<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=512565" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto II</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE ARGUMENT</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Saints engage in fierce Contests<br>About their Carnal interests;<br>To share their sacrilegious Preys,<br>According to their Rates of Grace;<br>Their various Frenzies to reform,<br>When Cromwel left them in a Storm<br>Till, in th' Effigy of Rumps, the Rabble<br>Burns all their Grandees of the Cabal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE learned write, an insect breeze<br>Is but a mungrel prince of bees,<br>That falls before a storm on cows,<br>And stings the founders of his house;<br>From whose corrupted flesh that breed<br>Of vermin did at first proceed.<br>So e're the storm of war broke out,<br>Religion spawn'd a various rout<br>Of petulant Capricious sects,<br>The maggots of corrupted texts,<br>That first run all religion down,<br>And after ev'ry swarm its own.<br>For as the Persian Magi once<br>Upon their mothers got their sons,<br>That were incapable t' enjoy <br>That empire any other way;<br>So PRESBYTER begot the other<br>Upon the good old Cause, his mother,<br>Then bore then like the Devil's dam,<br>Whose son and husband are the same.<br>And yet no nat'ral tie of blood<br>Nor int'rest for the common good<br>Cou'd, when their profits interfer'd,<br>Get quarter for each other's beard.<br>For when they thriv'd, they never fadg'd,<br>But only by the ears engag'd:<br>Like dogs that snarl about a bone,<br>And play together when they've none,<br>As by their truest characters,<br>Their constant actions, plainly appears.<br>Rebellion now began, for lack<br>Of zeal and plunders to grow slack;<br>The Cause and covenant to lessen,<br>And Providence to b' out of season:<br>For now there was no more to purchase <br>O' th' King's Revenue, and the Churches,<br>But all divided, shar'd, and gone,<br>That us'd to urge the Brethren on;<br>Which forc'd the stubborn'st for the Cause,<br>To cross the cudgels to the laws, <br>That what by breaking them th' had gain'd.<br>By their support might be maintain'd;<br>Like thieves, that in a hemp-plot lie<br>Secur'd against the hue-and-cry;<br>For PRESBYTER and INDEPENDANT <br>Were now turn'd plaintiff and defendant;<br>Laid out their apostolic functions<br>On carnal orders and injunctions;<br>And all their precious Gifts and Graces<br>On outlawries and scire facias;<br>At Michael's term had many a trial,<br>Worse than the Dragon and St. Michael,<br>Where thousands fell, in shape of fees,<br>Into the bottomless abyss.<br>For when like brethren, and like friends, <br>They came to share their dividends,<br>And ev'ry partner to possess<br>His Church and State Joint-Purchases,<br>In which the ablest Saint, and best,<br>Was nam'd in trust by all the rest, <br>To pay their money; and, instead<br>Of ev'ry Brother, pass the deed;<br>He strait converted all his gifts<br>To pious frauds and holy shifts;<br>And settled all the other shares<br>Upon his outward man and's heirs;<br>Held all they claim'd as forfeit lands,<br>Deliver'd up into his hands,<br>And pass'd upon his conscience,<br>By Pre-intail of Providence;<br>Impeach'd the rest for reprobates,<br>That had no titles to estates,<br>But by their spiritual attaints<br>Degraded from the right of Saints.<br>This b'ing reveal'd, they now begun <br>With law and conscience to fall on,<br>And laid about as hot and brain-sick<br>As th' Utter Barrister of SWANSWICK;<br>Engag'd with moneybags as bold<br>As men with sand bags did of old; <br>That brought the lawyers in more fees<br>Than all unsanctify'd Trustees;<br>Till he who had no more to show<br>I' th' case receiv'd the overthrow;<br>Or both sides having had the worst, <br>They parted as they met at first.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor PRESBYTER was now reduc'd,<br>Secluded, and cashier'd, and chous'd<br>Turn'd out, and excommunicate<br>From all affairs of Church and State;<br>Reform'd t' a reformado Saint,<br>And glad to turn itinerant,<br>To stroll and teach from town to town,<br>And those he had taught up, teach down.<br>And make those uses serve agen <br>Against the new-enlighten'd men,<br>As fit as when at first they were<br>Reveal'd against the CAVALIER;<br>Damn ANABAPTIST and FANATIC,<br>As pat as Popish and Prelatic;<br>And with as little variation,<br>To serve for any Sect i' th' nation.<br>The Good Old Cause, which some believe<br>To be the Dev'l that tempted EVE<br>With Knowledge, and does still invite<br>The world to mischief with new Light,<br>Had store of money in her purse<br>When he took her for bett'r or worse;<br>But now was grown deform'd and poor,<br>And fit to be turn'd out of door. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The INDEPENDENTS (whose first station<br>Was in the rear of reformation,<br>A mungrel kind of church-dragoons,<br>That serv'd for horse and foot at once;<br>And in the saddle of one steed <br>The Saracen and Christian rid;<br>Were free of ev'ry spiritual order,<br>To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder)<br>No sooner got the start to lurch<br>Both disciplines, of War and Church<br>And Providence enough to run<br>The chief commanders of 'em down,<br>But carry'd on the war against<br>The common enemy o' th' Saints,<br>And in a while prevail'd so far, <br>To win of them the game of war,<br>And be at liberty once more<br>T' attack themselves, as th' had before.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For now there was no foe in arms,<br>T' unite their factions with alarms,<br>But all reduc'd and overcome,<br>Except their worst, themselves at home,<br>Wh' had compass'd all they pray'd, and swore,<br>And fought, and preach'd, and plunder'd for;<br>Subdu'd the Nation, Church, and State, <br>And all things, but their laws and hate:<br>But when they came to treat and transact,<br>And share the spoil of all th' had ransackt,<br>To botch up what th' had torn and rent,<br>Religion and the Government,<br>They met no sooner, but prepar'd<br>To pull down all the war had spar'd<br>Agreed in nothing, but t' abolish,<br>Subvert, extirpate, and demolish.<br>For knaves and fools b'ing near of kin <br>As Dutch Boors are t' a Sooterkin,<br>Both parties join'd to do their best<br>To damn the publick interest,<br>And herded only in consults,<br>To put by one another's bolts;<br>T' out-cant the Babylonian labourers,<br>At all their dialects of jabberers,<br>And tug at both ends of the saw,<br>To tear down Government and Law.<br>For as two cheats, that play one game,<br>Are both defeated of their aim;<br>So those who play a game of state,<br>And only cavil in debate,<br>Although there's nothing lost or won,<br>The publick bus'ness is undone; <br>Which still the longer 'tis in doing,<br>Becomes the surer way to ruin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This, when the ROYALISTS perceiv'd,<br>(Who to their faith as firmly cleav'd,<br>And own'd the right they had paid down <br>So dearly for, the Church and Crown,)<br>Th' united constanter, and sided<br>The more, the more their foes divided.<br>For though out-number'd, overthrown<br>And by the fate of war run down) <br>Their duty never was defeated,<br>Nor from their oaths and faith retreated;<br>For loyalty is still the same,<br>Whether it win or lose the game;<br>True as the dial to the sun, <br>Although it be not shin'd upon.<br>But when these brethren in evil,<br>Their adversaries, and the Devil,<br>Began once more to shew them play,<br>And hopes, at least, to have a day,<br>They rally'd in parades of woods,<br>And unfrequented solitudes;<br>Conven'd at midnight in out-houses,<br>T' appoint new-rising rendezvouzes,<br>And with a pertinacy unmatch'd, <br>For new recruits of danger watch'd.