For that no lives of heretics I'll spare,
But reap 'em down with less remorse and care
Than Tarquin did the poppy-heads of old,
Or we drop beads, by which our prayers are told.'
Bravely resolved! and 'twas as bravely dared:
But, lo! the recompense, and great reward
The wight is to the almanac preferred.
Bare motives to be damned for holy cause,
A few red letters, and some painted straws!
Fools! who thus truck with hell by Mohatra,
And play their souls against no stakes away.
'Tis strange with what an holy impudence
The villain caught, his innocence maintains;
Denies with oaths the fact, until it be
Less guilt to own it than the perjury;
By the mass and blessed sacraments he swears,
This Mary's milk, and the other Mary's tears,
And the whole muster-roll in calendars.
Not yet swallow the falsehood? if all this
Wont gain a resty faith, he will on his knees
The evangelists, and lady's psalter kiss,
To vouch the lie; nay, more, to make it good,
Mortgage his soul upon't, his heaven, and God.
Damned faithless heretics! hard to convince,
Who trust no verdict but dull obvious sense.
Unconscionable courts! who priests deny
Their benefit of the clergy, perjury.
Room for the martyred saints! behold they come!
With what a noble scorn they meet their doom!
Not knights o' the post,[1] nor often carted whores
Show more of impudence, or less remorse.
- ↑ Persons who were ready to take false oaths for a consideration. Thus, in one of the Roxburghe ballads:—
'I'll be no knight of the post,
To sell my soul for a bribe.'
They were called knights of the post, because they waited at the posts which it was the custom of the sheriffs to have at their doors for fixing proclamations upon. The custom is alluded to by Ben Jonson in Cynthia's Revels, A. i. Sc. 4.
