Poetical Works of John Oldham/Satire upon the Jesuits—Satire III
SATIRE III. — LOYOLA'S WILL.[1]
LONG had the famed impostor found success,
Long seen his damned fraternity's increase,
In wealth, and power, mischief, guile improved,
By popes, and pope-rid kings upheld, and loved;
Laden with tears, and sins, and numerous scars,
Got some i' the field, but most in other wars,
Now finding life decay, and fate draw near,
Grown ripe for hell, and Roman calendar,
He thinks it worth his holy thoughts, and care,
Some hidden rules, and secrets to impart,
The proofs of long experience and deep art,
Which to his successors may useful be
In conduct of their future villany.
Summoned together, all the officious band
The orders of their bedrid chief attend;
Doubtfuil, what legacy he will bequeath,
And wait with greedy ears his dying breath:
With such quick duty vassal fiends below
To meet commands of their dread monarch go.
On pillow raised, he does their entrance greet,
And joys to see the wished assembly meet:
They in glad murmurs tell their joy aloud,
Then a deep silence stills the expecting crowd.
Like Delphic hag of old, by fiend possessed,
He swells; wild frenzy heaves his panting breast;
His bristling hairs stick up, his eyeballs glow,
And from his mouth long streaks of drivel flow:
Thrice with due reverence he himself doth cross,
Then thus his hellish oracles disclose.
’Ye firm associates of my great design,
Whom the same vows, and oaths, and order join,
The faithful band, whom I and Home have chose,
The last support of our declining cause;
Whose conquering troops I with success have led
'Gainst all opposers of our Church and Head;
Who e'er to the mad German owe their rise,
Greneva's rebels, or the hot-brained Swiss;
Revolted heretic!, who late have broke
And durst throw off the long-worn sacred yoke;
You, by whose happy influence Rome can boast
A greater empire than by Luther lost:
By whom wide nature's far-fetched limits now,
And utmost Indies to its crosier bow.
'Go on, ye mighty champions of our cause,
Maintain our party, and subdue our foes;
Kill heresy, that rank and poisonous weed,
Which threatens now the church to overspread;
Fire Calvin, and his nest of upstarts out,
Who tread our sacred mitre under foot;
Strayed Germany reduce; let it no more
The incestuous monk of Wittemberg adore;
Make stubborn England once more stoop its crown,
And fealty to our priestly sovereign own;
Regain our church's rights, the island clear
From all remaining dregs of Wickliffe there.
Plot, enterprize, contrive, endeavour; spare
No toil nor pains; no death, nor danger fear;
Restless your aims pursue; let no defeat
Your sprightly courage, and attempts rebate,
But urge to fresh, and bolder, ne'er to end
Till the whole world to our great Caliph bend;
Till he through every nation everywhere
Bear sway, and reign as absolute as here;
Till Rome without control or contest be
The universal ghostly monarchy.
’Oh! that kind Heaven a longer thread would give,
And let me to that happy juncture live:
But 'tis decreed!'———at this he paused and wept,
The rest alike time with his sorrow kept:
Then thus continued he———'Since unjust fate
Envies my race of glory longer date,
Yet, as a wounded general, e'er he dies,
To his sad troops, sighs out his last advice,
(Who, though they must his fatal absence moan,
By those great lessons conquer, when he's gone)
So I to you my last instructions give,
And breathe out counsel with my parting life:
Let each to my important words give ear,
Worth your attention, and my dying care.
'First, and the chiefest thing by me enjoined,
The solemnest tie, that must your order bind,
Let each without demur, or scruple pay
A strict obedience to the Roman sway:[2]
To the unerring chair all homage swear,
Although a punk, a witch, a fiend sit there.