<br>No sooner was one blow diverted,<br>But up another party started;<br>And, as if nature too, in haste<br>To furnish out supplies as fast,<br>Before her time, had turn'd destruction<br>T' a new and numerous production,<br>No sooner those were overcome,<br>But up rose others in their room,<br>That, like the Christian faith, increast<br>The more, the more they were supprest<br>Whom neither chains, nor transportation,<br>Proscription, sale, or confiscation,<br>Nor all the desperate events<br>Of former try'd experiments <br>Nor wounds cou'd terrify, nor mangling,<br>To leave off loyalty and dangling;<br>Nor death (with all his bones) affright<br>From vent'ring to maintain the right,<br>From staking life and fortune down <br>'Gainst all together, for the Crown;<br>But kept the title of their cause<br>From forfeiture, like claims in laws<br>And prov'd no prosp'rous usurpation<br>Can ever settle in the nation;<br>Until, in spight of force and treason,<br>They put their loyalty in possession;<br>And by their constancy and faith,<br>Destroy 'd the mighty men of Gath.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Toss'd in a furious hurricane,<br>Did OLIVER give up his reign;<br>And was believ'd, as well by Saints,<br>As mortal men and miscreants,<br>To founder in the Stygian Ferry;<br>Until he was retriev'd by STERRY, <br>Who, in a faise erroneous dream,<br>Mistook the New Jerusalem<br>Prophanely for the apocryphal<br>False Heaven at the end o' th' Hall;<br>Whither it was decreed by Fate <br>His precious reliques to translate.<br>So ROMULUS was seen before<br>B' as orthodox a Senator;<br>From whose divine illumination<br>He stole the Pagan revelation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Next him his Son and Heir Apparent<br>Succeeded, though a lame vicegerent;<br>Who first laid by the Parliament,<br>The only crutch on which he leant;<br>And then sunk underneath the State, <br>That rode him above horseman's weight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now the Saints began their reign,<br>For which th' had yearn'd so long in vain,<br>And felt such bowel-hankerings,<br>To see an empire all of Kings.<br>Deliver'd from the Egyptian awe<br>Of Justice, Government, and Law,<br>And free t' erect what spiritual Cantons<br>Should be reveal'd, or Gospel Hans-Towns,<br>To edify upon the ruins <br>Of JOHN of LEYDEN'S old Out-goings;<br>Who for a weather-cock hung up,<br>Upon the Mother Church's top;<br>Was made a type, by Providence,<br>Of all their revelations since;<br>And now fulfill'd by his successors,<br>Who equally mistook their measures<br>For when they came to shape the model,<br>Not one could fit another's noddle;<br>But found their Light and Gifts more wide<br>From fadging than th' unsanctify'd;<br>While ev'ry individual brother<br>Strove hand to fist against another;<br>And still the maddest, and most crackt,<br>Were found the busiest to transact <br>For though most hands dispatch apace,<br>And make light work, (the proverb says,)<br>Yet many diff'rent intellects<br>Are found t' have contrary effects;<br>And many heads t' obstruct intrigues,<br>As slowest insects have most legs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some were for setting up a King;<br>But all the rest for no such thing,<br>Unless KING JESUS. Others tamper'd<br>For FLEETWOOD, DESBOROUGH, and LAMBERT; <br>Some for the Rump; and some, more crafty,<br>For Agitators, and the safety;<br>Some for the Gospel, and massacres<br>Of Spiritual Affidavit-makers,<br>That swore to any human regence, <br>Oaths of supremacy and allegiance;<br>Yea, though the ablest swearing Saint<br>That vouch'd the Bulls o' th' Covenant:<br>Others for pulling down th' high-places<br>Of Synods and Provincial Classes, <br>That us'd to make such hostile inroads<br>Upon the Saints, like bloody NIMRODS<br>Some for fulfilling prophecies,<br>And th' expiration of th' excise<br>And some against th' Egyptian bondage <br>Of holy-days, and paying poundage:<br>Some for the cutting down of groves,<br>And rectifying bakers' loaves:<br>And some for finding out expedients<br>Against the slav'ry of obedience. <br>Some were for Gospel Ministers,<br>And some for Red-coat Seculars,<br>As men most fit t' hold forth the word,<br>And wield the one and th' other sword.<br>Some were for carrying on the work <br>Against the Pope, and some the Turk;<br>Some for engaging to suppress,<br>The Camisado of surplices,<br>That gifts and dispensations hinder'd,<br>And turn'd to th' Outward Man the Inward;<br>More proper for the cloudy night<br>Of Popery than Gospel Light.<br>Others were for abolishing<br>That tool of matrimony, a ring,<br>With which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom <br>Is marry'd only to a thumb;<br>(As wise as ringing of a pig,<br>That us'd to break up ground, and dig);<br>The bride to nothing but her will,<br>That nulls the after-marriage still <br>Some were for th' utter extirpation<br>Of linsey-woolsey in the nation;<br>And some against all idolizing<br>The Cross in shops-books, or Baptizing<br>Others to make all things recant <br>The Christian or Surname of Saint;<br>And force all churches, streets, and towns,<br>The holy title to renounce.<br>Some 'gainst a Third Estate of Souls,<br>And bringing down the price of coals:<br>Some for abolishing black-pudding,<br>And eating nothing with the blood in;<br>To abrogate them roots and branches;<br>While others were for eating haunches<br>Of warriors, and now and then, <br>The flesh of Kings and mighty men<br>And some for breaking of their bones<br>With rods of ir'n, by secret ones:<br>For thrashing mountains, and with spells<br>For hallowing carriers' packs and bells: <br>Things that the legend never heard of,<br>But made the wicked sore afear'd of.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The quacks of Government (who sate<br>At th' unregarded helm of State,<br>And understood this wild confusion <br>Of fatal madness and delusion,<br>Must, sooner than a prodigy,<br>Portend destruction to be nigh)<br>Consider'd timely how t' withdraw,<br>And save their wind-pipes from the law;<br>For one rencounter at the bar<br>Was worse than all th' had 'scap'd in war;<br>And therefore met in consultation<br>To cant and quack upon the nation;<br>Not for the sickly patient's sake, <br>For what to give, but what to take;<br>To feel the pulses of their fees,<br>More wise than fumbling arteries:<br>Prolong the snuff of life in pain,<br>And from the grave recover - Gain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Mong these there was a politician<br>With more heads than a beast in vision,<br>And more intrigues in ev'ry one<br>Than all the whores of Babylon:<br>So politic, as if one eye<br>Upon the other were a spy,<br>That, to trepan the one to think<br>The other blind, both strove to blink;<br>And in his dark pragmatick way,<br>As busy as a child at play.<br>H' had seen three Governments run down,<br>And had a hand in ev'ry one;<br>Was for 'em and against 'em all,<br>But barb'rous when they came to fall<br>For, by trepanning th' old to ruin, <br>He made his int'rest with the new one<br>Play'd true and faithful, though against<br>His conscience, and was still advanc'd.<br>For by the witchcraft of rebellion<br>Transform'd t' a feeble state-camelion,<br>By giving aim from side to side,<br>He never fail'd to save his tide,<br>But got the start of ev'ry state,<br>And at a change ne'er came too late;<br>Cou'd turn his word, and oath, and faith,<br>As many ways as in a lath;<br>By turning, wriggle, like a screw,<br>Int' highest trust, and out, for new.<br>For when h' had happily incurr'd,<br>Instead of hemp, to be preferr'd,<br>And pass'd upon a government,<br>He pay'd his trick, and out he went<br>But, being out, and out of hopes<br>To mount his ladder (more) of ropes,<br>Wou'd strive to raise himself upon <br>The publick ruin, and his own;<br>So little did he understand<br>The desp'rate feats he took in hand.<br>For when h' had got himself a name<br>For fraud and tricks, he spoil'd his game; <br>Had forc'd his neck into a noose,<br>To shew his play at fast and loose;<br>And when he chanc'd t' escape, mistook<br>For art and subtlety, his luck.