists of hell and Rome. Let our great Clement* and Ravaillac'st name, Your spirits to like heights of sin inflame ; * Jacques Clement, a Dominican monk, who assassinated Henry III. at St Cloud, in 1589, in the same chamber, it is said, where Henry, as Duke of Anjou, assented to the massacre of the Huguenots. Having obtained admission under the pretext of business of importance, Cle- ment whose fanaticism was stimulated by the Duchess de Montpensier, put a letter in the King's hand, and stabbed him while he was reading it The regicide was killed on the spot by the attendants. Clement was almost deified for this deed. His portrait was placed on the altars of Paris beside the Eucharist: a statue was erected to him in Notre Dame; the Sorbonne demanded his canonization ; and PopeSextusV. pronounced & panegyric upon his memory. t Franvois liavaillac, executed in 1610 for the murder of Henry IV. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 87 Those mighty souls, who bravely chose to die, To have each a royal ghost their company. Heroic act ! and worth their tortures well, Well worth the suffering of a double hell, That, they felt here, and that below, they feel. And if these cannot move you as they should, Let me and my example fire your blood : Think on my vast attempt, a glorious deed, Which durst the fates have suffered to succeed, Had rivalled hell's most proud exploit and boast, Even that, which would the king of fates deposed. Cursed be the day, and ne'er in time enrolled, And cursed the star, whose spiteful influence ruled The luckless minute, which my project spoiled; Curse on that power, who, of himself afraid, My glory with my brave design betrayed ; Justly he feared, lest I, who strook so high In guilt, should next blow up his realm and sky ; And so I had; at least I would have durst, And fading, had got off with fame at worst. Had you but half my bravery in sin, Your work had never thus unfinished been ; Had I been man, and the great act to do, He had died by this, and been what I am now, Or what his father is: I would leap hell To reach his life, though in the midst I fell, And deeper than before, Let rabble souls, of narrow aim and reach, Stoop their vile necks, and dull obedience preach; Let them with slavish awe (disdained by me) Adore the purple rag of majesty, And think 't a sacred relic of the sky : Well may such fools a base subjection own, Vassals to every ass that loads a throne; It was effected in the streets of Paris, where the assassin, taking advan- tage of a temporary stoppage, mounted the step, and, leaning into the carriage which contained the King and several of his suite, stabbed his majesty twice. 88 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Unlike the soul, with which proud I was born, "Who could that sneaking thing a monarch scorn, Spurn off a crown, and set my foot in sport Upon the head that wore it, trod in dirt. But say, what is't that binds yo\ir hands? does fear From such a glorious action you deter] Or is't religion] but you sure disclaim That frivolous pretence, that empty name — Mere bugbear word, devised by us to scare The senseless rout to slavishness and fear, Ne'er known to awe the brave, and those that dare. Such weak and feeble things may serve for checks To rein and curb base mettled heretics; Dull creatures, whose nice boggling consciences Startle, or strain at such slight crimes as these; Such, whom fond inbred honesty befools, Or that old musty piece the Bible gulls : That hated book, the bulwark of our foes, Whereby they still uphold their tottering cause. Let no such toys mislead you from the road Of glory, nor infect your souls with good ; Let never bold encroaching virtue dare With her grim holy face to enter there, No, not in very dream : have only will Like fiends and me to covet, and act ill ; Let true substantial wickedness take place, Usurp, and reign ; let it the very teace (If any yet be left) of good deface. If ever qualms of inward cowardice (The thing which some dull sots call conscience) rise, Let them in streams of blood and slaughter drown, Or with new weights of guilt still press them down. Shame, faith, religion, honour, loyalty, Nature itself, whatever checks there be To loose and uncontrolled impiety, Be all extinct in you ; own no remorse But that you've balked a sin, have been no worse, Or too much pity shown, SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 89 Be diligent in mischiefs trade, be each Performing as a devil ; nor stick to reach At crimes most dangerous ; where bold despair, Mad lust, and heedless blind revenge would ne'er Even look, march you without a blush or fear, Inflamed by all the hazards that oppose, And firm, as burning martyrs to your cause. Then you're true Jesuits, then you're fit to be Disciples of great Loyola and me ; Worthy to undertake, worthy a plot, Like this, and fit to scourge a Huguenot. Plagues on that name ! may swift confusion seize, And utterly blot out the cursed race ; Thrice damned be that apostate monk,* from whom Sprung first these enemies of us and Rome ; Whose poisonous filth, dropt from engendering brain, By monstrous birth did the vile insects spawn, Which now infest each country, and defile With their o'erspreading swarms this goodly isle. Once it was ours, and subject to our yoke, Till a late reigning witch t the enchantment broke: It shall again : hell and I say it : have ye But courage to make good the prophecy, Not fate itself shall hinder. Too sparing was the time, too mild the day, When our great Mary bore the English sway ! Unqueenlike pity marred her royal power, Nor was her purple dyed enough in gore. Four or five hundred, such like petty sum Might fall perhaps a saci'ifice to Rome, Scarce worth the naming : had I had the power, Or been thought fit to have been her counsellor, She should have raised it to a nobler score. Big bonfires should have blazed, and shone each day, To tell our triumphs, and make bright our way ; * Luther. t Queen Elizabeth. 90 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. And when 'twas dark, in every lane and street Thick tiaming heretics should serve to light, And save the needless charge of links by night ; Smithfield should still have kept a constant fire, Which never should be quenched, never expire, But with the lives of all the miscreant rout, Till the last gasping breath had blown it out. So Nero did, such was the prudent course Taken by all his mighty successors, To tame like heretics of old by force : They scorned dull reason, and pedantic rules To conquer and reduce the hardened fools ; Eacks, gibbets, halters were their arguments, Which did most undeniably convince ; Grave bearded lions managed the dispute, And reverend bears their doctrines did confute; And all, who would stand out in stiff defence, They gently clawed, and worried into sense ; Better than all our Sorbonne* dotards now, Who would by dint of words our foes subdue. This was the rigid discipline of old, Which modern sots for persecution hold; Of which dull annalists in story tell Strange legends, and huge bulky volumes swell With martyred fools that lost their way to hell. From these, our church's glorious ancestors, We've learned our arts, and made their methods ours; Nor have we come behind, the least degree, In acts of rough and manly cruelty ; Converting faggots, and the powerful stake, And sword resistless our apostles make. This heretofore Bohemia felt, and thus Were all the numerous proselytes of Huss * The Society of the Sorhonne (so called from the name of the TillJc Jm ? Paris, where, it was established) was founded » .*6 4 .bjr St. Louis IX., and Ralph de Sorbonne, his confessor. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 91 Crushed with their head : so Waldo's * cursed rout, And those of Wickliffet here were rooted out, Their names scarce left. — Sure were the means we chose, And wrought prevailingly ; fire purged the dross Of those foul heresies, and sovereign steel Lopped off the infected limbs the church to heal. Renowned was that French brave, renowned his deed, A deed for which the day deserves its red Far more than for a paltry saint that died : How goodly was the sight ! how fine the show When Paris saw through all its channels flow The blood of Huguenots ; when the full Seine, Swelled with the flood, its banks with joy o'erran! He scorned like common murderers to deal By parcels and piecemeal ; he scorned retail [great. J In the trade of death; whole myriads died by the Soon as one single life ; so quick their fate, Their very prayers and wishes came too late. This a king§ did : and great and mighty 'twas, Worthy his high degree, and power and place, And worthy our religion and our cause. Unmatched 't had been, had not Maguire arose, The bold Maguire (who read in modern fame, Can be a stranger to his worth and name?) Born to outsin a monarch, born to reign In guilt, and all competitors disdain : Dread memory ! whose each mention still can make Pale heretics with trembling horror quake ! * Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, and one of the earliest reformers, erroneously supposed by some writers to be the founder of the Waldenses. He was anathematized by Alexander III. for his opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation ; and, after living in concealment for three years, he retired into Dauphiny.and preached there with great success. He afterwards settled in Bohemia, where be died in 1 179. t Dr. John Wickliffe. He died in 1 385, and his body was dug up forty years afterwards and burned. } En f/ros — by wholesale, § Charles IX., who ordered the massacre at Paris in iS~t. 92 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. To undo a kingdom, to achieve a crime Like his, who would not fall and die like him? Never had Rome a nobler service done, Never had hell; each day came thronging down Yast shoals of ghosts, and mine was pleased and glad, And smiled, when it the brave revenge surveyed. Nor do I mention these great instances For bounds, and limits to your wickedness : Dare you beyond, something out of the road Of all example, where none yet have trod, Nor shall hereafter : what mad Catiline Durst never think, nor 's madder poet feign;* Make the poor baffled pagan fool confess, How much a Christian crime can conquer his; How far in gallant mischief overcome, The old must yield to new and modern Rome. Mix ills past, present, future, in one act; One high, one brave, one great, one glorious fact. Which hell, and very I may envy Such as a god himself might wish to be Accomplice in the mighty villany, And barter his heaven, and vouchsafe to die. Nor let delay (the bane of enterprise) Mar yours, or make the great importance miss. This tact has waked your enemies, and their fear; Let it your vigour too, your haste and care. Be swift, and let your deeds forestall intent, Forestall even wishes, ere they can take vent, Nor give the fates the leisure to prevent. Let the full clouds, which a long time did wrap Your gathering thunder, now with sudden clap, Break out upon your foes; dash, and confound, And spread avoidless ruin all around. » Garnet is here made to refer to Ben Jonson's opening to Catiline, upon the model of which this first Satire is founded. