Classic Poem

This page I send you, sir, your Newgate fate
Not to condole but to congratulate.
I envy not our mitered men their places,
Their rich preferments, nor their richer faces:
To see them steeple upon steeple set,
As if they meant that way to Heaven to get.
I can behold them take into their gills
A dose of churches, as men swallow pills,
And never grieve at it: let them swim in wine
While others drown in tears, I'll not repine!
But my heart truly grudges, I confess,
That you thus loaded are with happiness;
For so it is, and you more blessed are
In Peter's chain than if you sat in's chair.
One sermon hath preferred you so much honor
A man could scarce have had from Bishop Bonner.
Whilst we, your brethren, poor erratics be,
You are a glorious fixed star we see.
Hundreds of us turn out of house and home;
To a safe habitation you are come.
What though it be a jail? Shame and disgrace
Rise only from the crime, not from the place.
Who thinks reproach or injury is done
By an eclipse to the unspotted sun?
He only by that black upon his brow
Allures spectators more, and so do you.
Let me find honey though upon a rod
And prize the prison where my keeper's God.
Newgate or Hell were Heav'n if Christ were there;
He made the stable so and sepulcher.
Indeed the place did for your presence call;
Prisons do want perfuming most of all.
Thanks to the bishop and his good lord mayor,
Who turned the den of thieves into a house of prayer:
And may some thief by you converted be,
Like him who suffered in Christ's company.
Now would I had sight of your mittimus ;
Fain would I know why you are dealt with thus.
Jailer, set forth your prisoner at the bar:
Sir, you shall hear what your offenses are.
First, it is proved that you being dead in law,
As if you cared not for that death a straw,
Did walk and haunt your church, as if you'd scare
Away the reader and his Common Prayer.
Nay, 'twill be proved you did not only walk,
But like a Puritan your ghost did talk.
Dead, and yet preach! these Presbyterian slaves
Will not give over preaching in their graves.
Item, you played the thief, and if 't be so,
Good reason, sir, to Newgate you should go:
And now you're there, some dare to swear you are
The greatest pickpocket that e'er came there.
Your wife, too, little better than yourself you make:
She is the receiver of each purse you take.
But your great theft you act it in your church
(I do not mean you did your sermon lurch;
That's crime canonical) but you did pray
And preach, so that you stole men's hearts away;
So that good man to whom your place doth fall
Will find they have no heart for him at all.
This felony deserved imprisonment.
What, can't you Nonconformists be content
Sermons to make, except you preach them too?
They that your places have this work can do.
Thirdly, 'tis proved when you pray most devout
For all good men, you leave the bishops out.
This makes seer Sheldon by his powerful spell
Conjure and lay you safe in Newgate-hell.
Would I were there too, I should like it well.
I would you durst swap punishment with me.
Pain makes me fitter for the company
Of roaring boys, and you may lie a-bed.
Now your name's up, pray do it in my stead,
And if it be denied us to change places,
Let us for sympathy compare our cases,
For if in suffering we both agree,
Sir, I may challenge you to pity me.
I am the older jail-bird; my hard fate
Hath kept me twenty years in Cripplegate.
Old Bishop Gout, that lordly proud disease,
Took my fat body for his diocese,
Where he keeps court, there visits every limb,
And makes them (Levite-like) conform to him.
Severely he doth article each joint,
And makes enquiry into every point.
A bitter enemy to preaching, he
Hath half a year sometimes suspended me,
And if he find me painful in my station,
Down I am sure to go next visitation.
He binds up, looseth, sets up and pulls down;
Pretends he draws ill humors from the crown.
But I am sure he maketh such ado,
His humors trouble head and members too.
He hath me now in hand and ere he goes,
I fear for heretics he'll burn my toes.
Oh! I would give all I am worth, a fee,
That from his jurisdiction I were free.
Now, sir, you find our sufferings do agree;
One bishop clapped up you, another me.
But oh! the difference, too, is very great;
You are allowed to walk, to drink and eat:
I want them all and never a penny get,
And though you be debarred your liberty,
Yet all your visitors, I hope, are free.
Good men, good women, and good angels come
And makes your prison better than your home.
Now may it be so till your foes repent
They gave you such a rich imprisonment.
May, for the greater comfort of your lives,
Your lying in be better than your wive's.
May you a thousand friendly papers see,
And none prove empty except this from me.
And if you stay, may I come keep your door;
Then farewell parsonage! I shall ne'er be poor.