<br>So right his judgment was cut fit,<br>And made a tally to his wit,<br>And both together most profound<br>At deeds of darkness under-ground;<br>As th' earth is easiest undermin'd<br>By vermin impotent and blind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By all these arts, and many more,<br>H' had practis'd long and much before,<br>Our state artificer foresaw<br>Which way the world began to draw.<br>For as old sinners have all points <br>O' th' compass in their bones and joints,<br>Can by their pangs and aches find<br>All turns and changes of the wind,<br>And better than by NAPIER's bones<br>Feel in their own the age of moons; <br>So guilty sinners in a state<br>Can by their crimes prognosticate,<br>And in their consciences feel pain<br>Some days before a show'r of rain.<br>He therefore wisely cast about, <br>All ways he cou'd, t' ensure his throat;<br>And hither came, t' observe and smoke<br>What courses other riskers took<br>And to the utmost do his best<br>To save himself, and hang the rest.<br>To match this Saint, there was another<br>As busy and perverse a Brother,<br>An haberdasher of small wares<br>In politicks and state affairs;<br>More Jew than Rabbi ACHITOPHEL, <br>And better gifted to rebel:<br>For when h' had taught his tribe to 'spouse<br>The Cause, aloft, upon one house,<br>He scorn'd to set his own in order,<br>But try'd another, and went further;<br>So suddenly addicted still<br>To's only principle, his will,<br>That whatsoe'er it chanc'd to prove,<br>Nor force of argument cou'd move;<br>Nor law, nor cavalcade of Holborn,<br>Could render half a grain less stubborn.<br>For he at any time would hang<br>For th' opportunity t' harangue;<br>And rather on a gibbet dangle,<br>Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle;<br>In which his parts were so accomplisht,<br>That, right or wrong, he ne'er was non-plusht;<br>But still his tongue ran on, the less<br>Of weight it bore, with greater ease;<br>And with its everlasting clack <br>Set all men's ears upon the rack.<br>No sooner cou'd a hint appear,<br>But up he started to picqueer,<br>And made the stoutest yield to mercy,<br>When he engag'd in controversy. <br>Not by the force of carnal reason,<br>But indefatigable teazing;<br>With vollies of eternal babble,<br>And clamour, more unanswerable.<br>For though his topics, frail and weak,<br>Cou'd ne'er amount above a freak,<br>He still maintain'd 'em, like his faults,<br>Against the desp'ratest assaults;<br>And back'd their feeble lack of sense,<br>With greater heat and confidence? <br>As bones of Hectors, when they differ,<br>The more they're cudgel'd grow the stiffer.<br>Yet when his profit moderated,<br>The fury of his heat abated.<br>For nothing but his interest <br>Cou'd lay his Devil of Contest.<br>It was his choice, or chance; or curse,<br>T' espouse the Cause for bett'r or worse,<br>And with his worldly goods and wit,<br>And soul and body, worship'd it: <br>But when he found the sullen trapes<br>Possess'd with th' Devil, worms, and claps;<br>The Trojan mare, in foal with Greeks,<br>Not half so full of jadish tricks;<br>Though squeamish in her outward woman,<br>As loose and rampant as Dol Common;<br>He still resolv'd to mend the matter,<br>T' adhere and cleave the obstinater;<br>And still the skittisher and looser<br>Her freaks appear'd, to sit the closer.<br>For fools are stubborn in their way,<br>As coins are harden'd by th' allay:<br>And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff<br>As when 'tis in a wrong belief.<br>These two, with others, being met,<br>And close in consultation set,<br>After a discontented pause,<br>And not without sufficient cause,<br>The orator we nam'd of late,<br>Less troubled with the pangs of State<br>Than with his own impatience,<br>To give himself first audience,<br>After he had a while look'd wise,<br>At last broke silence, and the ice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Quoth he, There's nothing makes me doubt <br>Our last out-goings brought about,<br>More than to see the characters<br>Of real jealousies and fears<br>Not feign'd, as once, but, sadly horrid,<br>Scor'd upon ev'ry Member's forehead; <br>Who, 'cause the clouds are drawn together,<br>And threaten sudden change of weather,<br>Feel pangs and aches of state-turns,<br>And revolutions in their corns;<br>And, since our workings-out are cross'd,<br>Throw up the Cause before 'tis lost.<br>Was it to run away we meant,<br>When, taking of the Covenant,<br>The lamest cripples of the brothers<br>Took oaths to run before all others;<br>But in their own sense only swore<br>To strive to run away before;<br>And now would prove, that words and oath<br>Engage us to renounce them both?<br>'Tis true, the Cause is in the lurch,<br>Between a Right and Mungrel-Church;<br>The Presbyter and Independent,<br>That stickle which shall make an end on't;<br>As 'twas made out to us the last<br>Expedient - ( I mean Marg'ret's Fast,)<br>When Providence had been suborn'd,<br>What answer was to be return'd.<br>Else why should tumults fright us now,<br>We have so many times come through?<br>And understand as well to tame,<br>As when they serve our turns t'inflame:<br>Have prov'd how inconsiderable<br>Are all engagements of the rabble,<br>Whose frenzies must be reconcil'd<br>With drums and rattles, like a child;<br>But never prov'd so prosperous<br>As when they were led on by us<br>For all our scourging of religion<br>Began with tumult and sedition;<br>When hurricanes of fierce commotion <br>Became strong motives to devotion;<br>(As carnal seamen, in a storm,<br>Turn pious converts, and reform);<br>When rusty weapons, with chalk'd edges,<br>Maintain'd our feeble privileges; <br>And brown-bills levy'd in the City,<br>Made bills to pass the Grand Committee;<br>When zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves,<br>Gave chace to rochets and white sleeves,<br>And made the Church, and State, and Laws,<br>Submit t' old iron and the Cause.<br>And as we thriv'd by tumults then,<br>So might we better now agen,<br>If we knew how, as then we did,<br>To use them rightly in our need:<br>Tumults, by which the mutinous<br>Betray themselves instead of us.<br>The hollow-hearted, disaffected,<br>And close malignant are detected,<br>Who lay their lives and fortunes down <br>For pledges to secure our own;<br>And freely sacrifice their ears<br>T' appease our jealousies and fears;<br>And yet, for all these providences<br>W' are offer'd, if we had our senses;<br>We idly sit like stupid blockheads,<br>Our hands committed to our pockets;<br>And nothing but our tongues at large,<br>To get the wretches a discharge:<br>Like men condemn'd to thunder-bolts,<br>Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts;<br>Or fools besotted with their crimes,<br>That know not how to shift betimes,<br>And neither have the hearts to stay,<br>Nor wit enough to run away; <br>Who, if we cou'd resolve on either,<br>Might stand or fall at least together;<br>No mean or trivial solace<br>To partners in extreme distress;<br>Who us'd to lessen their despairs,<br>By parting them int' equal shares;<br>As if the more they were to bear,<br>They felt the weight the easier;<br>And ev'ry one the gentler hung,<br>The more he took his turn among.<br>But 'tis not come to that, as yet,<br>If we had courage left, or wit;<br>Who, when our fate can be no worse,<br>Are fitted for the bravest course;<br>Have time to rally, and prepare<br>Our last and best defence, despair;<br>Despair, by which the gallant'st feats<br>Have been atchiev'd in greatest straits,<br>And horrid'st danger safely wav'd,<br>By being courageously out-brav'd; <br>As wounds by wider wounds are heal'd,<br>And poisons by themselves expell'd:<br>And so they might be now agen,<br>If we were, what we shou'd be, men;<br>And not so dully desperate,<br>To side against ourselves with Fate;<br>As criminals, condemn'd to suffer,<br>Are blinded first, and then turn'd over.<br>This comes of breaking Covenants,<br>And setting up Exauns of Saints, <br>That fine, like aldermen, for grace,<br>To be excus'd the efficace.