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 93 Let the fired city to your plot give light ;* You razed it half before, t now raze it quite. Do 't more effectually ; I'd see it glow In flames unquenchable as those below; I'd see the miscreants with their houses burn, And all together into ashes turn. Bend next your fury to the cursed divan ; That damned committee, whom the fates ordain Of aU our well-laid plots to be the bane. Unkennel those state foxes where they lie Working your speedy fate and destiny. | Lug by the ears the doting prelates thence, Dash heresy together with their brains Out of their shattered heads. Lop off the lords And commons at one stroke, and let your swords Adjourn them all to the other world. Would I were blest with flesh and blood again, But to be actor in that happy scene ! Yet thus I will be by, and glut my view, Revenge shall take its fill, in state I'll go With captive ghosts to attend me down below. Let these the handsels of your vengeance be, But stop not here, nor flag in cruelty. * Having enumerated some of the past deeds of papal persecution, the heads of the plot, as communicated by Oates, are next disclosed. London was to be fired, the Council, Bishops, and Ministers of State, were to be assassinated, and Lords and Commons to be destroyed, or, as Oldham has it, to be adjourned to the other world. t The great fire of London took place in 1666, 'begun,' says the inscription on the monument, ' and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction ;' which inscription, says Ned Ward, ' is as ignorant of the matter as myself, for the monument was neither built ttien nor I born ; so I believe we are equally as able to tell the truth of the story ,' &c. — London Spy. X The proceedings of Parliament against the Roman Catholics, during the excitement that ensued upon the murder of Godfrey, were of the most stringent character. The Human Catholic lords were for the first time excluded from the Upper House; the Duke of York driven from the Privy Council ; strong resolutions were adopted against the Queen ; and, adds Macaulay, they even attempted to wrest the command of the militia out of the King's hands. 94 SATIKES UPON THE JESUITS. Kill like a plague or inquisition ; spare No age, degree, or sex; only to wear A soul, only to own a life, be here Thought crime enough to lose 't ; no time nor place Be sanctuary from your outrages ; Spare not in churches kneeling priests at prayer, Though interceding for you, slay even there ; Spare°not young infants smiling at the breast, Who from relenting fools their mercy wrest ; Rip teeming wombs, tear out the hated broody From thence, and drown them in their mother's blood; Pity not virgins, nor their tender cries, Though prostrate at your feet with melting eyes All drowned in tears ; strike home, as 'twere in lust, And force their begging hands to guide the thrust ; Ravish at the altar, kill when you have done, Make them your rapes, and victims too in one ; Nor let grey hoary hairs protection give To age, just crawling on the verge of life ; Snatch from its leaning hands the weak support, And with it knock 't into the grave with sport; Brain the poor cripple with his crutch, then cry, You've kindly rid him of his misery. Seal up your ears to mercy, lest their words Should tempt a pity, ram them with your swords (Their tongues too) down their throats ; let them not To mutter for their souls a gasping prayer, [dare But in the utterance choked, and stab it there. 'Twere witty handsome malice (could you do 't) To make 'em die, and make 'em damned to boot. Make children by one fate with parent die, Kill even revenge in next posterity ; So you'll be pestered with no orphans' cries, No childless mothers curse your memories. Make death and desolation swim in blood Throughout the land, with nought to stop the flood But slaughtered carcasses; till the whole isle Become one tomb, become one funeral pile ; SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 05 Till suck vast numbers swell the countless sum, That the wide grave, and wider hell want room. Great was that tyrant's wish, which should be mine. Did I not scorn the leavings of a sin ; Freely I would bestow 't on England now, That the whole nation with one neck might grow, To be sliced off, and you to give the blow. What neither Saxon rage could here inflict, Nor Danes more savage, nor the barbarous Pict; What Spain or Eighty-eight could e'er devise, With all its fleet, and freight of cruelties ; What ne'er Medina" wished, much less could dare, And bloodier Alvat would with trembling hear; What may strike out dire prodigies of old, And make their mild and gentler acts untold; What heaven's judgments, nor the angry stars, Foreign invasions, nor domestic wars, Plague, fire, nor famine could effect or do; All this, and more be dared, and done by you. But why do I with idle talk delay Your hands, and while they should be acting, stay? Farewell If I may waste a prayer for your success, Hell be your aid, and your high projects bless! May that vile wretch, if any here there be, That meanly shrinks from brave iniquity; If any here feel pity or remorse, May he feel all I've bid you act, and worse ! May he by rage of foes unpitied fall, And they tread out his hated soul to hell. May his name and carcass rot, exposed alike to be The everlasting mark of grinning infamy. * The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who commanded the Spanish Ar- mada in 1S88. t The Duke of Alva, employed by Philip of Spain in the Nether- lands, and distinguished in history by his merciless wholesale mas- sacres. He boasted that he had himself consigned 18,000 persons to the executioner. Amongst these were the two popular leaders, Counts Egmout and Horn. 95 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. SATIRE II. \I AY if our sins are grown so high of late, iN That heaven no longer can adjourn our fate, May 't please some milder vengeance to devise. Plague, fire, sword, dearth, or anything hut this, Let it rain scalding showers of brimstone down, To burn us, as of old the lustful town; Let a new deluge overwhelm again, And drown at once our land, our lives, our sin. Thus Gladly we'll compound, all this well pay, To have this worst of ills removed away. Judgments of other kinds are often sent In mercy only, not for punishment; But where these light, they show a nations late Is given up, and past for reprobate. When God his stock of wrath on Egypt spent To make a stubborn land and king repent, Sparing the rest, had he this one plague sent, For this alone his people had been quit, And Pharaoh circumcised a proselyte. Wonder no longer why no curse, like these, Was known, or suffered in the primitive days; Thev never sinned enough to merit it, 'Twas therefore what Heaven's just power thought fit, To scourge this latter, and more sinful age With all the dregs and squeezings of his rage. Too dearly is proud Spain with England quit For all her loss sustained in Eighty-eight ; For all the ills our warlike virgin wrought, Or Drake, or Raleigh, her great scourges brought. Amnlv she was revenged in that one birth, When hell for her the Biscain plague brought forth;* Great counter plague! in which unhappy we Pay back her sufferings with full usury : T *• „ t rwnla who was born in 1491 in Guipuzcoa, one of the Basq^pro^r 1 rS Satire, Oldham is speaking in b» own person. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 97 Than whom alone none ever was designed To entail a wider curse on human kind, But he, who first begot us, and first sinned. Happy the world had been, and happy thou, (Less damned at least, and less accursed than now) If early with less guilt in war th' hadst died, And from ensuing mischiefs mankind freed ; Or when thou view'dst the Holy Land, and tomb, Th' hadst suffered there thy brother traitor's doom.* Cursed be the womb that with the firebrand teemed, Which ever since has the whole globe inflamed; More cursed that ill-aimed shot, which basely missed, Which maimed a limb, but spared thy hated breast, And made thee at once a cripple and a priest.t But why this wish? The church if so might lack Champions, good works, and saints for the almanac. These are the Janissaries of the cause, The life-guard of the Roman Sultan, chose To break the force of Huguenots and foes ; The church's hawkers in divinity, Who 'stead of lace and ribbons, doctrine cry ; Rome's strollers, who survey each continent, Its trinkets and commodities to vent ; Export the Gospel, like mere ware, for sale, And trucked for indigo, and cochineal, As the known factors here, the brethren, once Swopped Christ about for bodkins, rings, and spoons. And shall these great Apostles be contemned, And thus by scoffing heretics defamed 1 ? Tbey, by whose means both Indies now enjoy The two choice blessings, lust and popery? Which buried else in ignorance had been, Nor known the worth of beads and Bellarmine?J * Loyola's original profession was that of a soldier, in which he is said to lr.ive displayed courage and ability. Having renounced arms for a religious life, he determined to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for which he made elaborate preparations in the way of prayer and penance. t See note p. is 3. t An Italian Jesuit, created a cardinal by Sextus V., and after- OLDHAJI. 