388
HUDIBRAS.
[PART III.
Set up by popish engineers,
As by the crackers plainly appears; 1560
For none but Jesuits have a mission
To preach the faith with ammunition,
And propagate the church with powder;
Their founder was a blown-up soldier.[1]
Those spiritual pioneers o' th' whore's, 1565
That have the charge of all her stores;
Since first they fail'd in their designs,[2]
To take in heav'n by springing mines,
And, with unanswerable barrels
Of gunpowder, dispute their quarrels, 1570
Now take a course more practicable,
By laying trains to fire the rabble,
And blow us up, in th' open streets,
Disguis'd in Rumps, like Sambenites,[3]
More like to ruin and confound, 1575
Than all their doctrines under-ground.
Nor have they chosen Rumps amiss,[4]
For symbols of state-mysteries;
Tho' some suppose, 'twas but to show
How much they scorn'd the saints, the Few, 1580
Who, 'cause they're wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by Rumps.[5]
But Jesuits have deeper reaches
In all their politic far-fetches;
And from the Coptic priest, Kircherus,[6] 1585
Found out this mystic way to jeer us:[7]
As by the crackers plainly appears; 1560
For none but Jesuits have a mission
To preach the faith with ammunition,
And propagate the church with powder;
Their founder was a blown-up soldier.[1]
Those spiritual pioneers o' th' whore's, 1565
That have the charge of all her stores;
Since first they fail'd in their designs,[2]
To take in heav'n by springing mines,
And, with unanswerable barrels
Of gunpowder, dispute their quarrels, 1570
Now take a course more practicable,
By laying trains to fire the rabble,
And blow us up, in th' open streets,
Disguis'd in Rumps, like Sambenites,[3]
More like to ruin and confound, 1575
Than all their doctrines under-ground.
Nor have they chosen Rumps amiss,[4]
For symbols of state-mysteries;
Tho' some suppose, 'twas but to show
How much they scorn'd the saints, the Few, 1580
Who, 'cause they're wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by Rumps.[5]
But Jesuits have deeper reaches
In all their politic far-fetches;
And from the Coptic priest, Kircherus,[6] 1585
Found out this mystic way to jeer us:[7]
- ↑ Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesuits, was bred a soldier, and wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French, in 1521. See note on line 606, above.
- ↑ Alluding to the Gunpowder Plot, attributed to the Jesuits, the defeat of which is celebrated on Nov. 5, to this day; but the prayers and thanksgiving have just been abolished, and expunged from the liturgy, by Royal ordinance.
- ↑ Persons wearing the sambenito: a straight yellow coat without sleeves, having the picture of the devil painted upon it in black, wherein the officers of the Inquisition used to disguise and parade heretics after their condemnation.
- ↑ See A speech made at the Rota. Remains, vol. i. page 320.
- ↑ They were called the Rump Parliament, as being the end of a body.
- ↑ The early editions spell this name thus: Kirkerus.
- ↑ Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, wrote many books on the antiquities of