<br>For Spiritual men are too transcendent,<br>That mount their banks for Independent,<br>To hang like MAHOMET in th' air, <br>Or St. IGNATIUS at his prayer,<br>By pure geometry, and hate<br>Dependence upon Church or State;<br>Disdain the pedantry o' th' letter;<br>And since obedience is better <br>(The Scripture says) than sacrifice,<br>Presume the less on't will suffice;<br>And scorn to have the moderat'st stints<br>Prescrib'd their peremptory hints,<br>Or any opinion, true or false, <br>Declar'd as such, in doctrinals<br>But left at large to make their best on,<br>Without b'ing call'd t' account or question,<br>Interpret all the spleen reveals;<br>As WHITTINGTON explain'd the bells;<br>And bid themselves turn back agen<br>Lord May'rs of New Jerusalem;<br>But look so big and over-grown,<br>They scorn their edifiers t' own,<br>Who taught them all their sprinkling lessons,<br>Their tones, and sanctified expressions<br>Bestow'd their Gifts upon a Saint,<br>Like Charity on those that want;<br>And learn'd th' apocryphal bigots<br>T' inspire themselves with short-hand notes; <br>For which they scorn and hate them worse<br>Than dogs and cats do sow-gelders.<br>For who first bred them up to pray,<br>And teach, the House of Commons Way?<br>Where had they all their gifted phrases,<br>But from our CALAMYS and CASES?<br>Without whose sprinkling and sowing,<br>Who e'er had heard of NYE or OWEN?<br>Their dispensations had been stifled,<br>But for our ADONIRAM BYFIELD;<br>And had they not begun the war,<br>Th' had ne'er been sainted, as they are:<br>For Saints in peace degenerate,<br>And dwindle down to reprobate;<br>Their zeal corrupts, like standing water,<br>In th' intervals of war and slaughter;<br>Abates the sharpness of its edge,<br>Without the power of sacrilege.<br>And though they've tricks to cast their sins<br>As easy as serpents do their skins, <br>That in a while grow out agen,<br>In peace they turn mere carnal men,<br>And from the most refin'd of saints,<br>As naturally grow miscreants,<br>As barnacles turn SOLAND geese<br>In th' Islands of the ORCADES.<br>Their dispensation's but a ticket,<br>For their conforming to the wicked;<br>With whom the greatest difference<br>Lies more in words, and shew, than sense.<br>For as the Pope, that keeps the gate<br>Of Heaven, wears three crowns of state;<br>So he that keeps the gate of Hell,<br>Proud CERBERUS, wears three heads as well;<br>And if the world has any troth <br>Some have been canoniz'd in both.<br>But that which does them greatest harm,<br>Their spiritual gizzards are too warm,<br>Which puts the over-heated sots<br>In fevers still, like other goats.<br>For though the Whore bends Hereticks<br>With flames of fire, like crooked sticks,<br>Our Schismaticks so vastly differ,<br>Th' hotter th' are, they grow the stiffer;<br>Still setting off their spiritual goods<br>With fierce and pertinacious feuds.<br>For zeal's a dreadful termagant,<br>That teaches Saints to tear and rant,<br>And Independents to profess<br>The doctrine of dependences: <br>Turns meek, and secret, sneaking ones,<br>To raw-heads fierce and bloody-bones:<br>And, not content with endless quarrels<br>Against the wicked, and their morals,<br>The GIBELLINES, for want of GUELPHS,<br>Divert their rage upon themselves.<br>For now the war is not between<br>The Brethren and the Men of Sin,<br>But Saint and Saint, to spill the blood<br>Of one another's brotherhood; <br>Where neither side can lay pretence<br>To liberty of conscience,<br>Or zealous suff'ring for the cause,<br>To gain one groat's-worth of applause;<br>For though endur'd with resolution<br>'Twill ne'er amount to persecution.<br>Shall precious Saints, and secret ones,<br>Break one another's outward bones,<br>And eat the flesh of Brethren,<br>Instead of Kings and mighty men?<br>When fiends agree among themselves,<br>Shall they be found the greatest elves?<br>When BELL's at union with the DRAGON,<br>And BAAL-PEOR friends with DAGON,<br>When savage bears agree with bears, <br>Shall secret ones lug Saints by th' ears,<br>And not atone their fatal wrath,<br>When common danger threatens both?<br>Shall mastiffs, by the coller pull'd,<br>Engag'd with bulls, let go their hold, <br>And Saints, whose necks are pawn'd at stake,<br>No notice of the danger take?<br>But though no pow'r of Heav'n or Hell<br>Can pacify phanatick zeal,<br>Who wou'd not guess there might be hopes, <br>The fear of gallowses and ropes,<br>Before their eyes, might reconcile<br>Their animosities a while;<br>At least until th' had a clear stage,<br>And equal freedom to engage, <br>Without the danger of surprize<br>By both our common enemies?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This none but we alone cou'd doubt,<br>Who understand their workings out;<br>And know them, both in soul and conscience, <br>Giv'n up t' as reprobate a nonsense<br>As spiritual out-laws, whom the pow'r<br>Of miracle can ne'er restore<br>We, whom at first they set up under,<br>In revelation only of plunder, <br>Who since have had so many trials<br>Of their encroaching self-denials,<br>That rook'd upon us with design<br>To out-reform, and undermine;<br>Took all our interest and commands <br>Perfidiously out of our hands;<br>Involv'd us in the guilt of blood<br>Without the motive gains allow'd,<br>And made us serve as ministerial,<br>Like younger Sons of Father BELIAL; <br>And yet, for all th' inhuman wrong<br>Th' had done us and the Cause so long,<br>We never fail to carry on<br>The work still as we had begun;<br>But true and faithfully obey'd <br>And neither preach'd them hurt, nor pray'd;<br>Nor troubled them to crop our ears,<br>Nor hang us like the cavaliers;<br>Nor put them to the charge of gaols,<br>To find us pill'ries and cart's-tails,<br>Or hangman's wages, which the State<br>Was forc'd (before them) to be at,<br>That cut, like tallies, to the stumps,<br>Our ears for keeping true accompts,<br>And burnt our vessels, like a new <br>Seal'd peck, or bushel, for b'ing true;<br>But hand in hand, like faithful brothers,<br>Held for the Cause against all others,<br>Disdaining equally to yield<br>One syllable of what we held,<br>And though we differ'd now and then<br>'Bout outward things, and outward men,<br>Our inward men, and constant frame<br>Of spirit, still were near the same;<br>And till they first began to cant <br>And sprinkle down the Covenant,<br>We ne'er had call in any place,<br>Nor dream'd of teaching down free grace,<br>But join'd our gifts perpetually<br>Against the common enemy. <br>Although 'twas ours and their opinion,<br>Each other's Church was but a RIMMON;<br>And yet, for all this gospel-union,<br>And outward shew of Church-communion,<br>They'll ne'er admit us to our shares <br>Of ruling Church or State affairs;<br>Nor give us leave t' absolve, or sentence<br>T' our own conditions of repentance;<br>But shar'd our dividend o' th' Crown,<br>We had so painfully preach'd down; <br>And forc'd us, though against the grain,<br>T' have calls to teach it up again:<br>For 'twas but justice to restore<br>The wrongs we had receiv'd before;<br>And when 'twas held forth in our way, <br>W' had been ungrateful not to pay;<br>Who, for the right w' have done the nation,<br>Have earn'd our temporal salvation;<br>And put our vessels in a way<br>Once more to come again in play. <br>For if the turning of us out<br>Has brought this Providence about,<br>And that our only suffering<br>Is able to bring in the King,<br>What would our actions not have done, <br>Had we been suffer'd to go on?<br>And therefore may pretend t' a share,<br>At least; in carrying on th' affair.<br>But whether that be so, or not,<br>W' have done enough to have it thought; <br>And that's as good as if w' had done't,<br>And easier pass't upon account:<br>For if it be but half deny'd,<br>'Tis half as good as justifi'd.<br>The world is nat'rally averse <br>To all the truth it sees or hears<br>But swallows nonsense, and a lie,<br>With greediness and gluttony<br>And though it have the pique, and long,<br>'Tis still for something in the wrong; <br>As women long, when they're with child,<br>For things extravagant and wild;<br>For meats ridiculous and fulsome,<br>But seldom any thing that's wholesome;<br>And, like the world, men's jobbernoles <br>Turn round upon their ears, the poles;<br>And what they're confidently told,<br>By no sense else can be control'd.