7 9S SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. It pitied holy mother church to see A world so drowned in gross idolatry : It grieved to see such goodly nations hold Bad errors and unpardonable gold. Strange ! what a fervent zeal can coin infuse ! What charity pieces of eight produce ! So were you chosen the fittest to reclaim The pagan world, and give it a Christian name . And great was the success; whole myriads stood At font, and were baptized in their own blood; Millions of souls were hurled from hence to burn Before their time, be damned before their turn. Yet these were in compassion sent to hell, The rest reserved in spite, and worse to feel, Compelled instead of fiends to worship you, The more inhuman devils of the two. Rare way and method of conversion this, To make your votaries your sacrifice ! If to destroy be Reformation thought, A plague as well might the good work have wrought. Now see we why your founder, weary grown Would lay his former trade of killing down ; He found 'twas dull, he found a crown would be A fitter case, and badge of cruelty. Each snivelling hero seas of blood can spill, When wrongs provoke, and honour bids him kill ; Each tiny bully lives can freely bleed, When pressed by wine, or punk to knock on the head ; Give me your thorough-paced rogue, who scorns to be Prompted by poor revenge, or injury, But does it of true inbred cruelty ; Your cool and sober murderer, who prays And stabs at the same time, who one hand has Stretched up to heaven, the other to make the pass. So the late saints of blessed memory, Cut-throats in godly pure sincerity, wards made Archbishop of Capua ; one of the most temperate and learned controversialists of his time. His writings are distinguished by perspicuity of statement and integrity of reasoning. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 99 So they with lifted hands, and eyes devout, Said grace, and carved a slaughtered monarch out. When the first traitor Cain (too good to be Thought patron of this black fraternity) His bloody tragedy of old designed, One death alone quenched his revengeful mind, Content with but a quarter of mankind : Had he been Jesuit, and but put on Their savage cruelty, the rest had gone; His hand had sent old Adam after too, And forced the godhead to create anew. And yet 'twere well, were their foul guilt but thought Bare sin : 'tis something even to own a fault. But here the boldest flights of wickedness Are stamped religion, and for cui'rent pass. The blackest, ugliest, horridest, damnedst deed, For which hell-flames, the schools a title need, If done for holy church is sanctified. This consecrates the blessed work and tool, Nor must we ever after think 'em foul. To undo realms, kill parents, murder kings, Are thus but petty trifles, venial things, Not worth a confessor; nay, heaven shall be Itself invoked to abet the impiety. ' Grant, gracious Lord,' some reverend villain prays, ' That this the bold assertor of our cause May with success accomplish that great end, For which he was by thee and us designed. Thou to his arm and sword thy strength impart, And guide 'em steady to the tyrant's heart; Grant him for every meritorious thrust Degrees of bliss above, among the just ; AVhere holy Garnet, and St. Guy are placed, Whom works, like this, before have thither raised ; Where they are interceding for us now — For sure they're there.' Yes, questionless; and so Good Nero is, and Dioclesian too, 7-2 JO0 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. And that great ancient saint Herostratus, And the late godly martyr at Toulouse Dare something worthy Newgate and the Towei, If you'll be canonized, and heaven insure. Dull primitive fools of old! who would be good, Who would by virtue reach the blessed abode ! Far other are the ways found out of late, Which mortals to that happy place translate: Rebellion, treason, murder, massacre. The chief ingredients now of samtship are, And Tyburn only stocks the calendar. Unhappy Judas, whose ill fate, or chance, Threw him upon gross times of ignorance; Who knew not how to value, or esteem The worth and merit of a glorious crime! Should his kind stars have let him acted now, He had died absolved, and died a martyr too Hearst thou, great God, such daring blasphemy, And let'st thy patient thunder still lay by I strike and avenge, lest impious atheists say, Cliance "rides the world, and has usurped thy sway; Let these proud prosperous villains too confess, Thou'rt senseless, as they make thy images. Thou iust and sacred Power! wilt thou admit Such guests should in thy glorious presence sit? If Hetven can with such company dispense Well did the Indian pray, might he keep thence! But this we only feign, all vain and false As their own legends, miracles, and tales; Either the groundless calumnies of spite, Or idle rants of poetry and wit. We wish they were: but you hear Garnet cry, < T did it, and would do t again; had I As much of blood, as many lives as Rome Has spilt in what the fools call martyrdom, As many souls as sins, I'd freely stake All them, and more for mother church s sake. For that I'll stride o'er crowns, swim through a flood, Made up of slaughtered monarcha' brains and blood. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 101 For that no lives of heretics I'll spare, But reap 'em down with less remorse and care Than Tarquin did the poppy-heads of old, Or we drop beads, by which our prayers are told.' Bravely resolved ! and 'twas as bravely dared : But, lo ! the recompense, and great reward The wight is to the almanac preferred. Rare motives to be damned for holy cause, A few red letters, and some painted straws ! Fools ! who thus truck with hell by Mohatra, And play their souls against no stakes away. 'Tis strange with what an holy impudence The villain caught, his innocence maintains ; Denies with oaths the fact, tintil it be Less guilt to own it than the perjury; By the mass and blessed sacraments he swears, This Mary's milk, and the other Mary's tears, And the whole muster-roll in calendars. Not yet swallow the falsehood? if all this Wont gain a resty faith, he will on his knees The evangelists, and lady's psalter kiss, To vouch the lie; nay, more, to make it good, Mortgage his soul upon't, his heaven, and God. Damned faithless heretics! hard to convince, Who trust no verdict but dull obvious sense. Unconscionable courts ! who priests deny Their benefit of the clergy, perjury. Room for the martyred saints! behold they coir With what a noble scorn they meet their doom I Not knights o' the post,* nor often carted wlion a Show more of impudence, or less remorse. * Persons who were ready to take false oaths for a consideration. Thus, in one of the Boxburghe ballads: — ' I'll be no kniu'ht of the )>'>-t. To sell my soul for a bribe.' They were called knights of the post, because they waited ;>t the | which it was the castom of the iheriifi to bare :it their doors for fixing proclamations upon. The custom is alluded to by Ben Jonson u Cynthia's Jievels, A. i. Sc. 4. 102 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS •t O glorious and heroic constancy ! That can forswear upon the cart, and die With gasping souls expiring in a lie. None but tame sheepish criminals repent, Who fear the idle bugbear, punishment : Your gallant sinner scorns that cowardice, The poor regret of having done amiss ; Brave he, to his first principles still true, Can face damnation, sin with hell in view, And bid it take the soul he does bequeath, And blow it thither with his dying breath. Dare such as these profess religion's name] Who, should they own 't, and be believed, would shame It's practice out of the world, would atheists make Firm in their creed, and vouch it at the stake? Is heaven for such, whose deeds make hell too good, Too mild a penance for their cursed brood 1 ? For whose unheard of crimes, and damned sake, Fate must below new sorts of torture make, Since, when of old it framed that place of doom, 'Twas thought no guilt, like this, could thither come. Base recreant souls ! woidd you have kings trust you, Who never yet kept your allegiance true To any but hell's prince? who with more ease Can swallow down most solemn perjuries, Than a town-bully common oaths and lies? Are the French Harry's fates so soon forgot? Our last best Tudor? or the powder-plot? And those fine streamers that adorned so long The bridge, and Westminster, and yet had hung, Were they not stolen, and now for relics gone? Think Tories loyal, or Scotch Covenanters ; Robbed tigers gentle; courteous, fasting bears; Atheists devout, and thrice wracked mariners ; Take goats for chaste and cloistered marmosites ; For plain and open, two-edged parasites ; Believe bawds modest, and the shameless stews ; And binding drunkards' oaths, and strumpets' vows ; SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 103 And when in time these contradictions meet, Then hope to find 'em in a Loyolite : To whom, though gasping, should I credit give, I'd think 'twere sin, and damned like unbelief. Oh for the Swedish law enacted here ! No scarecrow frightens like a priest-gelder, Hunt them, as beavers are, force them to buy Their lives Avith ransom of their lechery. Or let that wholesome statute be revived, "Which England heretofore from wolves relieved; Tax every shire instead of them to bring Each year a certain tale of Jesuits in ; And let their mangled quarters hang the isle To scare all future vermin from the soil. Monsters avaunt ! may some kind whirlwind sweep Our land, and drown these locusts in the deep; Hence ye loathed objects of our scorn and hate, With all the curses of an injured state; Go, foul impostors, to some duller soil, Some easier nation with your cheats beguile ; Whei - e your gross common gulleries may pass, To slur and top on bubbled consciences; Where ignorance, and the inquisition rules, Where the vile herd of poor implicit fools Are damned contentedly, where they are led Blindfold to hell, and thank, and pay their guide ! Go, where all your black tribe before are gone, Follow Chastel, Ravaillac, Clement down, Your Catesby, Faux, and Garnet, thousands more, And those who hence have lately raised the score ; Where the grand traitor now, and all the crew Of his disciples must receive their due ; Where flames, and tortures of eternal date Must punish you, yet ne'er can expiate : Learn duller fiends your unknown cruelties, Such as no wit, but yours, could e'er devise, No guilt, but yours, deserve ; make hell confess Itself outdone, it's devils damned for less. 104 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. satire in. — loyola's will.