Classic Poem

Ye parsons of England who puzzle your pates,
Who hunt for preferment, and hope for estates,
Give over your preaching, your hopes are but small,
For the Methodist parson has out-cut you all.

What signifies learning and going to school,
When the rabble's so ready to follow a fool?
A fool did I say? No, his pardon I crave;
He cannot be fool, but he may be a knave.

For all his fine whim-whams, Alas, are no more
Than what his friend Mahomet practis'd before;
Now mark what I say, and you'll find I say true,
Tho' religion's the cry, ready money's the view.

Don't history tell how the fair maid of France
Led all that whole nation the very same dance?
So slyly the gipsy cock'd up the affair,
The poor Dauphin himself was drawn into the snare.

You all may remember the fam'd Mother Map
Who flourish'd at Epsom, and made such a rap;
Some thought her an angel, some thought her a witch,
Till she roll'd from her chariot, and dy'd in a ditch.

In religion, as well as in physick, we find
That quacks have the art of bamboozling mankind.
The age is roll'd round o'er a new forty-one,
'Tis high time that new sectaries should be begun.

But let them alone, and they'll dwindle away,
As they rose of themselves, of themselves they'll decay;
At first they astonish, at last they're a joke,
For they burst forth in flames, and they vanish in smoke.