<br>And this, perhaps, may prove time means<br>Once more to hedge-in Providence, <br>For as relapses make diseases<br>More desp'rate than their first accesses,<br>If we but get again in pow'r,<br>Our work is easier than before<br>And we more ready and expert<br>I' th' mystery to do our part.<br>We, who did rather undertake<br>The first war to create than make,<br>And when of nothing 'twas begun,<br>Rais'd funds as strange to carry 't on;<br>Trepann'd the State, and fac'd it down<br>With plots and projects of our own;<br>And if we did such feats at first,<br>What can we now we're better vers'd?<br>Who have a freer latitude, <br>Than sinners give themselves, allow'd,<br>And therefore likeliest to bring in,<br>On fairest terms, our discipline;<br>To which it was reveal'd long since,<br>We were ordain'd by Providence; <br>When three Saints Ears, our predecessors,<br>The Cause's primitive Confessors,<br>B'ing crucify'd, the nation stood<br>In just so many years of blood;<br>That, multiply'd by six, exprest <br>The perfect number of the beast,<br>And prov'd that we must be the men<br>To bring this work about agen;<br>And those who laid the first foundation,<br>Compleat the thorough Reformation: <br>For who have gifts to carry on<br>So great a work, but we alone?<br>What churches have such able pastors,<br>And precious, powerful, preaching masters?<br>Possess'd with absolute dominions <br>O'er brethren's purses and opinions?<br>And trusted with the double keys<br>Of Heaven and their warehouses;<br>Who, when the Cause is in distress,<br>Can furnish out what sums they please, <br>That brooding lie in bankers' hands,<br>To be dispos'd at their commands;<br>And daily increase and multiply,<br>With doctrine, use, and usury:<br>Can fetch in parties (as in war<br>All other heads of cattle are)<br>From th' enemy of all religions,<br>As well as high and low conditions,<br>And share them, from blue ribbands, down<br>To all blue aprons in the town; <br>From ladies hurried in calleches,<br>With cor'nets at their footmens' breeches,<br>To bawds as fat as Mother Nab;<br>All guts and belly, like a crab.<br>Our party's great, and better ty'd<br>With oaths and trade than any side,<br>Has one considerable improvement,<br>To double fortify the Cov'nant:<br>I mean our Covenant to purchase<br>Delinquents titles, and the Churches; <br>That pass in sale, from hand to hand,<br>Among ourselves, for current land;<br>And rise or fall, like Indian actions,<br>According to the rate of factions<br>Our best reserve for Reformation, <br>When new out-goings give occasion;<br>That keeps the loins of Brethren girt<br>The Covenant (their creed) t' assert;<br>And when th' have pack'd a Parliament,<br>Will once more try th' expedient:<br>Who can already muster friends,<br>To serve for members, to our ends,<br>That represent no part o' th' nation,<br>But Fisher's-Folly Congregation;<br>Are only tools to our intrigues,<br>And sit like geese to hatch our eggs;<br>Who, by their precedents of wit,<br>T' out-fast, out-loiter, and out-sit,<br>Can order matters underhand,<br>To put all bus'ness to a stand; <br>Lay publick bills aside for private,<br>And make 'em one another drive out;<br>Divert the great and necessary,<br>With trifles to contest and vary;<br>And make the Ration represent, <br>And serve for us, in Parliament<br>Cut out more work than can be done.<br>In PLATO'S year, but finish none;<br>Unless it be the Bulls of LENTHAL,<br>That always pass'd for fundamental;<br>Can set up grandee against grandee,<br>To squander time away, and bandy;<br>Make Lords and Commoners lay sieges<br>To one another's privileges,<br>And, rather than compound the quarrel, <br>Engage to th' inevitable peril<br>Of both their ruins; th' only scope<br>And consolation of our hope;<br>Who though we do not play the game,<br>Assist as much by giving aim:<br>Can introduce our ancient arts,<br>For heads of factions t' act their parts;<br>Know what a leading voice is worth,<br>A seconding, a third, or fourth<br>How much a casting voice comes to, <br>That turns up trump, of ay, or no;<br>And, by adjusting all at th' end,<br>Share ev'ry one his dividend<br>An art that so much study cost,<br>And now's in danger to be lost, <br>Unless our ancient virtuosos,<br>That found it out, get into th' Houses.<br>These are the courses that we took<br>To carry things by hook or crook;<br>And practis'd down from forty-four, <br>Until they turn'd us out of door<br>Besides the herds of Boutefeus<br>We set on work without the House;<br>When ev'ry knight and citizen<br>Kept legislative journeymen, <br>To bring them in intelligence<br>From all points of the rabble's sense,<br>And fill the lobbies of both Houses<br>With politick important buzzes:<br>Set committees of cabals, <br>To pack designs without the walls;<br>Examine, and draw up all news,<br>And fit it to our present use.<br>Agree upon the plot o' th' farce,<br>And ev'ry one his part rehearse, <br>Make Q's of answers, to way-lay<br>What th' other pasties like to say<br>What repartees, and smart reflections,<br>Shall be return'd to all objections;<br>And who shall break the master-jest, <br>And what, and how, upon the rest<br>Held pamphlets out, with safe editions,<br>Of proper slanders and seditions;<br>And treason for a token send,<br>By Letter to a Country Friend; <br>Disperse lampoons, the only wit<br>That men, like burglary, commit;<br>Wit falser than a padder's face,<br>That all its owner does betrays;<br>Who therefore dares not trust it when <br>He's in his calling to be seen;<br>Disperse the dung on barren earth,<br>To bring new weeds of discord forth;<br>Be sure to keep up congregations,<br>In spight of laws and proclamations: <br>For Charlatans can do no good<br>Until they're mounted in a crowd;<br>And when they're punish'd, all the hurt<br>Is but to fare the better for't;<br>As long as confessors are sure <br>Of double pay for all th' endure;<br>And what they earn in persecution,<br>Are paid t' a groat in contribution.<br>Whence some Tub-Holders-forth have made<br>In powd'ring-tubs their richest trade; <br>And while they kept their shops in prison,<br>Have found their prices strangely risen.<br>Disdain to own the least regret<br>For all the Christian blood w' have let;<br>'Twill save our credit, and maintain<br>Our title to do so again;<br>That needs not cost one dram of sense,<br>But pertinacious impudence.<br>Our constancy t' our principles,<br>In time will wear out all things else; <br>Like marble statues rubb'd in pieces<br>With gallantry of pilgrims' kisses;<br>While those who turn and wind their oaths,<br>Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths;<br>Prevail'd a while, but 'twas not long <br>Before from world to world they swung:<br>As they had turn'd from side to side,<br>And as the changelings liv'd, they dy'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This said, th' impatient States-monger<br>Could now contain himself no longer; <br>Who had not spar'd to shew his piques<br>Against th' haranguer's politicks,<br>With smart remarks of leering faces,<br>And annotations of grimaces.<br>After h' had administer'd a dose <br>Of snuff-mundungus to his nose,<br>And powder'd th' inside of his skull,<br>Instead of th' outward jobbernol,<br>He shook it with a scornful look<br>On th' adversary, and thus he spoke:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In dressing a calves head, although<br>The tongue and brains together go,<br>Both keep so great a distance here,<br>'Tis strange if ever they come near;<br>For who did ever play his gambols <br>With such insufferable rambles<br>To make the bringing in the KING,<br>And keeping of him out, one thing?