Perdy, I loath a hundreth Mathoes' tongues,
An hundreth gamesters' shifts, or landlords' wrongs,
Or Labeo's poems, or base Lolio's pride,
Or ever what I thought or wrote beside;
When once I thinke if carping Aquine's* spright
To see now Rome, were licenc'd to the light,
How his enraged ghost would stamp and stare,
That Cæsar's throne is turn'd to Peter's chayre.
To see an old shorne Lozell + perched high,
Crossing beneath a golden canopy;
The whiles a thousand hairlesse crownes crouch low,
To kisse the precious case of his proud toe:
And for the lordly Fasces borne of old,
To see two quiet crossed keyes of gold;
Or Cybele's shrine, the famous Pantheon's frame,
Turn'd to the honour of our Lady's name.
But that he most would gaze and wonder at,
Is th' horned mitre, and the bloody hat,
The crooked staffe, their coule's strange form and store,
Save that he saw the same in hell before:
To see the broken nuns, with new-shorne heads,
In a blind cloyster tosse their idle beades,
Or louzy coules come smoking from the stewes,
To raise the lewd rent to their lord accrewes,
* Juvenal.-See Spenser, st. 25.
† A lazy lubber. See Phillip's New World of Words.
(Who with ranke Venice* doth his pompe advance
By trading of ten thousand courtezans)
Yet backward must absolve a female's sin;
Like to a false dissembling Theatine†,
Who, when his skin is red with shirts of male
And rugged hair-cloth, scoures his greasy nayle;
Or wedding garment tames his stubborne backe,
Which his hempe girdle dies all blew and blacke:
Or, of his almes-boule three dayes supp'd and din'd,
Trudges to open stewes of either kinde:
Or takes some Cardinal's stable in the way,
And with some pamper'd mule doth weare the day,
Kept for his lord's own saddle when him list.
Come, Valentine, and play the satyrist,
To see poor sucklings welcom'd to the light
With searing irons of some sour Jacobite,
Or golden offers of an aged foole,
To make his coffin some Franciscan's coule‡;
To see the Pope's blacke knight, a cloaked Frere,
Sweating in the channel like a scavengere;
Whom earst thy bowed hamme did lowly greete,
When at the corner-crosse thou didst him meete,
Tumbling his Rosaries hanging at his belt,
Or his Barretta, or his towred felt:
*See Pratt's Hall, vol. 10, p. 201.
For the value of a Cowl, see Pennant's London, Art. Christ Church.
|| Pratt's Hall, vol. 10, p. 353.
To see a lazy dumbe Acholithite*,
Armed against a devout flye's despight,
Which at th' hy altar doth the Chalice vaile
With a broad flie-flappe of a peacocke's tayle;
The whiles the likerous priest spits every tryce +
With longing for his morning sacrifice,
Which he reares up quite perpendiculare,
That the mid church doth spighte the chancel's fare,
Beating their empty mawes that would be fed
With the scant morsels of the sacrists bread:
Would he not laugh to death when he should heare
The shameless legends of St. Christopher,
St. George, the Sleepers, or St. Peter's well,
Or of his daughter good St. Petronell †?
But had he heard the Female Father's groane,
Yeaning in mids of her procession §;
Or now should see the needlesse tryal-chayre,
(When each is proved by his bastard heyre)
Or saw the churches, and new calendere
Pestred with mungrel saints and reliques dere,
Should he cry out on Codro's || tedious tomes,
When his new rage would ask no narrower roomes?
* See Bishop Carleton's Remembrance.-Also Mason's Supplement to Johnson.
+ See Pratt's Hall, vol. 10, p. 353, for a very rational remark on Warton's observations on this passage.
Ibid. p. 354. Mr. Ellis observes, that these legends are amongst the MS. given by Bishop Fell to the Bodleian library. Alluding to the story of Pope Joan.
PARDON, ye glowing eares: needs will it out,
Tho' brazen walls compas'd my tongue about,
As thick as welthy Scrobioe's quick-set rowes
In the wide common that he did inclose.
Pull out mine eyes, if I shall see no vice,
Or let me see it with detesting eyes.
Renowned Aquine*, now I follow thee,
Far as I may for fear of jeopardy;
And to thy hand yield up the ivy-mace,
From crabbed Persius, and more smooth Horace;
Or from that shrew, the Roman Poetesse,
That taugh her gossips learned bitternesse;
Or Lucile's muse, whom thou didst imitate,
Or Menip's old, or Pasquiller's of late.
Yet name I not Mutius, or Tigilline,
Tho' they deserve a keener style than mine;
Nor meane to ransack up the quiet grave;
Nor burn dead bones, as he example gave.
I taxe the living: let the dead ashes rest,
Whose faults are dead, and nailed in their chest.
Who can refrain that's guiltlesse of their crime,
Whiles yet he lives in such a cruel time?
When Titio's grounds, that in his grandsire's daies
But one pound fine, one penny rent did raise,
A summer snow-ball, or a winter rose,
Is growne to thousands as the world now goes.
So thrift, and time, sets other things on flote,
That now his sonne sooups in a silken cote,
Whose grandsire happily, a poore hungry swaine,
Beg'd some cast abbey in the church's wayne:
And, but for that, whatever he may vaunt,
Who now's a monk had been a mendicant.
While freezing Matho, that for one lean fee
Wont term each term the term of Hilarie,
May now, instead of those his simple fees,
Get the fee-simples of faire manneryes*.
What, did he coynterfait his prince's hand,
For some strave lordship of concealed land?
Or, on each Michael and Lady-Day,
Took he deepe forfeits for an hour's delay;
* See Pratt's Hall, vol. 10, p. 358.
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