Mistaken honest men, who gravely blame,
And hope that gentle doctrine should reclaim.
Are texts, and such exploded trifles, fit
To impose, and sham upon a Jesuit?
Would they the dull old fishermen compare
With mighty Suarez, and great Escobar?[1]
Such threadbare proofs, and stale authorities
May us, poor simple heretics, suffice;
But to a seared Ignatian's conscience,
Hardened, as his own face, with impudence,
Whose faith in contradiction bore, whom lies,
Nor nonsense, nor impossibilities.
Nor shame, nor death, nor damning can assail,
Not these mild fruitless methods will avail.
'Tis pointed satire, and the shafts of wit
For such a prize are the only weapons fit;
Nor needs there art, or genius here to use,
Where indignation can create a muse:
Should parts, and nature fail, yet very spite
Would make the arrantest Wild,[2] or Wither[3] write.
- ↑ Suarez and Escobar were Spanish Jesuits who flourished in the sixteenth century. The former, a voluminous author, held in high esteem by his own order for his learning, rendered himself particularly obnoxious in England by a book he wrote against the errors of the English church, which James I. caused to be burned at St. Paul's. Escobar was distinguished as a casuist, and published numerous works on divinity, the most remarkable of which was his Moral Theology, turned into ridicule by Pascal.
- ↑ Robert Wild, commonly called Dr. Wild, a nonconformist divine and poet, who held the rectory of Aynho, in Northamptonshire, and was ejected at the Restoration. He died at Oundle, at the age of 70, in the year when this poem was published. He wrote some sermons, but was better known by sundry indifferent poems, of which the Iter Boreale, written on Monk's journey out of Scotland, was the most prominent. This piece obtained extraordinary popularity. Dryden called Wild the Wither of the City, and said that they bought more editions of his works than would lie under all the pies at the Lord Mayor's Christmas. 'When his famous poem first came out in 1660, I have seen them reading it in the midst of 'Change time; nay, so vehemently were they at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles' ends.' He adds that it was equally well received amongst great people. Wood says that Wild was a 'fat, jolly, and boon presbyterian.'
- ↑ George Wither, the author of Abuses Stript and Whipt, for which