Whoe'er is to the sacred mitre reared,
Believe all virtues with the place conferred;
Think him established there by Heaven, though he
Has altars robbed for bribes the choice to buy,
Or pawned his soul to hell for simony;
Though he be atheist, heathen, Turk, or Jew,
Blasphemer, sacrilegious, perjured too:
Though he be bawd, pimp, pathick, panderer,
Whate'er old Sodom's nest of lechers were;
Though tyrant, traitor, poisoner, parricide,
Magician, monster, all that's bad beside;
Fouler than infamy; the very lees,
The sink, the jakes, the common-sewer of vice;
Strait count him holy, virtuous, good, devout,
Chaste, gentle, meek, a saint, a god, who not?
'Make fate hang on his lips, nor Heaven have
Power to predestinate without his leave;
None be admitted there, but whom he please,
Who buys from him the patent for the place.
Hold those amongst the highest rank of saints,
Whomever he to that honour shall advance,
Though here the refuse of the jail, and stews,
Which hell itself would scarce for lumber choose.
But count all reprobate, and damned, and worse,
Whom he, when gout, or phthisic rage, shall curse;
Whom he in anger excommunicates,
For Friday meals, and abrogating sprats;
Or in just indignation spurns to hell
For jeering holy toe, and pantofle.
’Whate'er he says, esteem for holy writ,
And text apocryphal, if he think fit;
Let arrant legends, worst of tales and lies,
Falser than Capgraves, and Voragines,
Than Quixote, Rabelais, Amadis de Gaul,
If signed with sacred lead, and fisher's seal.
Be thought authentic and canonical.
Again, if he ordain 't in his decrees,
Let every gospel for mere fable pass;
Let right be wrong, black white, and virtue vice,
No sun, no moon, nor no antipodes;
Forswear your reason, conscience, and your creed,
Your very sense, and Euclid, if he bid.
’Let it be held less heinous, less amiss,
To break all Grod's commands, than one of his.
When his great missions call, without delay,
Without reluctance readily obey,
Nor let your inmost wishes dare gainsay.
Should he to Bantam, or Japan command,
Or farthest bounds of southern unknown land,
Farther than avarice its vassals drives,
Through rocks, and dangers, loss of blood, and lives,
Like great Xavier's[3] be your obedience shown;
Outstrip his courage, glory, and renown,
Whom neither yawning gulfs of deep despair,
Nor scorching heats of burning line could scare;
Whom seas, nor storms, nor wrecks could make refrain
From propagating holy faith, and gain.
'If he but nod commissions out to kill,
But beckon lives of heretics to spill,
Let the inquisition rage, fresh cruelties
Make the dire engines groan with tortured cries:
Let Campo Flori every day be strewed
With the warm ashes of the Lutheran brood;
Repeat again Bohemian slaughters o'er,
And Piedmont valleys drown with floating gore
Swifter than murdering angels, when they fly
On errands of avenging destiny,
Fiercer than storms let loose, with eager haste
Lay cities, countries, realms, whole nature waste,
Sack, ravish, burn, destroy, slay, massacre,
Till the same grave their lives and names inter.
'These are the rights to our great Mufti due,
The sworn allegiance of your sacred vow.
What else we in our votaries require,
What other gift, next follows to enquire.
'And first it will our great advice befit,
What soldiers to your lists you ought admit.
To natives of the church, and faith, like you,
The foremost rank of choice is justly due:
'Mongst whom the chiefest place assign to those,
Whose zeal has mostly signalized the cause.
But let not entrance be to them denied,
Whoever shall desert the adverse side;
Omit no promises of wealth, or power,
That may inveigled heretics allure;
Those, whom great learning, parts, or wit renowns,
Cajole with hopes of honours, scarlet gowns,
Provincialships, and palls, and triple crowns.
This must a rector, that a provost be,
A third succeed to the next abbacy;
Some, princes' tutors, others, confessors
To dukes, and kings, and queens, and emperors:
These are strong arguments, which seldom fail,
Which more than all your weak disputes prevail.