* LONG had the famed impostor found success, Long seen his damned fraternity's inci'ease, In wealth, and power, mischief, guile improved, By popes, and pope-rid kings upheld, and loved ; Laden with tears, and sins, and numerous scars, Got some i' the field, but most in other wars, Now finding life decay, and fate draw near, Grown ripe for hell, and Roman calendar, He thinks it worth his holy thoughts, and care, Some hidden rides, and secrets to impart, The proofs of long experience and deep art, Which to his successors may useful be In conduct of their future villany. Summoned together, all the officious band The orders of their bedrid chief attend ; Doubtful, what legacy he will bequeath, And wait with greedy ears his dying breath : With such quick duty vassal fiends below To meet commands of their dread monarch go. On pillow raised, he does their entrance greet, And joys to see the wished assembly meet : They in glad mui-murs tell their joy aloud, Then a deep silence stills the expecting crowd. Like Delphic hag of old, by fiend possessed, He swells ; wild frenzy heaves his panting breast ; His bristling hairs stick up, his eyeballs glow, And from his mouth long streaks of drivel riow : Thrice with due reverence he himself doth cross, Then thus his hellish oracles disclose. 1 Ye firm associates of my great design, Whom the same vows, and oaths, and order join, « The institution and mission of the Jesuits were never more fiercely assailed than in this and the following Satire, which pro- duced, on their first publication, as powerful a temporary effect in England as the Prootnotal Letters upon public opinion in the Roman Catholic states of Europe. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 105 The faithful band, whom I and Rome have chose, The last support of our declining cause; Whose conquering troops I with success have led 'Gainst all opposers of our Church and Head; Who e'er to the mad German owe their rise, Geneva's rebels, or the hot-brained Swiss ; Revolted heretics, who late have broke And durst throw off the long-worn sacred yoke ; You, by whose happy influence Rome can boast A greater empire than by Luther lost : By whom wide nature's far-fetched limits now, And utmost Indies to its crosier bow. ' Go on, ye mighty champions of our cause, Maintain our party, and subdue our foes ; Kill heresy, that rank and poisonous weed, Which threatens now the church to overspread ; Fire Calvin, and his nest of upstarts out, Who tread our sacred mitre under foot ; Strayed Germany reduce ; let it no more The incestuous monk of Wittemberg adore; Make stubborn England once more stoop its crown, And fealty to our priestly sovereign own ; Regain our church's rights, the island clear From all remaining dregs of Wickliffe there. Plot, enterprize, contrive, endeavour; spare No toil nor pains ; no death, nor danger fear ; Restless your aims pursue ; let no defeat Your sprightly courage, and attempts rebate, But urge to fresh, and bolder, ne'er to end Till the whole world to our great Caliph bend; Till he through every nation everywhere Bear sway, and reign as absolute as here ; Till Rome without control or contest be The universal ghostly monarchy. ' Oh! that kind Heaven a longer thread would give, And let me to that happy juncture live : But 'tis decreed !' at this he paused and wept, The rest alike time with his sorrow kept: 106 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Then thus continued he ' Since unjust fate Envies my race of glory longer date, Yet, as a wounded general, e'er he dies, To his sad troops, sighs out his last advice, (Who, though they must his fatal absence moan, By those great lessons conquer, when he's gone) So I to you my last instructions give, And breathe out counsel with my parting life : Let each to my important words give ear, Worth your attention, and my dying care. < First, and the chief est thing by me enjoined, The solemnest tie, that must your order bind, Let each without demur, or scruple pay . A strict obedience to the Roman sway :* To the unerring chair all homage swear, Although a punk, a witch, a fiend sit there. Whoe'er is to the sacred mitre reared, Believe all virtues with the place conferred; Think him established there by Heaven, though he Has altars robbed for bribes the choice to buy, Or pawned his soul to hell for simony ; Though he be atheist, heathen, Turk, or Jew, Blasphemer, sacrilegious, perjured too : Though he be bawd, pimp, pathick, panderer, Whate'er old Sodom's nest of lechers were j Though tyrant, traitor, poisoner, parricide, Magician, monster, all that's bad beside; Fouler than infamy ; the very lees, The sink, the jakes, the common-sewer of vice ; Strait count him holy, virtuous, good, devout, Chaste, gentle, meek, a saint, a god, who not? ' Make fate hang on his lips, nor Heaven have Power to predestinate without his leave ; * The three vows of the Jesuits laid down by Loyola were poverty, chastity, and strict obedience to the chief of the order. It was the last which made I'aul III. withhold his sanction from the mstitution ; but his scruples were removed by the addition of a fourth vow, of im- plicit submission to himself. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 107 None be admitted there, but whom he please, Who buys from him the patent for the place. Hold those amongst the highest rank of saints, Whome'er he to that honour shall advance, Though here the refuse of the jail, and stews, Which hell itself would scarce for lumber choose. But count all reprobate, and damned, and worse, Whom he, when gout, or phthisic rage, shall curse ; Whom he in anger excommunicates, For Friday meals, and abrogating sprats; Or in just indignation spurns to hell For jeering holy toe, and pantofle. ' Whate'er he says, esteem for holy writ, And text apocryphal, if he think fit; Let arrant legends, worst of tales and lies, Falser than Capgraves, and Voragines, Than Quixote, Rabelais, Amadis de Gaul, If signed with sacred lead, and fisher's seal, Be thought authentic and canonical. Again, if he ordain 't in his decrees, Let every gospel for mere fable pass; Let right be wrong, black white, and virtue vice, No suu, no moon, nor no antipodes; Forswear your reason, conscience, and your creed, Your very sense, and Euclid, if he bid. * Let it be held less heinous, less amiss, To break all God's commands, than one of his. When his great missions call, without delay, Without reluctance readily obey, Nor let your inmost wishes dare gainsay. Should he to Bantam, or Japan command, Or farthest bounds of southern unknown land, Farther than avarice its vassals drives, Through rocks, and dangers, loss of blood, and lives, Like great Xavier's* be your obedience shown ; Outstrip his courage, glory, and renown, * St. Francis Xavier, generally called the Apostle of the Indies. He was one of the disciples of Loyola, and the most indefatigahle and 108 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Whom neither yawning gulfs of deep despair, Nor scorching heats of burning line could scare; Whom seas, nor storms, nor wrecks could make refrain From propagating holy faith, and gain. ' If he but nod commissions out to kill, But beckon lives of heretics to spill, Let the inquisition rage, fresh cruelties Make the dire engines groan with tortured cries : Let Campo Flori every day be strowed With the warm ashes of the Lutheran brood; Repeat again Bohemian slaughters o'er, And Piedmont valleys drown with floating gore Swifter than murdering angels, when they fly On errands of avenging destiny, Fiercer than storms let loose, with eager haste Lay cities, countries, realms, whole nature waste, Sack, ravish, burn, destroy, slay, massacre, Till the same grave their lives and names inter. ' These are the rights to our great Mufti due, The sworn allegiance of your sacred vow. What else we in our votaries require, What other gift, next follows to enquire. ' And first it will our great advice befit, What soldiers to your lists you ought admit. To natives of the church, and faith, like you, The foremost rank of choice is justly due : 'Mongst whom the chiefest place assign to those, Whose zeal has mostly signalized the cause. But let not entrance be to them denied, Whoever shall desert the adverse side ; Omit no promises of wealth, or power, That may inveigled heretics allure ; successful of all the Roman Catholic missionaries. The proat scene of his labours was the East Indies and Japan. His zeal led him to con- template the conversion of the Chinese; but he died on the voyage. He was the patron saint of the Queen of James II., and his aid was invoked when her majesty desired a son. In reference to this august occasion, his life by Bouhours was translated into English by Dryden. