MET IN PRIVATE CABAL JUST AFTER THE MURDER
OF GODFREY.
BY hell 'twas bravely done! what less than this,
What sacrifice of meaner worth, and price
Could we have offered up for our success?
So fare all they, who e'er provoke our hate,
Who by like ways presume to tempt their fate;
Eare each like this bold meddling fool, and be
As well secured, as well dispatched as he:
Would he were here, yet warm, that we might drain
His reeking gore, and drink up every vein!
That were a glorious sanction, much like thine,
Great Roman! made upon a like design:
Like thine; we scorn so mean a sacrament,
To seal and consecrate our high intent,
We scorn base blood should our great league cement:
Thou didst it with a slave, but we think good
To bind our treason with a bleeding god.
Would it were his (why should I fear to name,
Or you to hear 't?) at which we nobly aim!
Lives yet that hated enemy of our cause?
Lives he our mighty projects to oppose?
Can his weak innocence, and heaven's care
Be thought security from what we dare?
Are you then Jesuits? are you so for nought,
In all the Catholic depths of treason taught,
In orthodox, and solid poisoning read?
In each profounder art of killing bred?
And can you fail, or bungle in your trade?
Shall one poor life your cowardice upbraid?[2]
- ↑ [[w:Henry Garnet|]], a provincial of the Jesuits, who was executed in 1606, for being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot.
- ↑ 'Three or four schemes had been formed for assassinating the King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poisoned in his medicine. He was to be shot with silver bullets.'—Macaulay's Hist. of England, i. 233. These schemes were only a part of what Mr. Macaulay calls ’the hideous romance’ of Titus Oates.