'Exclude not those of less desert; decree
To all revolters your foundation free;
To all, whom gaming, drunkenness, or lust,
To need, and popery shall have reduced:
To all, whom slighted love, ambition crossed,
Hopes often bilked, and sought preferment lost,
Whom pride, or discontent, revenge, or spite,
Fear, frenzy, or despair shall proselyte:
Those powerful motives, which the most bring in,
Most converts to our church, and order win.
Reject not those, whom guilt, and crimes at home
Have made to us for sanctuary come;
Let sinners of each hue, and size, and kind,
Here quick admittance, and safe. refuge find;
Be they from justice of their country fled,
With blood of murders, rapes, and treasons dyed,
No varlet, rogue, or miscreant refuse,
From galleys, jails, or hell itself broke loose.
By this you shall in strength, and numbers grow,
And shoals each day to your thronged cloisters slow:
So Rome's and Mecca's first great founders did
By such wise methods made their churches spread.
'When shaven crown and hallowed girdle's power
Has dubbed him saint, that villain was before,
Entered, let it his first endeavour be
To shake off all remains of modesty,
Doll sneaking modesty, not more unfit
For needy flattering poets, when they write,
Or trading punks, than for a Jesuit.
If any novice feel at first a blush,
Let wine, and frequent converse with the stews,
Reform the fop, and shame it out of use,
Unteach the puling folly by degrees,
And train him to a well-bred shamelessness.
Get that great gift, and talent, impudence,
Accomplished mankind's highest excellence:
'Tis that alone prefers, alone makes great,
Confers alone wealth, titles, and estate,
Gains place at court, can make a fool a peer,
An ass a bishop, vilest blockheads rear
To wear red hats, and sit in porphyry chair.
'Tis learning, parts, and skill, and wit, and sense,
Worth, merit, honour, virtue, innocence.
’Next for religion, learn what's fit to take,
How small a dram does the just compound make,
As much as is by crafty statesmen worn
For fashion only, or to serve a turn.
To bigot fools its idle practice leave,
Think it enough the empty form to have.
The outward show is seemly, cheap, and light,
The substance cumbersome, of cost, and weight;
The rabble judge by what appears to the eye,
None, or but few, the thoughts within descry.
Make it an engine to ambitious power
To stalk behind, and hit your mark more sure;
A cloak to cover well-hid knavery,
Like it, when used, to be with ease thrown by;
A shifting card, by which your course to steer,
And taught with every changing wind to veer.
Let no nice, holy, conscientious ass
Amongst your better company find place,
Me, and your foundation to disgrace.
Let truth be banished, ragged virtue fly,
And poor unprofitable honesty;
Weak idols, who their wretched slaves betray,
To every rook, and every knave a prey:
These lie remote, and wide from interest,
Farther than heaven from hell, or east from west,
Far, as they e'er were distant from the breast.
'Think not yourselves to austerities confined,
Or those strict rules which other orders bind;
To Capuchins, Carthusians, Cordeliers
Leave penance, meagre abstinence, and prayers;
[n lousy rags let begging friars lie,
Content on straw or boards to mortify;
Let them with sackcloth discipline their skins,
Ajid scourge them for their madness and their sins;
Let pining anchorets in grottos starve,
Who from the liberties of nature swerve,
Who make 't their chief religion not to eat,
iLud place 't in nastiness, and want of meat.
Live you in luxury and pampered ease,
As if whole nature were your cateress;
Soft be your beds, as those which monarchs' whores
Lie on, or gouts of bedrid emperors;
Your wardrobes stored with choice of suits more dear
Than cardinals on high processions wear;
With dainties load your boards, whose every dish
May tempt cloyed gluttons, or Vitellius' wish,
Each fit a longing queen; let richest wines
With mirth your heads inflame, with lust your veins,
Such as the friends of dying popes would give
For cordials to prolong their gasping life.
