Classic Poem

The first (entitled to the place
Of honour both by gown and grace)
Who never let occasion slip
To take right hand of fellowship,
And was so proud, that should he meet
The Twelve Apostles in the street,
He'd turn his nose up at them all,
And shove his Saviour from the wall;
Who was so mean (meanness and pride
Still go together side by side)
That he would cringe, and creep, be civil,
And hold a stirrup for the Devil,
If in a journey to his mind,
He'd let him mount, and ride behind;
Who basely fawned through all his life,
For patrons first, then for a wife,
Wrote dedications which must make
The heart of ev'ry Christian quake,
Made one man equal to, or more
Than God, then left him as before
His God he left, and drawn by pride,
Shifted about to t'other side)
Was by his sire a parson made,
Merely to give the boy a trade,
But he himself was thereto drawn
By some faint omens of the Lawn,
And on the truly Christian plan
To make himself a gentleman,
A title, in which form arrayed him,
Though Fate ne'er thought on't when she made him.

The Oaths he took, 'tis very true,
But took them, as all wise men do,
With an intent, if things should turn,
Rather to temporize, than burn.
Gospel and loyalty were made
To serve the purposes of trade,
Relgion's are but paper ties,
Which bind the fool, but which the wise,
Such idle notions far above,
Draw on and off, just like a glove;
All gods, all kings (let his great aim
Be answered) were to him the same.

A curate first, he read and read,
And laid in, whilst he should have fed
The souls of his neglected flock,
Of reading such a mighty stock,
That he o'ercharged the weary brain
With more than she could well contain,
More than she was with spirits fraught
To turn, and methodize to thought,
And which, like ill-digested food,
To humours turned, and not to blood.
Brought up to London, from the plow
And pulpit, how to make a bow
He tried to learn, he grew polite,
And was the poets' parasite.
With wits conversing (and wits then
Were to be found 'mongst noblemen)
He caught, or would have caught the flame,
And would be nothing, or the same;
He drank with drunkards, lived with sinners,
Herded with infidels for dinners,
With such an emphasis and grace

Examine strictly all mankind,
Most characters are mixed we find,
And vice and virtue take their turn
In the same breast to beat and burn.
Our priest was an exception here,
Nor did one spark of grace appear,
Not one dull, dim spark in his soul;
Vice, glorious vice possessed the whole,
And, in her service truly warm,
He was in sin most uniform.

Injurious Satire, own at least
One snivelling virtue in the Priest,
One snivelling virtue which is placed,
They say, in or about the waist,
Called Chastity; the prudish dame
Knows it at large by virtue's name.
To this his wife (and in these days
Wives seldom without reason praise)
Bears evidence--then calls her child,
And swears that Tom was vastly wild.

Ripened by a long course of years,
He great and perfect now appears.
In shape scarce of the human kind;
A man, without a manly mind;
No husband, though he's truly wed;
Though on his knees a child is bred,
No father; injured, without end
A foe; and, though obliged, no friend;
A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced;
A head, where learning runs to waste;
A gentlemen well-bred, if breeding
Rests in the article of reading;
A man of this world, for the next
Was ne'er included in his text;
A judge of genius, though confest
With not one spark of genius blest;
Amongst the first of critics placed,
Though free from every taint of taste;
A Christian without faith or works,
As he would be a Turk 'mongst Turks;
A great divine, as lords agree,
Without the least divinity;
To crown all, in declining age,
Inflamed with church and party rage,
Behold him, full and perfect quite,
A false saint, and true hypocrite.
Blasphemed, that Potter kept not pace;
He, in the highest reign of noon,
Bawled bawdry songs to a psalm tune,
Lived with men infamous and vile,
Trucked his salvation for a smile,
To catch their humour caught their plan,
And laughed at God to laugh with Man,
Praised them, when living, in each breath,
And damned their mem'ries after death.

To prove his faith, which all admit
Is at least equal to his wit,
And make himself a man of note,
He in defence of Scripture wrote;
So long he wrote, and long about it,
That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it,
He wrote too of the inward light,
Though no one knew how he came by't,
And of that influencing grace,
Which in his life ne'er found a place;
He wrote too of the Holy Ghost,
Of whom, no more than of a post
He knew, nor, should an angel show him,
Would he or know, or choose to know him.

Next (for he knew 'twixt ev'ry science
There was a natural alliance)
He wrote, t'advance his Maker's praise,
Comments on rhymes, and notes on plays,
And with an all-sufficient air
Placed himself in the critic's chair,
Usurped o'er reason full dominion,
And governed merely by opinion.
At length dethroned, and kept in awe
By one plain simple man of law,
He armed dead friends, to vengeance true,
T'abuse the man they never knew.