Poetical Works of John Oldham/Satire upon the Jesuits—Satire II
SATIRE II.
NAY, if our sins are grown so high of late,
That heaven no longer can adjourn our fate,
May 't please some milder vengeance to devise,
Plague, fire, sword, dearth, or anything but this,
Let it rain scalding showers of brimstone down,
To burn us, as of old the lustful town;
Let a new deluge overwhelm again,
And drown at once our land, our lives, our sin.
Thus gladly we'll compound, all this well pay,
To have this worst of ills removed away.
Judgments of other kinds are often sent
In mercy only, not for punishment;
But where these light, they show a nation's fate
Is given up, and past for reprobate.
When God his stock of wrath on Egypt spent
To make a stubborn land and king repent,
Sparing the rest, had he this one plague sent,
For this alone his people had been quit,
And Pharaoh circumcised a proselyte.
Wonder no longer why no curse, like these,
Was known, or suffered in the primitive days;
They never sinned enough to merit it,
'Twas therefore what Heaven's just power thought fit,
To scourge this latter, and more sinful age
With all the dregs and squeezings of his rage.
Too dearly is proud Spain with England quit
For all her loss sustained in Eighty-eight;
For all the ills our warlike virgin wrought,
Or Drake, or Raleigh, her great scourges, brought.
Amply she was revenged in that one birth,
When hell for her the Biscain plague brought forth;[1]
Great counter plague! in which unhappy we
Pay back her sufferings with full usury:
Than whom alone none ever was designed
To entail a wider curse on human kind,
But he, who first begot us, and first sinned.
Happy the world had been, and happy thou,
(Less damned at least, and less accursed than now)
If early with less guilt in war th' hadst died.
And from ensuing mischiefs mankind freed;
Or when thou view'dst the Holy Land, and tomb,
Th' hadst suffered there thy brother traitor's doom.[2]
Cursed be the womb that with the firebrand teemed,
Which ever since has the whole globe inflamed;
More cursed that ill-aimed shot, which basely missed,
Which maimed a limb, but spared thy hated breast,
And made thee at once a cripple and a priest.[3]
But why this wish? The church if so might lack
Champions, good works, and saints for the almanac.
These are the Janissaries of the cause,
The life-guard of the Roman Sultan, chose
To break the force of Huguenots and foes;
The church's hawkers in divinity,
Who 'stead of lace and ribbons, doctrine cry;
Rome's strollers, who survey each continent,
Its trinkets and commodities to vent;
Export the Gospel, like mere ware, for sale,
And trucked for indigo, and cochineal,
As the known factors here, the brethren, once
Swopped Christ about for bodkins, rings, and spoons.
And shall these great Apostles be contenmed,
And thus by scoffing heretics defamed?
They, by whose means both Indies now enjoy
The two choice blessings, lust and popery?
Which buried else in ignorance had been,
Nor known the worth of beads and Bellarmine?[4]
It pitied holy mother church to see
A world so drowned in gross idolatry:
It grieved to see such goodly nations hold
Bad errors and unpardonable gold.
Strange! what a fervent zeal can coin infuse!
What charity pieces of eight produce!
So were you chosen the fittest to reclaim
The pagan world, and give it a Christian name.
And great was the success; whole myriads stood
At font, and were baptized in their own blood;
Millions of souls were hurled from hence to burn
Before their time, be damned before their turn.
Yet these were in compassion sent to hell,
The rest reserved in spite, and worse to feel.
Compelled instead of fiends to worship you,
The more inhuman devils of the two.
Bare way and method of conversion this,
To make your votaries your sacrifice!
If to destroy be Reformation thought,
A plague as well might the good work have wrought.
Now see we why your founder, weary grown
Would lay his former trade of killing down;
He found 'twas dull, he found a crown would be
A fitter case, and badge of cruelty.
Each snivelling hero seas of blood can spill,
When wrongs provoke, and honour bids him kill;
Each tiny bully lives can freely bleed,
When pressed by wine, or punk to knock on the head;
Give me your thorough-paced rogue, who scorns to be
Prompted by poor revenge, or injury,
But does it of true inbred cruelty;
Your cool and sober murderer, who prays
And stabs at the same time, who one hand has
Stretched up to heaven, the other to make the pass,
So the late saints of blessed memory,
Cut-throats in godly pure sincerity,
So they with lifted hands, and eyes devout,
Said grace, and carved a slaughtered monarch out.
When the first traitor Cain (too good to be
Thought patron of this black fraternity)
His bloody tragedy of old designed,
One death alone quenched his revengeful mind,
Content with but a quarter of mankind:
Had he been Jesuit, and but put on
Their savage cruelty, the rest had gone;
His hand had sent old Adam after too,
And forced the godhead to create anew.
And yet 'twere well, were their foul guilt but thought
Bare sin: 'tis something even to own a fault.
But here the boldest flights of wickedness
Are stamped religion, and for current pass.
The blackest, ugliest, horridest, damnedst deed,
For which hell-flames, the schools a title need,
If done for holy church is sanctified.
This consecrates the blessèd work and tool,
Nor must we ever after think 'em foul.
To undo realms, kill parents, murder kings,
Are thus but petty trifles, venial things,
Not worth a confessor; nay, heaven shall be
Itself invoked to abet the impiety.
’Grant, gracious Lord,' some reverend villain prays,
’That this the bold assertor of our cause
May with success accomplish that great end,
For which he was by thee and us designed.
Thou to his arm and sword thy strength impart,
And guide 'em steady to the tyrant's heart;
Grant him for every meritorious thrust
Degrees of bliss above, among the just;
Where holy Garnet, and St. Guy are placed,
Whom works, like this, before have thither raised;
Where they are interceding for us now—
For sure they're there.' Yes, questionless; and so
Good Nero is, and Dioclesian too,
And that great ancient saint Herostratus,
And the late godly martyr at Toulouse.