’Ne'er let the Nazarene, whose badge and name
You wear,[4] upbraid you with a conscious shame;
Leave him his slighted homilies and rules,
To stuff the squabbles of the wrangling schools;
Disdain, that He, and the poor angling tribe,
Should laws and government to you prescribe;
Let none of those good fools your patterns make,
Instead of them, the mighty Judas take:
Renowned Iscariot! fit alone to be
The example of our great society,
Whose darling guilt despised the common road,
And scorned to stop at sin beneath a god.
'And now 'tis time I should instructions give,
What wiles and cheats the rabble best deceive.
Each age and sex their different passions wear,
To suit with which requires a prudent care:
Youth is capricious, headstrong, fickle, vain,
Given to lawless pleasure, age to gain;
Old wives, in superstition overgrown,
With chimney-tales and stories best are won;
'Tis no mean talent rightly to descry,
What several baits to each you ought apply.
The credulous and easy of belief
With miracles and well-framed lies deceive;
Empty whole Surius and the Talmud; drain
Saint Francis, and Saint Mahomet's Alcoran;
Sooner shall popes and cardinals want pride,
Than you a stock of lies and legends need.
'Tell how blessed Virgin to come down was seen,
Like playhouse punk descending in machine;
How she writ billet-doux, and love-discourse,
Made assignations, visits, and amours;
How hosts, distressed, her smock for banner bore,
Which vanquished foes, and murdered at twelve score.
Relate how fish in conventicles met,
And mackerel were with bait of doctrine caught;
How cattle have judicious hearers been,
And stones pathetically cried Amen!
How consecrated hive with bells was hung,
And bees kept mass, and holy anthems sung;
How pigs to the rosary kneeled, and sheep were taught
To bleat Te Deum and Magnificat;
How flyflap of church-censure houses rid
Of insects, which at curse of friar died;
How travelling saints, well mounted on a switch,
Ride journeys through the air, like Lapland witch;
And ferrying cowls religious pilgrims bore,
O'er waves without the help of sail or oar.
Nor let Xavier's great wonders pass concealed,
How storms were by the almighty wafer quelled;
How zealous crab the sacred image bore,
And swam a catholic to the distant shore:
With shams like these the giddy rout mislead,
Their folly and their superstition feed.
''Twas found a good and gainful art of old
(And much it did our church's power uphold)
To feign hobgoblins, elves, and walking sprites,
And fairies dancing salenger[5] o' nights;
White sheets for ghosts, and will-a-wisps have passed
For souls in purgatory unreleased,
And crabs in churchyard crawled in masquerade,
To cheat the parish, and have masses said.
By this our ancestors in happier days,
Did store of credit and advantage raise:
But now the trade is fallen, decayed, and dead,
E'er since contagious knowledge has o'erspread;
"With scorn the grinning rabble now hear tell
Of Hecla, Patrick's Hole, and Mongibel,
Believed no more than tales of Troy, unless
In countries drowned in ignorance, like this.
Henceforth be wary how such things you feign,
Except it be beyond the Cape or Line,
Except at Mexico, Brazil, Peru,
At the Moluccos, Goa, or Pegu,
Or any distant and remoter place,
Where they may current and unquestioned pass,
Where never poaching heretics resort,
To spring the lie, and make 't their game and sport.
'But I forget (what should be mentioned most)
Confession, our chief privilege and boast,
That staple ware, which ne'er returns in vain,
Ne'er balks the trader of expected gain.
'Tis this that spies through court intrigues, and brings
Admission to the cabinets of kings;
By this we keep proud monarchs at our becks,
And make our footstools of their thrones and necks,
Give 'em command, and if they disobey,
Betray them to the ambitious heir a prey;
Hound the officious curs on heretics,
The vermin which the church infest, and vex;
And when our turn is served, and business done,
Dispatch them for reward, as useless grown.
'Nor are these half the benefits and gains,
Which by wise managery accrue from thence.
By this we unlock the miser's hoarded, chests
And treasure, though kept close as statesmen's breasts;
This does rich widows to our nets decoy.