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 109 Those, whom great learning, parts, or wit renowns, Cajole with hopes of honours, scarlet gowns, Provincialships, and palls, and triple crowns. This must a rector, that a provost be, A third succeed to the next abbacy ; Some, princes' tutors, others, confessors To dukes, and kings, and queens, and emperors : These are strong arguments, which seldom fail, Which more than all your weak disputes prevail. ' Exclude not those of less desert ; decree To all revolters your foundation free; To all, whom gaming, drunkenness, or lust, To need, and popery shall have reduced : To all, whom slighted love, ambition crossed, Hopes often bilked, and sought pi-eferment lost, Whom pride, or discontent, revenge, or spite, Feai-, frenzy, or despair shall proselyte : Those powerful motives, which the most bring in, Most converts to our church, and order win. Reject not those, whom guilt, and crimes at home Have made to us for sanctuary come ; Let sinners of each hue, and size, and kind, Here quick admittance, and safe refuge find; Be they from justice of their country fled, With blood of murders, rapes, and treasons dyed, No varlet, rogue, or miscreant refuse, From galleys, jails, or hell itself broke loose. By this you shall in strength, and numbers grow, And shoals each day to your thronged cloisters slow : So Rome's and Mecca's first great founders did By such wise methods made their churches spread. ' When shaven crown and hallowed girdle's power Has dubbed him saint, that villain was before, Entered, let it his first endeavour be To shake off all remains of modesty, Dull sneaking modesty, not more unfit For needy flattering poets, when they write, Or trading punks, than for a Jesuit. If any novice feel at first a blush, HO SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Let wine, and frequent converse with the stews, Reform the fop, and shame it out of use, Unteach the puling folly by degrees, And train him to a well-bred shamelessness. Get that great gift, and talent, impudence, Accomplished mankind's highest excellence : 'Tis that alone prefers, alone makes great, Confers alone wealth, titles, and estate, Gains place at court, can make a fool a peer, An ass a bishop, vilest blockheads rear To wear red hats, and sit in porphyry chair. 'Tis learning, parts, and skill, and wit, and sense, Worth, merit, honour, virtue, innocence. ' Next for religion, learn what's fit to take, How small a dram does the just compound make, As much as is by crafty statesmen worn For fashion only, or to serve a turn. , To bigot fools its idle practice leave, Think it enough the empty form to have. The outward show is seemly, cheap, and light, The substance cumbersome, of cost, and weight ; The rabble judge by what appears to the eye, None, or but few, the thoughts within descry. Make it an engine to ambitious power To stalk behind, and hit your mark more sure ; A cloak to cover well-hid knavery, Like it, when used, to be with ease thrown by ; A shifting card, by which your course to steer, And taught with every changing wind to veer. Let no nice, holy, conscientious ass Amongst your better company find place, Me, and your foundation to disgrace. Let truth be banished, ragged virtue fly, And poor unprofitable honesty ; Weak idols, who their wretched slaves betray, To every rook, and every knave a prey : These lie remote, and wide from interest, Farther than heaven from hell, or east from west, Far, as they e'er were distant from the breast. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Ill ' Think not yourselves to austerities confined, Or those strict rules which other orders bind; To Capuchins, Carthusians, Cordeliers Leave penance, meagre abstinence, and prayers ; In lousy rags let begging friars lie, Content on sti*aw or boards to mortify; Let them with sackcloth discipline their skins, And scourge them for their madness and their sins; Let pining anchorets in grottos starve, Who from the hberties of nature swerve, Who make 't their chief religion not to eat, And place 't in nastiness, and want of meat. Live you in luxury and pampered ease, As if whole nature were your cateress; Soft be your beds, as those which monarchs' whores Lie on, or gouts of bedrid emperors ; Your wardrobes stored with choice of suits more dear Than cardinals on high processions wear; With dainties load your boards, whose eveiy dish May tempt cloyed gluttons, or Vitellius' wish, Each fit a longing queen ; let richest wines With mirth your heads inflame, with lust your veins, Such as the friends of dying popes would give For cordials to prolong their gasping life. ' Ne'er let the Nazarene, whose badge and name You wear,* upbraid you with a conscious shame; Leave him his slighted homilies and rules, To stuff the squabbles of the wrangling schools ; Disdain, that He, and the poor angling tribe, Should laws and government to you prescribe ; Let none of those good fools your patterns make, Instead of them, the mighty Judas take : Renowned Iscariot ! fit alone to be The example of our great society, Whose darling guilt despised the common road, And scorned to stop at sin beneath a god. * The Jesuits were established by a bull in 1540, under t ho name of the Society of Jesus. The term Jesuits was originally applied to them in ridicule of their institution. 112 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 1 And now 'tis time I should instructions give, What wiles and cheats the rabble best deceive. Each age and sex their different passions wear, To suit 5 with which requires a prudent care : Youth is capricious, headstrong, fickle, vain, Given to lawless pleasure, age to gain ; Old wives, in superstition overgrown, With chimney -tales and stories best are won ; Tis no mean talent rightly to descry, What several baits to each you ought apply. The credulous and easy of belief With miracles and well-framed lies deceive ; Empty whole Surius and the Talmud; drain Saint Francis, and Saint Mahomet's Alcoran; Sooner shall popes and cardinals want pride, Than you a stock of lies and legends need. < Tell how blessed Virgin to come down was seen, Like playhouse punk descending in machine ; How she writ billet-doux, and love-discourse, Made assignations, visits, and amours ; How hosts, distressed, her smock for banner bore, Which vanquished foes, and murdered at twelve score. Relate how fish in conventicles met, And mackerel were with bait of doctrine caught; How cattle have judicious hearers been, And stones pathetically cried Amen! How consecrated hive with bells was hung, And bees kept mass, and holy anthems sung; How pigs to the rosary kneeled, and sheep were taught To bleat Te Deum and Magnificat ; How flyflap of church-censure houses rid Of insects, which at curse of friar died; How travelling saints, well mounted on a switch, Ride journeys through the air, like Lapland witch; And ferrying cowls religious pilgrims bore, O'er waves without the help of sail or oar. Nor let Xavier's great wonders pass concealed, How storms were by the almighty wafer quelled; SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 113 How zealous crab the sacred image bore, And swam a catholic to the distant shore : With shams like these the giddy rout mislead, Their folly and their superstition feed. ' 'Twas found a good and gainful art of old (And much it did our church's power uphold) To feign hobgoblins, elves, and walking sprites, And fairies dancing salenger* o' nights; White sheets for ghosts, and will-a- wisps have passed For souls in purgatory unreleased, And crabs in churchyard crawled in masquerade, To cheat the parish, and have masses said. By this our ancestors in happier days, Did store of credit and advantage raise : But now the trade is fallen, decayed, and dead, E'er since contagious knowledge has o'erspread; With scorn the grinning rabble now hear tell Of Hecla, Patrick's Hole, and Mongibel, Believed no more than tales of Troy, unless In countries drowned in ignorance, like this. Henceforth be wary how such things you feign, Except it be beyond the Cape or Line, Except at Mexico, Brazil, Peru, At the Moluccos, Goa, or Pegu, Or any distant and remoter place, Where they may current and unquestioned pass, Where never poaching heretics resort. To spring the lie, and make 't their game and sport. ' But I forget (what should be mentioned most) Confession, our chief privilege and boast, That staple ware, which ne'er returns in vain, Ne'er balks the trader of expected gain. 'Tis this that spies through court intrigues, and brings Admission to the cabinets of kings ; By this we keep proud monarchs at our becks, And make our footstools of their thrones and necks, One of the oldest dances in England was called Sellinger's Hound. OLDHAM. 8 H4 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Give 'em command, and if they disobey, Betray them to the ambitious heir a prey; Hound the officious ours on heretics The vermin which the church infest, and vex, And when our turn is served, and business done, Dispatch them for reward, as useless grown. < Nor are these half the benefits and gams, Which by wise managery accrue from thence. Bv this we unlock the miser's hoarded chests AndtrLTure,thoughkept close as statesmen's breasts; This does rich widows to our nets decoy, Let us their jointures and themselves enjoy ; To us the merchant does his customs bring, And pays our duty, though he cheats his king, To us court-ministers refund, made great Bv robbery, and bankrupt of the state ; Ours is the soldier's plunder, padder s prize, Gabels* on lechery, and the stews excise; Bv this our colleges in riches shine And vie with Becket's and Loretto s shrme < And here I must not grudge a word or two, Mv vounger votaries, of advice to you, To you, whom beauty's charms, and generous fiie Of boiling youth to sports of love inspire. This is your harvest; here, secure and cheap, You may the fruits of unbought pleasure reap; Kiot in free and uncontrolled delight, Where no dull marriage clogs the appetite; Taste every dish of lust's variety, Which popes and scarlet lechers dearly buy With bribes, and bishoprics, and simony. But this I ever to your care commend,— Be wary how you openly offend, Lest scoffinu' Lewd buffoons descry our shame, Anolieve 't a spell, more dreadful far Thau Bacon, Haly, or Albumazar. Happy the time, when the unpretending crowd No more than I its language understood! 