<br>Which none could do, but those that swore<br>T' as point-plank nonsense heretofore: <br>That to defend, was to invade;<br>And to assassinate, to aid<br>Unless, because you drove him out,<br>(And that was never made a doubt,)<br>No pow'r is able to restore, <br>And bring him in, but on your score<br>A spiritual doctrine, that conduces<br>Most properly to all your uses.<br>'Tis true, a scorpions oil is said<br>To cure the wounds the vermine made;<br>And weapons, drest with salves, restore<br>And heal the hurts they gave before;<br>But whether Presbyterians have<br>So much good nature as the salve,<br>Or virtue in them as the vermine, <br>Those who have try'd them can determine.<br>Indeed, 'th pity you should miss<br>Th' arrears of all your services,<br>And for th' eternal obligation<br>Y' have laid upon th' ungrateful nation, <br>Be us'd so unconscionably hard,<br>As not to find a just reward,<br>For letting rapine loose, and murther,<br>To rage just so far, but no further;<br>And setting all the land on fire, <br>To burn't to a scantling, but no higher;<br>For vent'ring to assassinate,<br>And cut the throats, of Church and State,<br>And not be allow'd the fittest men<br>To take the charge of both agen: <br>Especially, that have the grace<br>Of self-denying, gifted face;<br>Who when your projects have miscarry'd,<br>Can lay them, with undaunted forehead,<br>On those you painfully trepann'd, <br>And sprinkled in at second hand;<br>As we have been, to share the guilt<br>Of Christian Blood, devoutly spilt;<br>For so our ignorance was flamm'd<br>To damn ourselves, t' avoid being damn'd;<br>Till finding your old foe, the hangman,<br>Was like to lurch you at back-gammon<br>And win your necks upon the set,<br>As well as ours, who did but bet,<br>(For he had drawn your ears before, <br>And nick'd them on the self-same score,)<br>We threw the box and dice away,<br>Before y' had lost us, at foul play;<br>And brought you down to rook, and lie,<br>And fancy only, on the by; <br>Redeem'd your forfeit jobbernoles<br>From perching upon lofty poles;<br>And rescu'd all your outward traitors<br>From hanging up like aligators;<br>For which ingeniously y' have shew'd <br>Your Presbyterian gratitude:<br>Would freely have paid us home in kind,<br>And not have been one rope behind.<br>Those were your motives to divide,<br>And scruple, on the other side. <br>To turn your zealous frauds, and force,<br>To fits of conscience and remorse;<br>To be convinc'd they were in vain,<br>And face about for new again;<br>For truth no more unveil'd your eyes,<br>Than maggots are convinc'd to flies<br>And therefore all your lights and calls<br>Are but apocryphal and false,<br>To charge us with the consequences<br>Of all your native insolences, <br>That to your own imperious wills<br>Laid Law and Gospel neck and heels;<br>Corrupted the Old Testament,<br>To serve the New for precedent<br>T' amend its errors, and defects,<br>With murther, and rebellion texts;<br>Of which there is not any one<br>In all the Book to sow upon<br>And therefore (from your tribe) the Jews<br>Held Christian doctrine forth, and use; <br>As Mahomet (your chief) began<br>To mix them in the Alchoran:<br>Denounc'd and pray'd, with fierce devotion,<br>And bended elbows on the cushion;<br>Stole from the beggars all your tones, <br>And gifted mortifying groans;<br>Had Lights where better eyes were blind,<br>As pigs are said to see the wind<br>Fill'd Bedlam with predestination,<br>And Knights-bridge with illumination:<br>Made children, with your tones, to run for't,<br>As bad as bloody-bones, or LUNSFORD:<br>While women, great with child, miscarry'd,<br>For being to malignants marry'd<br>Transform'd all wives to DALILAHS <br>Whose husbands were not for the Cause;<br>And turn'd the men to ten horn'd cattle,<br>Because they came not out to battle<br>Made taylors' prentices turn heroes,<br>For fear of being transform'd to MEROZ: <br>And rather forfeit their indentures,<br>Than not espouse the Saints' adventures.<br>Could transubstantiate, metamorphose,<br>And charm whole herds of beasts, like Orpheus;<br>Inchant the King's and Churches lands<br>T' obey and follow your commands;<br>And settle on a new freehold,<br>As MARCLY-HILL had done of old:<br>Could turn the Covenant, and translate<br>The gospel into spoons and plate: <br>Expound upon all merchants' cashes,<br>And open th' intricatest places<br>Could catechize a money-box,<br>And prove all powches orthodox;<br>Until the Cause became a DAMON,<br>And PYTHIAS the wicked Mammon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet, in spight of all your charms<br>To conjure legion up in arms,<br>And raise more devils in the rout<br>Than e'er y' were able to cast out, <br>Y' have been reduc'd, and by those fools<br>Bred up (you say) in your own schools;<br>Who, though but gifted at your feet,<br>Have made it plain, they have more wit;<br>By whom y' have been so oft trepann'd,<br>And held forth out of all command,<br>Out-gifted, out-impuls'd, out-done,<br>And out-reveal'd at carryings-on;<br>Of all your dispensations worm'd,<br>Out-Providenc'd, and out-reform'd; <br>Ejected out of Church and State,<br>And all things, but the peoples' hate;<br>And spirited out of th' enjoyments<br>Of precious, edifying employments,<br>By those who lodg'd their Gifts and Graces,<br>Like better bowlers, in your places;<br>All which you bore with resolution,<br>Charg'd on th' accompt of persecution;<br>And though most righteously opprest,<br>Against your wills, still acquiesc'd; <br>And never hum'd and hah'd sedition,<br>Nor snuffled treason, nor misprision.<br>That is, because you never durst;<br>For had you preach'd and pray'd your worst,<br>Alas! you were no longer able <br>To raise your posse of the rabble:<br>One single red-coat centinel<br>Out-charm'd the magick of the spell;<br>And, with his squirt-fire, could disperse<br>Whole troops with chapter rais'd and verse. <br>We knew too well those tricks of yours,<br>To leave it ever in your powers;<br>Or trust our safeties, or undoings,<br>To your disposing of out-goings;<br>Or to your ordering Providence,<br>One farthing's-worth of consequence.<br>For had you pow'r to undermine,<br>Or wit to carry a design,<br>Or correspondence to trepan,<br>Inveigle, or betray one man, <br>There's nothing else that intervenes,<br>And bars your zeal to use the means<br>And therefore wond'rous like, no doubt,<br>To bring in Kings, or keep them out.<br>Brave undertakers to restore, <br>That cou'd not keep yourselves in pow'r;<br>T' advance the int'rests of the Crown,<br>That wanted wit to keep your own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis true, you have (for I'd be loth<br>To wrong ye) done your parts in both,<br>To keep him out, and bring him in,<br>As grace is introduc'd by sin;<br>For 'twas your zealous want of sense,<br>And sanctify'd impertinence,<br>Your carrying business in a huddle,<br>That forc'd our rulers to new-model;<br>Oblig'd the State to tack about,<br>And turn you, root and branch, all out;<br>To reformado, one and all,<br>T' your great Croysado General. <br>Your greedy slav'ring to devour,<br>Before 'twas in your clutches, pow'r,<br>That sprung the game you were to set,<br>Before y' had time to draw the net;<br>Your spight to see the Churches' lands <br>Divided into other hands,<br>And all your sacrilegious ventures<br>Laid out in tickets and debentures;<br>Your envy to he sprinkled down,<br>By Under-Churches in the town; <br>And no course us'd to stop their mouths,<br>Nor th' Independents' spreading growths<br>All which consider'd, 'tis most true<br>None bring him in so much as you<br>Who have prevail'd beyond their plots,<br>Their midnight juntos, and seal'd knots<br>That thrive more by your zealous piques,<br>Than all their own rash politicks<br>And you this way may claim a share<br>In carrying (as you brag) th' affair; <br>Else frogs and toads, that croak'd the Jews<br>From PHARAOH and his brick-kilns loose,<br>And flies and mange, that set them free<br>From task-masters and slavery,<br>Were likelier to do the feat,<br>In any indiff'rent man's conceit<br>For who e'er heard of restoration<br>Until your thorough Reformation?