Let us their jointures and themselves enjoy;
To us the merchant does his customs bring,
And pays our duty, though he cheats his king;
To us court-ministers refund, made great
By robbery, and bankrupt of the state;
Ours is the soldier's plunder, padder's prize,
Gabels[6] on lechery, and the stew's excise;
By this our colleges in riches shine,
And vie with Becket's and Loretto's shrine.
'And here I must not grudge a word or two,
My younger votaries, of advice to you,
To you, whom beauty's charms, and generous fire,
Of boiling youth to sports of love inspire.
This is your harvest; here, secure and cheap,
You may the fruits of unbought pleasure reap;
Riot in free and uncontrolled delight,
Where no dull marriage clogs the appetite;
Taste every dish of lust's variety,
Which popes and scarlet lechers dearly buy
With bribes, and bishoprics, and simony.
But this I ever to your care commend,—
Be wary how you openly offend,
Lest scoffing lewd buffoons descry our shame,
And fix disgrace on the great order's fame.
'When the unguarded maid alone repairs
To ease the burthens of her sins and cares;
When youth in each, and privacy conspire
To kindle wishes, and befriend desire;
If she has practised in the trade before,
(Few else of proselytes to us brought o’er)
Little of force, or artifice will need.
To make you in the victory succeed:
But if some untaught innocent she be,
Rude, and unknowing in the mystery,
She'll cost more labour to be made comply.
Make her by pumping understand the sport.
And undermine with secret trains the fort,
Sometimes, as if you'd blame her gaudy dress,
Her naked pride, her jewels, point, and lace.
Find opportunity her breasts to press;
Oft feel her hand, and whisper in her ear.
You find the secret marks of lewdness there;
Sometimes with naughty sense her blushes raise,
And make 'em guilt, she never knew, confess;
'Thus,' may you say, 'with such a leering smile,
So languishing a look you hearts beguile;
Thus with your foot, hand, eye, you tokens speak.
These signs deny, these assignations make;
Thus 'tis you clip, with such a fierce embrace
You clasp your lover to your breast and face;
Thus are your hungry lips with kisses cloyed,
Thus is your hand, and thus your tongue employed.'
’Ply her with talk like this; and, if she incline
To help devotion, give her Aretine[7]
Instead of the rosary. Never despair;
She, that to such discourse will lend an ear,
Though chaster than cold cloistered nuns she were,
Will soon prove soft, and pliant to your use,
As strumpets on the carnival let loose.
Credit experience; I have tried them all,
And never found the unerring methods fail
Not Ovid, though 'twere his chief mastery,
Had greater skill in these intrigues than I;
Nor Nero's learnèd pimp, to whom we owe
What choice records of lust are extant now.
This heretofore, when youth and sprightly blood
Ran in my veins, I tasted, and enjoyed:
Ah those blest days!'—(here the old lecher smiled,
With sweet remembrance of past pleasures filled)
’But they are gone! Wishes alone remain,
And dreams of joy, ne'er to be felt again:
To abler youth I now the practice leave,
To whom this counsel and advice I give.
'But the dear mention of my gayer days
Has made me farther, than I would, digress.
'Tis time we now should in due place expound,
How guilt is after shrift to be atoned:
Enjoin no sour repentance, tear, and grief;
Eyes weep no cash, and you no profit give:
Sins, though of the first rate, must punished be,
Not by their own, but the actor's quality:
The poor, whose purse cannot the penance bear,
Let whipping serve, bare feet, and shirts of hair:
The richer fools to Compostella send,[8]
To Rome, Montserrat, or the Holy Land;
Let pardons, and the indulgence office drain
Their coffers, and enrich the Pope's with gain,
Make 'em build churches, monasteries found,
And dear-bought masses for their crimes compound.
'Let law and gospel rigid precepts set,
And make the paths to bliss rugged and strait;
Teach you a smooth, an easier way to gain
Heaven's joys, yet sweet and useful sin retain.