118 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. When the worm-eaten book, linked to a chain, In dust lay mouldering in the Vatican, Despised, neglected, and forgot; to none But poring rabbies, or the Sorbonne known : Thou iu full power our sovereign prelate swayed, By kings, and all the rabble world obeyed ; Here humble monarch at his feet kneeled down, And begged the alms, and charity of a crown; There, when in solemn state he pleased to ride, Poor sceptred slaves ran henchboys by his side ; None, though in thought, his grandeur durst blaspheme, Nor in their very sleep a treason dream. ' But since the broaching that mischievous piece, Each alderman a Father Lombard is, And every cit dares impudently know More than a council, pope, and conclave too. Hence the late damned friar, and all the crew Of former crawling sects their poison drew ; Hence all the troubles, plagues, rebellion's breed, We've felt, or feel, or may hereafter dread. Wherefore enjoin, that no lay coxcomb dare About him that unlawful weapon wear ; But charge him chiefly not to touch at all The dangerous works of that old Lollard, Paul;* That arrant Wickliffist, from whom our foes Take all their lotteries to attack our cause. Would lie in his first years had martyred been, Never Damascus, nor the Vision seen; Then he our party was, stout, vigorous, And tierce in chase of heretics, like us; • Tin' famous Father Paul Sarpi, whose bold resistance to the roaehmenti of popery brought him under the vengeance of the church. His History of (ht Council <>>' Trent, transmitted to tins country through his personal Mend, Sir Henry Wotton, the English I, nt al \ enioe, was translated Into English by Sir Adam Newton and sir Nathaniel Brent, and published In London in 1619. Dr. Johnson, soon after he came to London, made proposals to Mr. Cave to nndertake s new translation, bui the proj cl never went farther than a few specimen pages, and a life of Paul Sarin, which afterwards appeared In the 0* nib nan's Magarine, SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 119 Till lie at length, by the enemy seduced, Forsook us, and the hostile side espoused. •Had not the mighty Julian* missed his aims, These holy shreds had all consumed in flames; But since the immortal lumber still endures, In spite of all his industry and ours, Take care at least it may not come abroad, To taint with catching heresy the crowd. Let them be still kept low in sense, — they'll pay The more respect, more readily obey ; Pray that kind Heaven would on their hearts dispense A bounteous and abundant ignorance, That they may never swerve, nor turn awry From sound and orthodox stupidity. ' But these are obvious things, easy to know, Common to every monk, as well as you. Greater affairs, and more important, wait To be discussed, and call for our debate; Matters that depth require, and well befit The address and conduct of a Jesuit ; How kingdoms are embroiled, what shakes a throne, How the first seeds of discontent are sown To spring up in rebellion; how are set The secret snares that circumvent a state; How bubbled monarchs are at first beguiled, Trepanned, and gulled, at last deposed, and killed. ' When some proud prince, a rebel to our head, For disbelieving holy church's creed, And Peter-pence,t is heretic decreed, And by a solemn and unquestioned power To death, and hell, and you delivered o'er : Choose first some dexterous rogue, well tried, and known, (Such by confession your familiars grown) ♦ Julian, the Apostate Emperor of Rome, t A tribute, or tax, formerly paid by the English to the Pope. It was levied at Lammas-day, and was called Peter-pence, the rate being a penny for every house. It was called also by the no less significant name of Itomuscot. 120 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Let him by art and nature fitted be For any great, and gallant villany, Practised in every sin, each kind of vice, Which deepest casuists in their searches miss, Watchful as jealousy, wary as fear, Fiercer than lust, and bolder than despair, But close, as plotting fiends in council are. To him, in firmest oaths of silence bound, The worth and merit of the deed propound : Tell of whole reams of pardon, new come o'er, Indies of gold, and blessings, endless store, Choice of preferments, if he overcome; And if he fail, undoubted martyrdom, And bills for sums in heaven, to be drawn On factors there, and at first sight paid down. With arts and promises like these allure, And make him to your great design secure. ' And here to know the sundry ways to kill, Is worth the genius of a Machiavel. Dull northern brains, in these deep arts unbred, Know nought but to cut throats, or knock o' th'head; No sleight of murder of the subtlest shape, Tour busy search and observation 'scape ; Legerdemain of killing, that dives in, And juggling steals away a life unseen ; How gaudy fate may be in presents sent, And creep insensibly by touch, or scent ; How ribands, gloves, or saddle-pommel may An unperceived, but certain death convey, Above the reach of antidotes, above the power Of the famed Pontick Mountebank to cure ; Whate'er is known to quaint Italian spite, In studied poisoning skilled, and exquisite, Whate'er great Borgia, or his sire could boast, Which the expense of half the conclave cost. 1 Thus may the business be in secret done, Nor authors, nor the accessories known, And the slurred guilt with ease on others thrown. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 121 But if ill fortune should your plot betray, And leave you to the rage of foes a prey ; Let none his crime by weak confession own, Nor shame the church, while he'd himself atone. Let varnished guile, and feigned hypocrisies, Pretended holiness, and useful lies, Your well dissembled villanies disguise. A thousand wily turns, and doubles try, To foil the scent, and to divert the cry ; Cog, sham, out-face, deny, equivocate, Into a thousand shapes yourselves translate. Remember what the crafty Spartan taught, Children with rattles, men with oaths are caught; Forswear upon the rack, and if you fall, Let this great comfort make amends for all, — Those whom they damn for rogues, next age shall see Made advocates i' th' church's Litany. Whoever with bold tongue, or pen shall dare Against your arts and practices declare; What fool shall e'er presumptuously oppose, Your holy cheats and godly frauds disclose; Pronounce him heretic, firebrand of hell, Turk, Jew, fiend, miscreant, pagan, infidel ; A thousand blacker names, worse calumnies, All wit can think, and pregnant spite devise; Strike home, gash deep, no lies, nor slanders spare; A wound, though cured, yet leaves behind a soar. ' Those whom your wit and reason can't decry, Make scandalous with loads of infamy ; Make Luther monster, by a fiend begot, Brought forth with wings and tail, and cloven foot; Make whoredom, incest, worst of vice, and shame, Pollute and foul his manners, life and name; Tell how strange storms ushered Ins fatal end, And hell's black troops did for his soul contend. ' Much more I had to say; but now grow faint, And strength and spirits for the subject want. 122 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Be these great mysteries, I here unfold, Amongst your order's institutes enrolled ; Preserve them sacred, close and unrevealed, As ancient Rome her Sybil's books concealed. Let no bold heretic with saucy eye Into the hidden unseen archives pry, Lest the malicious flouting rascals turn Our church to laughter, raillery, and scorn. Let never rack, or torture, pain, or fear, From your firm breasts the important secrets tear. If any treacherous brother of your own Shall to the world divulge, and make them known, Let him by worst of deaths his guilt atone. Should but his thoughts, or dreams suspected be, Let him for safety, and prevention die, And learn in the grave the art of secrecy. ' But one thing more, and then with joy I go, Nor urge a longer stay of fate below. Give me again once more your plighted faith, And let each seal it with his dying breath. As the great Carthagenian * heretofore The bloody reeking altar touched, and swore Eternal enmity to the Roman power, Swear you (and let the Fates confirm the same) An endless hatred to the Lutheran name ! Vow never to admit, or league, or peace, Or truce, or commerce with the cursed race ; Now, through all age, when time or place soe'er Shall give you poAver, wage an immortal war j Like Theban feuds, let yours yourselves survive, And in your very dust and ashes live; Like mine, be your last gasp their curse.' At this They kneel, and all the sacred volume kiss ; Vowing to send each year an hecatomb Of Huguenots, an offering to his tomb. In vain he would continue; — abrupt death A period puts, and stops his impious breath; * Iluunibal. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 123 In broken accents he is scarce allowed To falter out his blessing on the crowd. Amen is echoed by infernal howl, And scrambling spirits seize his parting soul. SATIRE IV. ST. IGNATIUS S IMAGE BROUGHT IN, DISCOVER- ING THE ROGUERIES OF THE JESUITS, AND RIDI- CULOUS SUPERSTITION OP THE CHURCH OF ROME. /~\]SrCE I was common wood, a shapeless log, ^ Thrown out a kennel post for eveiy dog; The workman, yet in doubt what course to take, Whether I'd best a saint, or hog-trough make, After debate resolved me for a saint, And thus tamed Loyola I represent : And well I may resemble him, for he As stupid was, as much a block as me. My right leg maimed, at halt I seem to stand, To tell the wounds at Pampelune sustained.