'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks:
Call fire and sword and desolation
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carry'd on,
And still be doing never done:
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding something still amiss:
More peevish, cross, and splenetick,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
Than with more care keep holy-day
The wrong than others the right way:
Compound for sins they are inclin❜d to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow;
Another, nothing else allow.
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin.
Hudibras, Part I., Canto 1.
NEW LIGHT; OR, RALPHO'S CHARACTER.
His knowledge was not far behind
The knight's, but of another kind,
And he another way came by 't:
Some call it gifts, and some new-light;
A liberal art, that costs no pains
Of study, industry, or brains.
His wit was sent him for a token,
But in the carriage crack'd and broken.
Like commendation nine-pence crook'd,
With-To and from my love-it look'd.
He ne'er consider'd it, as loth
To look a gift-horse in the mouth;
And very wisely wou'd lay forth
No more upon it than 'twas worth.
But as he got it freely, so
He spent it frank and freely too.
For saints themselves will sometimes be
Of gifts, that cost them nothing, free.
By means of this, with hem and cough,
Prolongers to enlighten'd stuff,
He could deep mysteries unriddle
As easily as thread a needle.
For as of vagabonds we say,
That they are ne'er beside their way;
Whate'er men speak by this new light,*
Still they are sure to be i' th' right.
"Tis a dark lanthorn of the spirit,
Which none see by but those that bear it: †
A light that falls down from on high,
For spiritual trades to cozen by;
An Ignis Fatuus, that bewitches
And leads men into pools and ditches
To make them dip themselves, and sound
For Christendom in dirty pond;
To dive like wild-fowl for salvation
And fish to catch regeneration.
This light inspires and plays upon
The nose of saint like bag-pipe drone, ‡
* The good old cause, which some believe
To be the dev'l that tempted Eve
With knowledge, and does still invite
The world to mischief with New Light.
Hudibras, Part III., Canto 1.
+ Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
North. James, I love to hear your voice. An Esquimaux would feel himself getting civilised under it, for there's sense in the very sound. A man's character speaks in his voice even more than his words. These he
And speaks through hollow empty soul,
As through a trunk, or whisp'ring hole,
Such language as no mortal ear
But spiteful eaves-droppers can hear.
Hudibras, Part I., Canto 1.
THESE errors and animosities were so remarkable, that they begot wonder in an ingenious Italian, who being about this time come newly into this nation, and considering them, writ scoffingly to a friend of his own country, to this purpose; that the common people of England were wiser than the wisest of his nation; for here the very women and shopkeepers were able to judge of predestination, and to determine what laws were fit to be made concerning church-government; and then, what were fit to be obeyed or abolished. That they were more able (or at least thought so) to raise and determine perplexed cases of conscience, than the wisest of the most learned colleges in Italy. That men of the slightest learning, and the most ignorant of the common people, were mad for a new, or super, or re-reformation of religion; and that in this they appeared like that man, who would never cease to whet and whet his knife, till there was no steel left to make it useful. And he concluded his letter with this observation, "that those very men that were most busy in oppositions, and disputations, and controversies, and finding out faults of their governors, had usually the least of humility, and mortification, or of the power of godliness." IZAAK WALTON. Life of Hooker.
SATYR is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets in the world, and that so few are offended with it.
SWIFT. Battle of the Books-Preface.
any here chance to behold himself,
Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong,
may utter by rote-but his "voice is the man for a' that," and betrays or divulges his peculiar nature.
That seemed the very sound of happy thoughts.
WORDSWORTH. The Excursion.
For, if he shame to have his follies known,
First he should shame to act 'em.
BEN JONSON. Every Man out of his Humpur-Prologue.
PASSIONS are likened best to floods and streams;
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.
So, when affections yield discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come :
They that are rich in words, must needs discover,
They are but poor in that which makes a lover.
Wrong not, dear Empress of my heart!
The merits of true passion,
With thinking that he feels no smart,
That sues for no compassion;
Since if my plaints seem not to prove
The conquest of thy beauty,
It comes not from defect of love,
But from excess of duty;
For, knowing that I sue to serve
A saint of such perfection,
As all desire, bnt none deserve,
A place in her affection,
I rather choose to want relief
Than venture the revealing;
Where glory recommends the grief,
Despair distrusts the healing.
Thus those desires that aim too high
For any mortal lover,
When reason cannot make them die,
Discretion doth them cover.
Yet, when discretion doth bereave
The plaints that I should utter,
Then thy discretion may perceive
That silence is a suitor.
Silence in love betrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity!
Then wrong not, dear heart of my heart!
My true though secret passion;
He smarteth most that hides the smart,
And sues for no compassion.
Του
say
I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your curls, and kiss the time away;
You blame me too, because I can't devise
Some sport, to please those babies in your eyes:
By love's religion, I must here confess it,
The most I love, when I the least express it!
Small griefs find tongues; full casks are ever found
To give, if any, yet but little sound;
Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depths below:
So when love speechless is, she doth express
A depth in love, and that depth bottomless.
Now since my love is tongueless, know me such,
Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much.
HARK! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote,
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves ?-the fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high :-from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.
Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
Restless it rolls, now fix'd and now anon
Flashing afar,-and at his iron feet
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done;
For on this morn three potent nations meet,
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.
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