With every frailty, every lust comply,
To advance your spiritual realm and monarchy;
Pull up weak virtue's fence, give scope and space
And purlieus to out-lying consciences;
Show that the needle's eye may stretch, and how
The largest camel-vices may go through.
'Teach how the priest pluralities may buy,
Yet fear no odious sin of simony,
While thoughts, and ducats well directed be:
Let whores adorn his exemplary life,
But no lewd heinous wife a scandal give.
Sooth up the gaudy atheist, who maintains
No law but sense, and owns no god but chance;
Bid thieves rob on, the boisterous ruffian tell
He may for hire, revenge, or honour kill;
Bid strumpets persevere, absolve them too,
And take their dues in kind for what you do;
Exhort the painful and industrious bawd
To diligence and labour in her trade,
Nor think her innocent vocation ill,
Whose incomes does the sacred treasure fill;
Let griping usurers extortion use,
No rapine, falsehood, perjury refuse,
Stick at no crime, which covetous popes would scarce
Act to enrich themselves and bastard-heirs:
A small bequest to the church can all atone,
Wipes off all scores, and heaven and all's their own.
Be these your doctrines, these the truths you preach,
But no forbidden Bible come in reach
Your cheats and artifices to impeach,
Lest thence lay-fools pernicious knowledge get,
Throw off obedience, and your laws forget:
Make them believe't a spell, more dreadful far
Than Bacon, Haly, or Albumazar.
Happy the time, when the unpretending crowd
No more than I its language understood!
When the worm-eaten book, linked to a chain,
In dust lay mouldering in the Vatican,
Despised, neglected, and forgot; to none
But poring rabbies, or the Sorbonne known:
Then in full power our sovereign prelate swayed,
By kings, and all the rabble world obeyed;
Here humble monarch at his feet kneeled down,
And begged the alms, and charity of a crown;
There, when in solemn state he pleased to ride,
Poor sceptred slaves ran henchboys by his side;
None, though in thought, his grandeur durst blaspheme
Nor in their very sleep a treason dream.
'But since the broaching that mischievous piece,
Each alderman a Father Lombard is,
And every cit dares impudently know
More than a council, pope, and conclave too.
Hence the late damned friar, and all the crew
Of former crawling sects their poison drew;
Hence all the troubles, plagues, rebellion's breed,
We've felt, or feel, or may hereafter dread.
Wherefore enjoin, that no lay coxcomb dare
About him that unlawful weapon wear;
But charge him chiefly not to touch at all
The dangerous works of that old Lollard, Paul;[9]
That arrant Wickliffist, from whom our foes
Take all their batteries to attack our cause.
Would he in his first years had martyred been,
Never Damascus, nor the Vision seen;
Then he our party was, stout, vigorous,
And fierce in chase of heretics, like us;
Till he at length, by the enemy seduced,
Forsook us, and the hostile side espoused.
'Had not the mighty Julian[10] missed his aims,
These holy shreds had all consumed in flames;
But since the immortal lumber still endures,
In spite of all his industry and ours,
Take care at least it may not come abroad,
To taint with catching heresy the crowd.
Let them be still kept low in sense,—they'll pay
The more respect, more readily obey;
Pray that kind Heaven would on their hearts dispense
A bounteous and abundant ignorance,
That they may never swerve, nor turn awry
From sound and orthodox stupidity.
'But these are obvious things, easy to know,
Common to every monk, as well as you.
Greater affairs, and more important, wait
To be discussed, and call for our debate;
Matters that depth require, and well befit
The address and conduct of a Jesuit;
How kingdoms are embroiled, what shakes a throne,
How the first seeds of discontent are sown
To spring up in rebellion; how are set
The secret snares that circumvent a state;
How bubbled monarchs are at first beguiled,
Trepanned, and gulled, at last deposed, and killed.