* My sword, and soldier's armour here had been, But they may in Montserrat's church be seen : Those to the blessed Virgin I laid down For cassock, sursingle, and shaven crown, The spiritual garb, in which I now am shown, f With due accoutrements, and fit disguise I might for sentinel of corn suffice ; As once the lusty god of old stood guard, And the invading crows from forage scared. Now on my head the birds their relics leave, And spiders in my mouth their arras weave; * In the early part of his life Loyola served in the Spanish army against the French, and at the siege of Pampeluna received a severe wound in his lift leg, and had his right thigh shattered by ;i OBI 11 ball. The perusal of the Lives 0/ the Saints during the progress of a lingering cure heated ids Imagination with religious enthusiasm, and is said tu have given that direction to the rest of his lite which finally led to the establishment of the order of Jesuits. t Before he went to Jerusalem, Loyola hung Dp his arms in the Church of Montserrat, and dedicated himself to the Virgin. 124 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. And persecuted rats oft find in me A refuge, and religious sanctuary. But you profaner heretics, whoe'er The Inquisition and its vengeance fear, I charge, stand off, at peril come not near; Let none at twelve score impiously untruss, He enters Fox's lists that dare transgress; For I'm by holy church in reverence had, And all good catholic folk implore my aid. These pictures, which you see, my story give, The acts and monuments of me alive ; That frame, wherein with pilgrim weeds I stand, Contains my travels to the Holy Land; This, me and my Decemvirate at Rome, "When 1 for grant of my great order come. There, with devotion wrapt, I hang in air, With dove, like Mahomet's, whispering in my ear; Here, Virgin in calash of clouds descends, To be my safeguard from assaulting fiends. Those tables by, and crutches of the lame, My great achievements since my death proclaim : Plague, ague, dropsy, palsy, stone, and gout, Legions of maladies by me cast out, -More than the college knows, or ever fill Quack's wiping-paper, and the weekly bill. What Peter's shadow did of old, the same Is fancied done by my all-powerful name; For which some wear't about their necks and arms, To guard from dangers, sicknesses, and harms; And Borne on wombs the barren to relieve, A miracle I better did alive. I by crafty Jesuit am taught Wonders to do, and many a juggling feat. Sometimes with chafing-dish behind me put, 1 sweat like debauchee in hothouse shut, And drip like any spitchcocked Huguenot; Sometimes by secret springs I learn to stir, As pasteboard saints dance by miraculous wire ; SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 125 Then 1 Tradescant's rarities outdo,* Sand's water-works, and German clock-work too,t Or any choice device at Bartholomew. Sometimes I utter oracles, by priest Instead of a familiar possessed. The church I vindicate, Luther confute, And cause amazement in the gaping rout. Such holy cheats, such hocus tricks, as these, For miracles amongst the rabble pass. By this, in their esteem I daily grow, In wealth enriched, increased in votaries too; This draws each year vast numbers to my tomb, More than in pilgrimage to Mecca come ; This brings each week new presents to my shrine, And makes it those of India gods outshine ; This gives a chalice, that a golden cross, Another massy candlesticks bestows, Some, altar-cloths of costly work and price, Plush, tissue, ermine, silks of noblest dies, The Birth and Passion in embroideries ; Some jewels, rich as those the ^Egyptian punk In jellies to her Roman lover drunk; Some offer gorgeous robes, which serve to wear When I on holy days in state appear; When I'm in pomp on high processions shown, Like pageants of Lord Mayor, or Skimmington. Lucullus could not such a wardrobe boast ; Less those of popes at their election cost ; * John Tradescant, usually called Tradeskin by his contemporaries, a celebrated collector of curiosities, originally gardener to the Duke of Buckingham, and subsequently to Charles I. He livid in South Lam- beth, where he had hia museum and botanic garden. His house, since known as Turret House, contained so vast a variety of rarities that it was commonly called Tradeecant'a Ark. Evelyn records a \i>it to him in 1657. After his death his son gave the whole collection to Ellas Ashmole, who presented it to the University of oxford, where it formed the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum. t German clock-work was much in vogue in this reign. Pepya speaks of a 'brave clock,' belonging to the King, thai wenl with bullets; and describes another which, by its me ch a nism, displayed the various stages of man's life. This latter was made by au Englishman. 126 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Less those, which Sicily's tyrant heretofore From plundered gods, and Jove's own shoulders tore. Hither, as to some fair, the rabble come, To barter for the merchandize of Rome; Where priests, like mountebanks, on stage appear, To expose the frippery of their hallowed ware; This is the laboratory of their trade, The shop where all their staple drugs are made; Prescriptions and receipts to bring in gain, All from the church dispensatories ta'en. The pope's elixir, holy water's here, Which they with chemic art distilled prepare; Choice above Goddard's drops,* and all the trash Of modern quacks; this is that sovereign wash For fetching spots and morphewf from the face, And scouring dirty clothes, and consciences. One drop of this, if used, had power to fray The legion from the hogs of Gadara ; This would have silenced quite the Wiltshire Drum, And made the prating fiend of Mascon dumb. That vessel consecrated oil contains, Kept sacred, as the famed ampoule:}: of France, Which some profaner heretics would use For liquoring wheels of jacks, of boots, and shoes; This makes the chrism, § which, mixed by cunning priests, Anoints young catholics for the church's lists; And when they're crossed, confessed, and die, by this Their launching souls slide off to endless bliss; As Lapland saints, when they on broomsticks fly, By help of magic unctions mount the sky. Yon altar-pi x || of gold is the abode And safe repository of their god. A cross is fixed upon 't the fiends to scare, And flies which would the deity besmear; • Dr. Jonathan Goddard, who had been physician to Cromwell, and Member of Parliament for Oxfordshire in i653- 1 A rash or scurf on the skin. The word is obsolete, t The phial in which holy oil is kept. j The unguent used in the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. U The vessel in which the consecrated Host is kept. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 127 And mice, which oft might unprepared receive, And to lewd scoffers cause of scandal give. Here are performed the conjurings and spells, For christening saints, and hawks, and carriers' bells; For hallowing slireds, and grains, and salts, and balms,* Shrines, crosses, medals, shells, and waxen lambs : Of wondrous virtue all (you must believe) And from all sorts of ill preservative ; From plague, infection, thunder, storm, and hail, Love, grief, want, debt, sin, and the devil and all. Here beads are blest, and pater nosters framed, (By some the tallies of devotion named) Which of their prayers, and orisons keep tale, Lest they and Heaven should in the reckoning fail. Here sacred lights, the altar's graceful pride, Are by priests' breath perfumed and sanctified; Made some of wax, of heretics' tallow some, A gift, which Irish Emma sent to Rome; For which great merit worthily (we're told) She's now amongst her country-saints enrolled. Here holy banners are reserved in store, And flags, siich as the famed Armada bore; And hallowed swords, and daggers kept for use, When restive kings the papal yoke refuse ; And consecrated ratsbane, to be laid For heretic vermin, which the church invade. But that which brings in most of wealth and gain. Does best the priests' swollen tripes and purses strain, Here they each week their constant auctions hold Of reliques, which by candle's inch are sold : Saints by the dozen here are set to sale, Like mortals wrought in gingerbread on stall. Hither are loads from emptied channels brought, And voiders of the worms from sextons bought, Which serve for retail through the world to vent, Such as of late were to the Savoy sent ; * Balsams used in embalming. 