Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

CLERGY AND CHURCHMEN.

For this the clergy will still argue on,
Deny for pique, assert from prejudice;
Show us the lesson, seldom the example,
And preach up laws which they will ne'er obey.
Havard's King Charles I.
He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve 'em in a trice;
As if divinity had catch'd

The itch on purpose to be scratch'd.

Butler's Hudibras

But preaching was his chiefest talent,
Or argument, in which being valiant,
He us'd to lay about and stickle,
Like ram or bull at conventicle;
For disputants, like rams and bulls,
Do fight with arms that spring from skulls.
Butler's Hudibras.

Denounc'd and pray'd, with fierce devotion,
And bended elbows on the cushion;
Stole from the beggars all their tones,
And gifted mortifying groans:
Had lights where better eyes were blind,
As pigs are said to see the wind.

And yet the actions be contrary,
Just as the saints and wicked vary.

71

Butler's Hudibras

You want to lead

My reason blindfold like a hamper'd lion,
Check'd of his noble vigour: then, when baited
Down to obedient tameness, may it couch,
And show strange tricks, which you call signs of
faith:

So silly souls are gull'd, and you get money!
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Is not the care of souls a load sufficient?
Are not your holy stipends paid for this?
Were you not bred apart from worldly noise
To study souls, their cures, and their diseases?
The province of the soul is large enough
To fill up every cranny of your time,
And leave you much to answer, if one wretch
Be damn'd by your neglect.

Dryden's Don Sebastian.
I tell thee, Mufti, if the world were wise,
They would not wag one finger in thy quarrels:
Your heav'n you promise, but our earth you covet:
The Phaetons of mankind, who fire that world

Butler's Hudibras. Which you were sent, by preaching but to warm.

[blocks in formation]

Butler's Hudbiras.

The godly may allege,

For any thing their privilege;
And to the devil himself may go,
If they have motives thereunto,
For, as there is a war between
The devil and them, it is no sin,
If they by subtle stratagem
Make use of him, as he does them.

Butler's Hudibras.

[blocks in formation]

Dryden's Don Sebastian,
Bloated with ambition, pride and avarice,
You swell to counsel kings and govern kingdoms.
Content you with monopolizing heav'n,

And let this little hanging ball alone :

For give you but a foot of conscience there,
And you, like Archimedes, top the globe.

Dryden's Don Sebastian.
I met a reverend, fat, old, gouty friar,
With a paunch swoll'n so high, his double chin
Might rest upon't: a true son of the church!
Fresh-colour'd and well-thriving on his trade.
Dryden's Spanish Fair.
Priesthood, that makes a merchandise of Heav'n!
Priesthood, that sells ev'n to their pray'rs and
blessings,

And force us to pay for our own cos'nage.

Dryden's Troilus and Cressida. The proud he tam'd, the penitent he cheer'd:

Nor to rebuke the rich offender fear'd.

His preaching much, but more his practice

[blocks in formation]

Iis talk was now of tythes and dues;
He smok'd his pipe, and read the news;
Knew how to preach old sermons next,
Vamp'd in the preface and the text;
At christenings well could act his part,
And had the service all by heart;
Wish'd women might have children fast,
And thought whose sow had farrow'd last;
Against dissenters would repine,
And stood up firm for right divine;
Found his head fill'd with many a system,
But classic authors- he ne'er miss'd 'em.

Swift's Baucis and Philemon.
If such dinners you give,
You'll ne'er want for parsons as long as you live:
I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose,
But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes.

Why seek we truth from priests?

[blocks in formation]

Of right and wrong he taught
Truths as refined as ever Athens heard;
And (strange to tell!) he practised what he
preach'd.

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health. Swift. The royal letters are a thing of course,

[blocks in formation]

Rear in the streets bright altars to the gods,
Let virgin's hands adorn the sacrifice;
And not a grey-beard forging priest come here,
To pry into the bowels of their victim,
And with their dotage mad the gaping world.
Lee's Edipus.

Ill befall
Such meddling priests, wh. kindle up confusion,
And vex the quiet world with their vain scruples;
By heav'n 't is done in perfect spite of peace.
Rowe's Jane Shore.

Others of graver mien, behold, adorn'd
With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes,
Take homage of the simple-minded throng;
Ambassadors of heaven!

Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination.
lvear yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had chang'd nor wish'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

A king, that would, might recommend his horse;
And deans, no doubt, and chapters with one voice,
As bound in duty, would confirm the choice.
Behold your bishop!-well he plays his part,
Christian in name, and infidel in heart,
Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan,
A slave at court, elsewhere a lady's man.
Dumb as a senator, and as a priest;

A piece of mere church-furniture at best.
Cowper's Tirocinium
Your lordship and your grace, what schools can
teach

A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech?
What need of Homer's verse, or Tully's prose,
Sweet interjections! if he learn but those:
Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke
Who starve upon a dog's-ear'd Pentateuch,
The parson knows enough who knows

duke. Cowper's Tirocinium.

In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.