’When some proud prince, a rebel to our head,
For disbelieving holy church's creed,
And Peter-pence,[11] is heretic decreed,
And by a solemn and unquestioned power
To death, and hell, and you delivered o'er:
Choose first some dexterous rogue, well tried, and known,
(Such by confession your familiars grown)
Let him by art and nature fitted be
For any great, and gallant villany,
Practised in every sin, each kind of vice,
Which deepest casuists in their searches miss,
Watchful as jealousy, wary as fear,
Fiercer than lust, and bolder than despair,
But close, as plotting fiends in council are.
To him, in firmest oaths of silence bound,
The worth and merit of the deed propound:
Tell of whole reams of pardon, new come o'er,
Indies of gold, and blessings, endless store,
Choice of preferments, if he overcome;
And if he fail, undoubted martyrdom,
And bills for sums in heaven, to be drawn
On factors there, and at first sight paid down.
With arts and promises like these allure,
And make him to your great design secure.
’And here to know the sundry ways to kill,
Is worth the genius of a Machiavel.
Dull northern brains, in these deep arts unbred,
Know nought but to cut throats, or knock o' th' head;
No sleight of murder of the subtlest shape,
Your busy search and observation 'scape;
Legerdemain of killing, that dives in,
And juggling steals away a life unseen;
How gaudy fate may be in presents sent,
And creep insensibly by touch, or scent;
How ribands, gloves, or saddle-pommel may
An unperceived, but certain death convey,
Above the reach of antidotes, above the power
Of the famed Pontick Mountebank to cure;
Whate'er is known to quaint Italian spite,
In studied poisoning skilled, and exquisite,
Whate'er great Borgia, or his sire could boast,
Which the expense of half the conclave cost.
’Thus may the business be in secret done,
Nor authors, nor the accessories known,
And the slurred guilt with ease on others thrown.
But if ill fortune should your plot betray,
And leave you to the rage of foes a prey;
Let none his crime by weak confession own,
Nor shame the church, while he'd himself atone.
Let varnished guile, and feigned hypocrisies,
Pretended holiness, and useful lies,
Your well dissembled villanies disguise.
A thousand wily turns, and doubles try,
To foil the scent, and to divert the cry;
Cog, sham, out-face, deny, equivocate,
Into a thousand shapes yourselves translate.
Remember what the crafty Spartan taught,
Children with rattles, men with oaths are caught;
Forswear upon the rack, and if you fall,
Let this great comfort make amends for all,—
Those whom they damn for rogues, next age shall see
Made advocates i' th' church's Litany.
Whoever with bold tongue, or pen shall dare
Against your arts and practices declare;
What fool shall e'er presumptuously oppose,
Your holy cheats and godly frauds disclose;
Pronounce him heretic, firebrand of hell,
Turk, Jew, fiend, miscreant, pagan, infidel;
A thousand blacker names, worse calumnies,
All wit can think, and pregnant spite devise;
Strike home, gash deep, no lies, nor slanders spare;
A wound, though cured, yet leaves behind a scar.
’Those whom your wit and reason can't decry,
Make scandalous with loads of infamy;
Make Luther monster, by a fiend begot,
Brought forth with wings and tail, and cloven foot;
Make whoredom, incest, worst of vice, and shame,
Pollute and foul his manners, life and name;
Tell how strange storms ushered his fatal end,
And hell's black troops did for his soul contend.
'Much more I had to say; but now grow faint,
And strength and spirits for the subject want.
Be these great mysteries, I here unfold,
Amongst your oiler's institutes enrolled;
Preserve them sacred, close and unrevealed,
As ancient Rome her Sybil's books concealed.
Let no bold heretic with saucy eye
Into the hidden unseen archives pry,
Lest the malicious flouting rascals turn
Our church to laughter, raillery, and scorn.
Let never rack, or torture, pain, or fear,
From your firm breasts the important secrets tear.