128 SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. Hair from the skulls of dying strumpets shorn, And felons' bones, from rifled gibbets torn, Like those, which some old hag at midnight steals, For witchcrafts, amulets, and charms, and spells, Are passed for sacred to the cheapening rout, And worn on fingers, breasts, and ears about. This boasts a scrap of me, and that a bit Of good St. George, St. Patrick, or St. Kit; These locks St. Bridget's were, and those St. Clare's; Some for St. Catharine's go, and some for her's That wiped her Saviour s feet, washed with her tears. Here you may see my wounded leg, and here Those which to China bore the great Xavier. Here may you the grand traitor's halter see, Some call 't the arms of the society; Here is his lantern too, but Faux's not, That was embezzled by the Huguenot. Here Garnet's straws, and Becket's bones and hair, For murdering whom, some tails are said to wear, As learned Capgrave does record their fate, And faithful British histories relate. Those are St. Lawrence' coals exposed to view, Strangely preserved, and kept alive till now ; That's the famed Wildefortis' wondrous beard, For which her maidenshame the tyrant spared; Yon is the Baptist's coat, and one of 's heads, The rest are shown in many a place besides; And of his teeth as many sets there are, As on their belt3 six operators wear. Eere blessed Mary's milk, not yet turned sour, Renowned (like asses') for its healing power, Ten Holland kine scarce in a year give more. I [ere is her manteau, and a smock of hers, Fellow to that, which once relieved Poictiers;* Besides her husband's utensils of trade, \Y herewith some prove that images were made. • The Maid of Orleans. SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS. 120 Here is the soldier's spear, and passion-nails Whose quantity would serve for building Paul's ; Chips, some from Holy Cross, from Tyburn some, Honoured by many a Jesuit's martyrdom; All held of special and miraculous power, Not Tabor more approved for ague's cure. Here shoes, which once perhaps at Newgate hung, Angling their charity that passed along,* Now for St. Peter's go, and the office bear For priests, they did for lesser villains there. These are the Fathers' implements and tools, Their gaudy trangumst for inveigling fools ; These serve for baits the simple to ensnare, Like children spirited with toys at fair. Nor are they half the artifices yet, By which the vulgar they delude and cheat ; Which should I undertake, much easier I, Much sooner, might compute what sins there be Wiped off, and pardoned at a jubilee ; What bribes enrich the datary| each year, Or vices treated on by Escobar; How many punks in Rome profess the trade, Or greater numbers by confession made. One undertakes by scale of miles to tell The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell ; How far and wide the infernal monarch reigns, How many German leagues his realm contains; Who are his ministers, pretends to know, And all their several offices below; How many chaldrons he each year expends In coals for roasting Huguenots and fiends ; * Alluding to the old custom by which prisoners solicited charity from the passers-by. A shoe, into which alms were dropped, Has suspended by a string to the level of the strei t. \ Sometimes trinkum-tranknms — trinkets, toys. There wu on old engine, called a trink, which was used tor catching li.-h. I The officer in the Chancery of Home, who aili.xcs the datum /.'<fZS«££Zi rSSo- of hSory, biography, and arc a History of Ms oum Times, from 1500 to i566, a toueavm oj Councils; and The Lives oftlie Saints. 133 THE CARELESS GOOD FELLOW.* SONG. I A PLAGUE of this fooling and plotting of late, -*-*- What a pother and stir has it kept in the State ; Let the rabble run mad with suspicions and fears, Let them scuffle and jar, till they go by the ears; Their grievances never shall trouble my pate, So I can enjoy my dear bottle at quiet. 2 What coxcombs were those who would barter their ease And their necks for a toy, a thin wafer and mass; At old Tyburn thay never had needed to swing, Had they been but true subjects to drinkand their king; A friend and a bottle is all my design ; He has no room for toeason, that's top-full of wine. 3 I mind not the members and makers of laws, Let them sit or prorogue, as his majesty please; Let them damn us to woollen,t I'll never repine At my lodging when dead, so alive I have wine; Yet oft in my drink I can hardly forbear To curse them for making my claret so dear. 4 I mind not grave asses who idly debate About right and succession, the trifles of state ; We've a good king already ; and he deserves laughter That will trouble his head with who shall come alter; Come, here's to his health, and I wish he may be As free from all care and all trouble as we. 5 What care I how leagues with the Hollander go? Or intrigues betwixt Sidney and Monsieur D'Avaux? * Written in March, 1680. t The Woollen Act came into operation ou the ist August, 1678. 134 AN IMITATION OF HORACE. What concerns it my drinking, if Cassel be sold, If the conqueror take it by storming, or gold* Good Bordeaux alone is the place that I mind, And when the fleet's coming, I pray for a wind. 6 The bully of France, that aspires to renown By dull cutting of throats, and venturing his own, Let him fight and be damned, and make matches and treat, To afford the newsmongers and coffee-house chat ; He's but a brave wretch, while I am more free, More safe, and a thousand times happier than he. 7 Come he, or the pope, or the devil to boot, Or come faggot and stake, I care not a groat ; Never think that in Smithfield I porters will heat : No, I swear, Mr. Fox, pray excuse me for that. I'll drink in defiance of gibbet and halter, This is the profession that never will alter. A AN IMITATION OF HORACE. BOOK I. SATIRE IX.* Ibam forte via sacra, &c. S I was walking in the Mall of late, Alone, and musing on I know not what; Comes a familiar fop, whom hardly I Knew by his name, and rudely seizes me : « Dear sir, I'm mighty glad to meet with you : And pray, how have you done this age, or twof ' Well, I thank God,' said I, ' as times are now : I wish the same to you.' And so passed on, Hoping with this, the coxcomb would be gone. » This is one of the pieces selected for particular approbation by Tope. It was written in June, 1681. AN IMITATION OF HORACE. 135 But when I saw I could not thus get free, I asked, what business else he had for me 1 ? ' Sir,' answered he, ' if learning, parts, or sense Merit your friendship, I have just pretence.' ' I honour you,' said I, ' upon that score, And shall be glad to serve you to my power.' Meantime, wild to get loose, I try all ways To shake him off; sometimes I walk apace, Sometimes stand still ; I frown, I chafe, I fret, Shrug, turn my back, as in the Bagnio, sweat ; And show all kinds of signs to make him guess At my impatience and uneasiness. ' Happy the folk in Newgate !' whispered I, ' Who, though in chains, are from this torment free ; Would I were like rough Manly* in the play, To send impertinents with kicks away!' He all the while baits me with tedious chat, Speaks much about the drought, and how the rate Of hay is raised, and what it now goes at ; Tells me of a new comet at the Hague, Portending God knows what, a dearth, or plague ; Names every wench that passes through the park, How much she is allowed, and who the spark ; Who had ill hap at the groom-porter's board, Three nights ago, in play with such a lord; When he observed I minded not a word, And did no answer to his trash afford, ' Sir, I perceive you stand on thorns,' said he, • And fain would part ; but, faith, it must not be ; Come, let us take a bottle.' I cried, ' No; Sir, I'm an invalid, and dare not now.' ' Then tell me whither you desire to go : I'll wait upon you.' ' Oh! sir, 'tis too far: I visit cross the water ; therefore spare Your needless trouble.' 'Trouble! sir, 'tis none : 'Tis more by half to leave you here alone. * A character in the Plain-Dealer. 13G AN IMITATION OF HORACE. I have no present business to attend, At least, which I'll not quit for such a friend. Tell me not of the distance ; for, I vow, I'll cut the Line, double the Cape for you ; Good faith, I will not leave you; make no words ; Go you to Lambeth? Is it to my lord's 1 ? His steward I most intimately know, Have often drunk with his comptroller too.' By this I found my wheedle would not pass, But rather served my sufferings to increase ; And seeing 'twas in vain to vex, or fret, I patiently submitted to my fate. Straight he begins again : * Sir, if you knew My worth but half so thoroughly as I do; I'm sure you would not value any friend You have, bike me ; but that I wont commend Myself, and my own talents, I might tell How many ways to wonder I excel. None has a greater gift in poetry, Or writes more verses with more ease than I; I'm grown the envy of the men of wit, I killed even Rochester with grief and spite ; Next for the dancing part I all surpass, St. Andre* never moved with such a grace; And 'tis well known, whene'er I sing or set, Humphreys, nor Blow,f could ever match me yet.' Here I got room to interrupt : ' Have you A mother, sir, or kindred living now?' ' Not one : they are all dead.' ' Troth, so I guessed ' The happier they,' said I, ' who are at rest ! Poor I am only left unmurdered yet ; Ha3te, I beseech you, and despatch me quite ; For I am well conviuced, my time is come : When I was young, a gipsy told my doom: * The famous dancing-master. t The composer. Humphreys was a 6inger. AN IMITATION OF HORACE. 137 This lad (said she, and looked upon my hand,) Shall not by sword, or poison come to's end, Nor by the fever, dropsy, gout, or stone, But he shall die by an etei-nal tongue ; Therefore, when he's grown up, if he be wise, Let hiin avoid great talkers, I advise.' By this time we were got to Westminster, Where he by chance a trial had to hear, And, if he were not there, his cause must fall : ' Sir, if you love me, step into the Hall For one half-hour.' ' The devil take me now,' Said I, ' if I know anything of law : Besides, I told you whither I'm to go.' Hereat he made a stand, pulled down his hat Over his eyes, and mused in deep debate : ' I'm in a strait,' says he, ' what I shall do : Whether forsake my business, sir, or you.' ' Me by all means,' say I. ' No,' says my sot, ' I fear you'll take it ill, if I should do't ; I'm sure you will.' ' Not I, by all that's good, But I've more breeding, than to be so rude. Fray, don't neglect your own concerns for me; Your cause, good sir !' 'My cause be damned,' says he, ' I value't less than your dear company.' With this he came up to me, and would lead The way ; I, sneaking after, hung my head. Next he begins to plague me with the plot, Asks, whether I were known to Oates or not? ' Not I, thank Heaven ! I no priest have been ; Have never Douay, nor St. Omer seen.' ' What think you, sir ; will they the Joiner try ?* Will he die, think you?' ' Yes, most certainly.' ' I mean, be hanged.' ' Would thou wert so,' wished I ! * College, the ' Protestant joiner,' who wrote a satirical ballad on the removal of the Parliament, and was tried and executed on the 3i st August, i