Cowper's Task

Behold the picture! Is it like? Like whom?
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip
And then skip down again. Pronounce a text,
Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
Cowper's Task.

From such apostles, oh ye mitred heads,
Preserve the church; and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.
Cowper's Task

[blocks in formation]

Burns's Holy Friar. Haughty of heart and brow the warrior came, In look and language proud as proud could be, Vaunting his lordship, lineage, fights and fame; Yet was that bare-foot monk more proud than he. Scott's Vision of Don Roderick. Such vast impressions did his sermons make, He always kept his flock awake.

Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
In short, no dray-horse ever work'd so hard,
From vaults to drag up hogshead, tun, or pipe,
As this good priest, to drag, for small reward,
The souls of sinners from the devil's gripe.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.

Did gentlemen of fortune die,
And leave the church a good round sum;
Lo! in the twinkling of an eye,

The parson frank'd their souls to kingdom come.
Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Whate'er

I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself—I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator.

Byron's Manfred.

Pollock. "What is a Church?" Let truth and reason speak; They should reply-"The faithful, pure, and

meek,

From Christian folds, the one selected race, Of all professions, and of every place.”

I like a church, I like a cowl,
I love a prophet of the soul,

And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles,
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.

Crabbe

[blocks in formation]

14

CIRCUMVENTION-CIGAR-CITY AND CITIZENS.

Strange things, the neighbours say, have happen'd

there :

Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs,
Dead men have come again, and walk'd about;
And the great bell has toll'd unrung, untouch'd.
Such tales their cheer at wake or gossipping,
When it draws near to 'witching time of night.
Blair's Grave.
There lay the warrior and the son of song,
And there-in silence till the judgment day—
The orator, whose all-persuading tongue
Had mov'd the nations with resistless sway.
Mrs. Norton.
What to us the grave?

It brings no real homily! we sigh,
Pause for awhile and murmur-"All must die!"
Then rush to pleasure, action, sin, once more,
Swell the loud tide and fret unto the shore.

The New Timon.
In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom,
What holy awe invests the sacred tomb!
There pride will bow, and anxious care expand,
And creeping avarice come with open hand;
The gay can weep, the impious can adore,
From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel

floor

Till dying sunset shed his crimson stains
Through the faint halos of the iris'd panes.

O. W. Holmes.
Yet there are graves, whose rudely shapen sod
Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod;
Graves where the verdure has not dar'd to shoot,
Where the chance wildflower has not fix'd its root,
Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name,
The eternal record shall at length proclaim
Pure as the holiest in the long array
Of hooded, mitred, or tiara'd clay!

[blocks in formation]

So merchant has his house in town,
O. W. Holmes. And country-seat near Banstead down:
From one he dates his foreign letters,
Sends out his goods, and duns his debtors;
In t'other, at his hours of leisure,
He smokes his pipe, and takes his pleasure.
Prior's Alma.

CIRCUMVENTION.

They must sweep my way,

And marshal me to knavery: Let it work-
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard; and 't shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.

Shaks. Hamlet.

This work requires long time, dissembling looks,
Commixt with undermining actions,
Watching advantages to execute

Our foes are mighty, and their number great,
It therefore follows that our stratagems
Must branch forth into manifold deccits,
Endless devices, bottomless conclusions.

Chapman's Alphonsus.

Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth;
His word would pass for more than he was worth.
One solid dish his week-day meal affords,
And added pudding solemniz'd the Lord's;
Constant at church and 'change, his gains were

sure,

His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.
Pope's Moral Essays,

Or at some banker's desk, like many more,
Content to tell that two and two make four,
His name had stood in city annals fair,
And prudent dulness mark'd him for a mayor.
Churchill'e Rosciad

The cita common councilman by place, Ten thousand mighty nothings in his face, By situation as by nature great,

With nice precision parcels out the state;
Proves and disproves, affirms and then denies,
Objects himself, and to himself replies:
Wielding aloft the politician's rod,

Makes Pitt by turns a devil and a god:

Maintains ev'n to the very teeth of pow'r,

The same thing right and wrong in half an hour,

Now all is well, now he suspects a plot,
And plainly proves whatever is—is not:
Fearfully wise, he shakes his empty head,
And deals out empires as he deals out thread;
His useless scales are in a corner flung,
And Europe's balance hangs upon his tongue.
Churchill's Rosciad.

Suburban villas, highway-side retreats,
That dread th' encroachment of our growing

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

They came, they went,
This fairy form alone impress'd
Its perfect image in my breast,
And shines as richly blazon'd there
As in its element of air.

J. Montgomery. Now a cloud,

Massive and black, strides up; the angry geam Of the red lightning cleaves the frowning folds. Street's Poems

Wafted up,

The stealing cloud with soft grey blinds the sky
And in its vapory mantle onward steps
The summer shower.

Street's Poems.

Ye clouds, that are the ornament of heaven,
Who give to it its gayest shadowings
And its most awful glories; ye who roll

In the dark tempest, or at dewy evening
Bow low in tenderest beauty;-ye are to us
A volume full of wisdom.

Hood,

Percival's Poema

« PředchozíPokračovat »