Dare something worthy Newgate and the Tower,
If you'll be canonized, and heaven insure.
Dull primitive fools of old I who would be good,
Who would by virtue reach the blessed abode!
Far other are the ways found out of late,
Which mortals to that happy place translate:
Rebellion, treason, murder, massacre,
The chief ingredients now of saintship are,
And Tyburn only stocks the calendar.
Unhappy Judas, whose ill fate, or chance,
Threw him upon gross times of ignorance;
Who knew not how to value, or esteem
The worth and merit of a glorious crime!
Should his kind stars have let him acted now,
He had died absolved, and died a martyr too.
Hear'st thou, great God, such daring blasphemy,
And let'st thy patient thunder still lay by?
Strike, and avenge, lest impious atheists say,
Chance guides the world, and has usurped thy sway;
Let these proud prosperous villains too confess,
Thou'rt senseless, as they make thy images.
Thou just and sacred Power! wilt thou admit
Such guests should in thy glorious presence sit?
If Heaven can with such company dispense,
Well did the Indian pray, might he keep thence!
But this we only feign, all vain and false
As their own legends, miracles, and tales;
Either the groundless calumnies of spite,
Or idle rants of poetry and wit.
We wish they were: but you hear Garnet cry,
'I did it, and would do 't again; had I
As much of blood, as many lives as Rome
Has spilt in what the fools call martyrdom,
As many souls as sins, I'd freely stake
All them, and more for mother church's sake.
For that I'll stride o'er crowns, swim through a flood,
Made up of slaughtered monarchs' brains and blood.
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,[5] nor often carted whores
Show more of impudence, or less remorse.
O glorious and heroic constancy!
That can forswear upon the cart, and die
With gasping souls expiring in a lie.
None but tame sheepish criminals repent,
Who fear the idle bugbear, punishment:
Your gallant sinner scorns that cowardice,
The poor regret of having done amiss;
Brave he, to his first principles still true,
Can face damnation, sin with hell in view,
And bid it take the soul he does bequeath,
And blow it thither with his dying breath.
Dare such as these profess religion's name?
Who, should they own 't, and be believed, would shame
It's practice out of the world, would atheists make
Firm in their creed, and vouch it at the stake?
Is heaven for such, whose deeds make hell too good,
Too mild a penance for their cursè brood?
For whose unheard of crimes, and damnèd sake,
Fate must below new sorts of torture make,
Since, when of old it framed that place of doom,
'Twas thought no guilt, like this, could thither come.
Base recreant souls ! would you have kings trust you,
Who never yet kept your allegiance true
To any but hell's prince? who with more ease
Can swallow down most solemn perjuries,
Than a town-bully common oaths and lies?
Are the French Harry's fates so soon forgot?
Our last best Tudor? or the powder-plot?
And those fine streamers that adorned so long
The bridge, and Westminster, and yet had hung,
Were they not stolen, and now for relics gone?
Think Tories loyal, or Scotch Covenanters;
Bobbed tigers gentle; courteous, fasting bears;
Atheists devout, and thrice wracked mariners;
Take goats for chaste and cloistered marmosites;
For plain and open, two-edged parasites;
Believe bawds modest, and the shameless stews;
And binding drunkards' oaths, and strumpets’ vows;
And when in time these contradictions meet,
Then hope to find 'em in a Loyolite:
To whom, though gasping, should I credit give,
I'd think 'twere sin, and damned like unbelief.
Oh for the Swedish law enacted here!
No scarecrow frightens like a priest-gelder,
Hunt them, as beavers are, force them to buy
Their lives with ransom of their lechery.
Or let that wholesome statute be revived,
Which England heretofore from wolves relieved;
Tax every shire instead of them to bring
Each year a certain tale of Jesuits in;
And let their mangled quarters hang the isle
To scare all future vermin from the soil.
Monsters avaunt! may some kind whirlwind sweep
Our land, and drown these locusts in the deep;
Hence ye loathed objects of our scorn and hate,
With all the curses of an injured state;
Go, foul impostors, to some duller soil.
Some easier nation with your cheats beguile;
Where your gross common gulleries may pass,
To slur and top on bubbled consciences;
Where ignorance, and the inquisition rules,
Where the vile herd of poor implicit fools
Are damned contentedly, where they are led
Blindfold to hell, and thank, and pay their guide!
Go, where all your black tribe before are gone,
Follow Chastel, Ravaillac, Clement down,
Your Catesby, Faux, and Garnet, thousands more.
And those who hence have lately raised the score;
Where the grand traitor now, and all the crew
Of his disciples must receive their due;
Where flames, and tortures of eternal date
Must punish you, yet ne'er can expiate:
Learn duller fiends your unknown cruelties,
Such as no wit, but yours, could e'er devise,
No guilt, but yours, deserve; make hell confess
Itself outdone, it's devils damned for less.
- ↑ Ignatius Loyola, who was born in 1491 in Guipuzcoa, one of the Basque provinces. In this Satire, Oldham is speaking in his own person.
- ↑ Loyola’s original profession was that of a soldier, in which he is aid to have displayed courage and ability. Having renounced arms for a religious life, he determined to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for which he made elaborate preparations in the way of prayer and penance.
- ↑ See note p. 123.
- ↑ An Italian Jesuit, created a cardinal by Sextus V., was after afterwards made Archbishop of Capua; one of the most temperate and learned controversialists of his time. His writings are distinguished by perplexity of statement and integrity of reasoning.
- ↑ 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.