If any treacherous brother of your own
Shall to the world divulge, and make them known,
Let him by worst of deaths his guilt atone.
Should but his thoughts, or dreams suspected be,
Let him for safety, and prevention die,
And learn in the grave the art of secrecy.
’But one thing more, and then with joy I go,
Nor urge a longer stay of fate below.
Give me again once more your plighted faith,
And let each seal it with his dying breath.
As the great Carthagenian[12] heretofore
The bloody reeking altar touched, and swore
Eternal enmity to the Roman power,
Swear you (and let the Fates confirm the same)
An endless hatred to the Lutheran name!
Vow never to admit, or league, or peace,
Or truce, or commerce with the cursèd race;
Now, through all age, when time or place soe'er
Shall give you power, wage an immortal war;
Like Theban feuds, let yours yourselves survive,
And in your very dust and ashes live;
Like mine, be your last gasp their curse.'———At this
They kneel, and all the sacred volume kiss;
Vowing to send each year an hecatomb
Of Huguenots, an offering to his tomb.
In vain he would continue;—abrupt death
A period puts, and stops his impious breath;
In broken accents he is scarce allowed
To falter out his blessing on the crowd.
Amen is echoed by infernal howl,
And scrambling spirits seize his parting soul.
- ↑ The institution and mission of the Jesuits were never more fiercely assailed than in this and the following Satire, which produced, on their first publication, as powerful a temporary effect in England as the Provincial Letters upon public opinion in the Roman Catholic states of Europe.
- ↑ The three vows of the Jesuits laid down by Loyola were poverty, chastity, and strict obedience to the chief of the order. It was the last which made Paul III. withhold his sanction from the institution; but his scruples were removed by the addition of a fourth vow, of implicit submission to himself.
- ↑ St. Francis Xavier, generally called the Apostle of the Indies. He was one of the disciples of Loyola, and the most indefatigable and successful of all the Roman Catholic missionaries. The great scene of his labours was the East Indies and Japan. His zeal led him to contemplate the conversion of the Chinese; but he died on the voyage. He was the patron saint of the Queen of James II., and his aid was invoked when her majesty desired a son. In reference to this august occasion, his life by Bouhours was translated into English by Dryden.
- ↑ The Jesuits were established by a bull in 1540, under the name of the Society of Jesus. The term Jesuits was originally applied to them in ridicule of their institution.
- ↑ One of the oldest dances in England was called Sellinger’s Round.
- ↑ A tax or duty. The term is Anglo-Norman, and there is little inconsistency in putting it into the month of Ignatius Loyola.
- ↑ Peter Aretino, born in Tuscany 1492, died 1557; a writer of indecent lampoons. He stood so high in favour with the leading sovereigns of Europe, and three of the Popes, that he obtained an employment in the Vatican, expected to be made a cardinal, and took the title of Il Divino.
- ↑ Ships used to be fitted out from the different ports with cargos of pilgrims to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, as a regular article of exportation. See Ellis's Original Letters: Second Series, A MS. ballad of the time of Henry VI., in the Trinity Library, Cambridge, describes one of these voyages.
- ↑ The famous Father Paul Sarpi, whose bold resistance to the encroachments of popery brought him under the vengeance of the church. His History of the Council of Trent, transmitted to the country through his personal friend, Sir Henry Wotton, the English resident at Venice, was translated into English by Sir Adam Newton and Sir Nathaniel Brent, and published in London in 1619. Dr. Johnson; soon after he came to London, made proposals to Mr. Cave undertake a new translation, but the project never went farther than a few specimen pages, and a life of Paul Sarpi, which afterward appeared in the Gentlemen’s Magazine.
- ↑ Julian, the Apostate Emperor of Rome.
- ↑ A tribute, or tax, formerly paid by the English to the Pope. It was levied at Lammas-day, and was called Peter-pence, the rate being a penny for every house. It was called also by the no less significant name of Romescot.
- ↑ Hannibal