CANTO II.]
HUDIBRAS.
373
And rather forfeit their indentures,
Than not espouse the saints' adventures:
Could transubstantiate, metamorphose,
And charm whole herds of boasts, like Orpheus;
Enchant the king's and church's lands, 1125
T' obey and follow your commands,
And settle on a new freehold.
As Marcley-hill had done of old:[1]
Could turn the Cov'nant, and translate
The Gospel into spoons and plate; 1130
Expound upon all merchant's cashes,
And open th' Intricatest places;
Could catechise a money-box,
And prove all pouches orthodox;
Until the Cause became a Damon, 1135
And Pythias the wicked Mammon.[2]
And yet, in spite of all your charms
To conjure Legion up in arms,
And raise more devils in the rout
Than e'er y' were able to cast out, 1140
Y' have been reduc'd, and by those fools,
Bred up, you say, in your own schools,
Who, tho' but gifted at your feet,[3]
Have made it plain they have more wit,
By whom you've been so oft trepann'd, 1145
And held forth out of all command;
Out-gifted, out-impuls'd, out-done,
And out-reveal'd at Carryings-on;
Of all your Dispensations worm'd,
Out-providenc'd and out-reform'd; 1150
Ejected out of church and state,
And all things but the people's hate;
Than not espouse the saints' adventures:
Could transubstantiate, metamorphose,
And charm whole herds of boasts, like Orpheus;
Enchant the king's and church's lands, 1125
T' obey and follow your commands,
And settle on a new freehold.
As Marcley-hill had done of old:[1]
Could turn the Cov'nant, and translate
The Gospel into spoons and plate; 1130
Expound upon all merchant's cashes,
And open th' Intricatest places;
Could catechise a money-box,
And prove all pouches orthodox;
Until the Cause became a Damon, 1135
And Pythias the wicked Mammon.[2]
And yet, in spite of all your charms
To conjure Legion up in arms,
And raise more devils in the rout
Than e'er y' were able to cast out, 1140
Y' have been reduc'd, and by those fools,
Bred up, you say, in your own schools,
Who, tho' but gifted at your feet,[3]
Have made it plain they have more wit,
By whom you've been so oft trepann'd, 1145
And held forth out of all command;
Out-gifted, out-impuls'd, out-done,
And out-reveal'd at Carryings-on;
Of all your Dispensations worm'd,
Out-providenc'd and out-reform'd; 1150
Ejected out of church and state,
And all things but the people's hate;
- ↑ Not far from Ledbury in Herefordshire, towards the conflux of the Lug and Wye, in the parish of Marcley, is a hill, which in the year 1575 moved to a considerable distance. Camden, in his Life of Queen Elizabeth, book ii. p. 20 thinks the motion was occasioned by an earthquake, which he calls brasmatia; though the cause of it more probably was a subterraneous current, as the motion continued for three days. Some houses and a chapel were overturned.
- ↑ Until Mammon and the Cause were as closely united and as dear friends as Damon and Pythias, the story of whose well-known friendship is celebrated by Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, and others.
- ↑ Acts xxii. 3.