<br>That is, the King's and Churches' land<br>Were sequester'd int' other hands: <br>For only then, and not before,<br>Your eyes were open'd to restore.<br>And when the work was carrying on,<br>Who cross'd it, but yourselves alone?<br>As by a world of hints appears,<br>All plain and extant as your ears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But first, o' th' first: The Isle of WIGHT<br>Will rise up, if you should deny't;<br>Where HENDERSON, and th' other masses,<br>Were sent to cap texts, and put cases;<br>To pass for deep and learned scholars,<br>Although but paltry Ob and Sollers:<br>As if th' unseasonable fools<br>Had been a coursing in the schools;<br>Until th' had prov'd the Devil author <br>O' th' Covenant, and the Cause his daughter,<br>For when they charg'd him with the guilt<br>Of all the blood that had been spilt,<br>They did not mean he wrought th' effusion,<br>In person, like Sir PRIDE, or HUGHSON,<br>But only those who first begun<br>The quarrel were by him set on;<br>And who could those be but the Saints,<br>Those Reformation Termagants?<br>But e'er this pass'd, the wise debate<br>Spent so much time, it grew too late;<br>For OLIVER had gotten ground,<br>T' inclose him with his warriors round<br>Had brought his Providence about,<br>And turn'd th' untimely sophists out,<br>Nor had the UXBRIDGE bus'ness less<br>Of nonsense in't, or sottishness,<br>When from a scoundrel Holder-forth,<br>The scum as well as son o' th' earth,<br>Your mighty Senators took law;<br>At his command, were forc'd t' withdraw,<br>And sacrifice the peace o' th' nation<br>To doctrine, use and application.<br>So when the SCOTS, your constant cronies,<br>Th' espousers of your Cause and monies,<br>Who had so often, in your aid,<br>So many ways been soundly paid,<br>Came in at last for better ends,<br>To prove themselves your trusty friends,<br>You basely left them, and the Church <br>They train'd you up to, in the lurch,<br>And suffer'd your own tribe of Christians<br>To fall before, as true Philistines.<br>This shews what utensils y' have been,<br>To bring the King's concernments in; <br>Which is so far from being true,<br>That none but he can bring in you:<br>And if he take you into trust,<br>Will find you most exactly just:<br>Such as will punctually repay <br>With double interest, and betray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not that I think those pantomimes,<br>Who vary action with the times,<br>Are less ingenious in their art,<br>Than those who dully act one part;<br>Or those who turn from side to side,<br>More guilty than the wind and tide.<br>All countries are a wise man's home,<br>And so are governments to some,<br>Who change them for the same intrigues <br>That statesmen use in breaking leagues;<br>While others, in old faiths and troths,<br>Look odd as out-of-fashion'd cloths;<br>And nastier in an old opinion,<br>Than those who never shift their linnen. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For true and faithful's sure to lose,<br>Which way soever the game goes;<br>And whether parties lose or win,<br>Is always nick'd, or else hedg'd in:<br>While pow'r usurp'd, like stol'n delight,<br>Is more bewitching than the right;<br>And when the times begin to alter,<br>None rise so high as from the halter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so may we, if w' have but sense<br>To use the necessary means;<br>And not your usual stratagems<br>On one another, Lights and Dreams<br>To stand on terms as positive,<br>As if we did not take, but give:<br>Set up the Covenant on crutches,<br>'Gainst those who have us in their clutches,<br>And dream of pulling churches down,<br>Before w' are sure to prop our own:<br>Your constant method of proceeding,<br>Without the carnal mans of heeding;<br>Who 'twixt your inward sense and outward,<br>Are worse, than if y' had none, accoutred.<br>I grant, all courses are in vain,<br>Unless we can get in again;<br>The only way that's left us now;<br>But all the difficulty's, How?<br>'Tis true, w' have money, th' only pow 'r<br>That all mankind falls down before;<br>Money, that, like the swords of kings,<br>Is the last reason of all things; <br>And therefore need not doubt our play<br>Has all advantages that way;<br>As long as men have faith to sell,<br>And meet with those that can pay well;<br>Whose half-starv'd pride, and avarice, <br>One Church and State will not suffice<br>T' expose to sale, beside the wages<br>Of storing plagues to after-ages.<br>Nor is our money less our own,<br>Than 'twas before we laid it down; <br>For 'twill return, and turn t' account,<br>If we are brought, in play upon't:<br>Or but, by casting knaves, get in,<br>What pow 'r can hinder us to win?<br>We know the arts we us'd before, <br>In peace and war, and something more;<br>And by th' unfortunate events,<br>Can mend our next experiments:<br>For when w' are taken into trust,<br>How easy are the wisest choust? <br>Who see but th' outsides of our feats,<br>And not their secret springs and weights;<br>And while they're busy at their ease,<br>Can carry what designs we please.<br>How easy is it to serve for agents,<br>To prosecute our old engagements?<br>To keep the Good Old Cause on foot,<br>And present power from taking root?<br>Inflame them both with false alarms<br>Of plots and parties taking arms; <br>To keep the Nation's wounds too wide<br>From healing up of side to side;<br>Profess the passionat'st concerns<br>For both their interests by turns;<br>The only way to improve our own, <br>By dealing faithfully with none;<br>(As bowls run true, by being made<br>On purpose false, and to be sway'd <br>For if we should be true to either,<br>'Twould turn us out of both together;<br>And therefore have no other means<br>To stand upon our own defence,<br>But keeping up our ancient party<br>In vigour, confident and hearty:<br>To reconcile our late dissenters, <br>Our brethren, though by other venters;<br>Unite them, and their different maggots,<br>As long and short sticks are in faggots,<br>And make them join again as close<br>As when they first began t' espouse; <br>Erect them into separate<br>New Jewish tribes, in Church and State;<br>To join in marriage and commerce,<br>And only among themselves converse;<br>And all that are not of their mind, <br>Make enemies to all mankind:<br>Take all religions in and stickle<br>From Conclave down to Conventicle;<br>Agreeing still, or disagreeing,<br>According to the Light in being. <br>Sometimes for liberty of conscience,<br>And spiritual mis-rule, in one sense;<br>But in another quite contrary,<br>As dispensations chance to vary;<br>And stand for, as the times will bear it,<br>All contradictions of the Spirit:<br>Protect their emissaries, empower'd<br>To preach sedition and the word;<br>And when they're hamper'd by the laws,<br>Release the lab'rers for the Cause, <br>And turn the persecution back<br>On those that made the first attack;<br>To keep them equally in awe,<br>From breaking or maintaining law:<br>And when they have their fits too soon, <br>Before the full-tides of the moon,<br>Put off their zeal t' a fitter season<br>For sowing faction in and treason;<br>And keep them hooded, and their Churches,<br>Like hawks from baiting on their perches, <br>That, when the blessed time shall come<br>Of quitting BABYLON and ROME,<br>They may be ready to restore<br>Their own Fifth Monarchy once more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Meanwhile be better arm'd to fence <br>Against revolts of Providence.<br>By watching narrowly, and snapping<br>All blind sides of it, they happen<br>For if success could make us Saints,<br>Or ruin turn'd us miscreants:<br>A scandal that wou'd fall too hard<br>Upon a few, and. unprepar'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These are the courses we must run,<br>Spight of our hearts, or be undone;<br>And not to stand on terms and freaks,<br>Before we have secur'd our necks;<br>But do our work, as out of sight,<br>As stars by day, and suns by night;<br>All licence of the people own,<br>In opposition to the Crown;<br>And for the Crown as fiercely side,<br>The head and body to divide;<br>The end of all we first design'd,<br>And all that yet remains behind<br>Be sure to spare no publick rapine,<br>On all emergencies, that happen;<br>For 'tis as easy to supplant<br>Authority as men in want;<br>As some of us, in trusts, have made<br>The one hand with the other trade;<br>Gain'd vastly by their joint endeavour;<br>The right a thief; the left receiver;<br>And what the one, by tricks, forestall'd,<br>The other, by as sly, retail'd.<br>For gain has wonderful effects <br>T' improve the Factory of Sects;<br>The rule of faith in all professions.<br>And great DIANA of the EPHESIANS;<br>Whence turning of Religion's made<br>The means to turn and wind a trade: <br>And though some change it for the worse,<br>They put themselves into a course;<br>And draw in store of customers,<br>To thrive the better in commerce:<br>For all Religions flock together, <br>Like tame and wild fowl of a feather;<br>To nab the itches of their sects,<br>As jades do one another's necks.<br>Hence 'tis, Hypocrisy as well<br>Will serve t' improve a Church as ZEAL:<br>As Persecution or Promotion,<br>Do equally advance Devotion.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let business, like ill watches, go<br>Sometime too fast, sometime too slow;<br>For things in order are put out <br>So easy, Ease itself will do't;<br>But when the feat's design'd and meant,<br>What miracle can bar th' event?<br>For 'tis more easy to betray,<br>Than ruin any other way. <br>All possible occasions start<br>The weighty'st matters to divert;<br>Obstruct, perplex, distract, intangle,<br>And lay perpetual trains to wrangle.<br>But in affairs of less import, <br>That neither do us good nor hurt,<br>And they receive as little by,<br>Out-fawn as much, and out-comply;<br>And seem as scrupulously just,<br>To bait our hooks for greater trust;<br>But still be careful to cry down<br>All publick actions, though our own:<br>The least miscarriage aggravate,<br>And charge it all upon the Sate;<br>Express the horrid'st detestation, <br>And pity the distracted nation<br>Tell stories scandalous and false,<br>I' th' proper language of cabals,<br>Where all a subtle statesman says,<br>Is half in words, and half in face; <br>(As Spaniards talk in dialogues<br>Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs):<br>Entrust it under solemn vows<br>Of mum, and silence, and the rose,<br>To be retail'd again in whispers, <br>For th' easy credulous to disperse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus far the Statesman - When a shout,<br>Heard at a distance, put him out;<br>And straight another, all aghast,<br>Rush'd in with equal fear and haste; <br>Who star'd about, as pale as death,<br>And, for a while, as out of breath;<br>Till having gather'd up his wits,<br>He thus began his tale by fits.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That beastly rabble - that came down<br>From all the garrets - in the town,<br>And stalls, and shop-boards - in vast swarms,<br>With new-chalk'd bills - and rusty arms,<br>To cry the Cause - up, heretofore,<br>And bawl the BISHOPS - out of door, <br>Are now drawn up - in greater shoals,<br>To roast - and broil us on the coals,<br>And all the Grandees - of our Members<br>Are carbonading - on the embers;<br>Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses - <br>Held forth by Rumps - of Pigs and Geese,<br>That serve for Characters - and Badges.<br>To represent their Personages:<br>Each bonfire is a funeral pile,<br>In which they roast, and scorch, and broil,<br>And ev'ry representative<br>Have vow'd to roast - and broil alive:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And 'tis a miracle, we are not<br>Already sacrific' incarnate.<br>For while we wrangle here, and jar, <br>W' are grilly'd all at TEMPLE-BAR:<br>Some on the sign-post of an ale-house,<br>Hang in effigy, on the gallows;<br>Made up of rags, to personate<br>Respective Officers of State; <br>That henceforth they may stand reputed,<br>Proscrib'd in law, and executed;<br>And while the Work is carrying on<br>Be ready listed under DON,<br>That worthy patriot, once the bellows,<br>And tinder-box, of all his fellows;<br>The activ'st Member of the Five,<br>As well as the most primitive;<br>Who, for his faithful service then<br>Is chosen for a Fifth agen: <br>(For since the State has made a Quint<br>Of Generals, he's listed in't.)<br>This worthy, as the world will say,<br>Is paid in specie, his own way;<br>For, moulded to the life in clouts, <br>Th' have pick'd from dung-hills hereabouts,<br>He's mounted on a hazel bavin,<br>A cropp'd malignant baker gave 'm;<br>And to the largest bone-fire riding,<br>They've roasted COOK already and PRIDE in; <br>On whom in equipage and state,<br>His scarecrow fellow-members wait,<br>And march in order, two and two,<br>As at thanksgivings th' us'd to do;<br>Each in a tatter'd talisman, <br>Like vermin in effigie slain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But (what's more dreadful than the rest)<br>Those Rumps are but the tail o' th' Beast,<br>Set up by Popish engineers,<br>As by the crackers plainly appears; <br>For none but Jesuits have a mission<br>To preach the faith with ammunition,<br>And propagate the Church with powder:<br>Their founder was a blown-up Soldier.<br>These spiritual pioneers o' th' Whore's,<br>That have the charge of all her stores,<br>Since first they fail'd in their designs,<br>To take in Heav'n by springing mines,<br>And with unanswerable barrels<br>Of gunpowder dispute their quarrels,<br>Now take a course more practicable,<br>By laying trains to fire the rabble,<br>And blow us up in th' open streets,<br>Disguis'd in Rumps, like Sambenites;<br>More like to ruin, and confound, <br>Than all the doctrines under ground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor have they chosen Rumps amiss<br>For symbols of State-mysteries;<br>Though some suppose 'twas but to shew<br>How much they scorn'd the Saints, the few; <br>Who, 'cause they're wasted to the stumps,<br>Are represented best by Rumps.<br>But Jesuits have deeper reaches<br>In all their politick far-fetches,<br>And from the Coptick Priest, Kircherus,<br>Found out this mystick way to jeer us.<br>For, as th' Egyptians us'd by bees<br>T' express their antick PTOLOMIES;<br>And by their stings, the swords they wore,<br>Held forth authority and power; <br>Because these subtil animals<br>Bear all their int'rests in their tails;<br>And when they're once impar'd in that,<br>Are banish'd their well-order'd state;<br>They thought all governments were best <br>By Hieroglyphick Rumps exprest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For, as in bodies natural,<br>The rump's the fundament of all;<br>So, in a commonwealth, or realm,<br>The government is call'd the helm;<br>With which, like vessels under sail,<br>They're turn'd and winded by the tail;<br>The tail, which birds and fishes steer<br>Their courses with through sea and air;<br>To whom the rudder of the rump is <br>The same thing with the stern and compass.<br>This shews how perfectly the Rump<br>And Commonwealth in nature jump.<br>For as a fly, that goes to bed,<br>Rests with his tail above his head,<br>So in this mungrel state of ours;<br>The rabble are the supreme powers;<br>That hors'd us on their backs, to show us<br>A jadish trick at last, and throw us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The learned Rabbins of the Jews <br</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Samuel+Butler">Samuel Butler</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=512565" data-title="Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto II de Samuel Butler" data-description="THE ARGUMENT The Saints engage in fierce Contests About their Carnal interests; To share their sacrilegious Preys, According to their Rates of Grace; Their various Frenzies to reform, When Cromwel left them in a Storm Till, in th' Effigy of Rumps..."></div> </div> </div>

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