With speech unthought, quick revelation,
With boldness in predestination,
With threats of absolute damnation
Yet yea and nay hath some salvation
For his own tribe, not every nation:
See a new teacher, etc.
With after license cast a crown,
When Bishop new had put him down;
With tricks call’d repetition,
And doctrine newly brought to town
Of teaching men to hang and drown:
See a new teacher, etc.
With flesh-provision to keep Lent,
With shelves of sweetmeats often spent,
Which new maid bought, old lady sent,
Though, to be saved, a poor present,
Yet legacies assure to event:
See a new teacher, etc.
With troops expecting him at th’ door,
That would hear sermons, and no more;
With noting tools, and sighs great store,
With Bibles great to turn them o’er,
While he wrests places by the score:
See a new teacher, etc.
With running text, the named forsaken,
With for and but, both by sense shaken,
Cheap doctrines forced, wild uses taken,
Both sometimes one by mark mistaken;
With anything to any shapen:
See a new teacher, etc.
With new-wrought caps, against the canon,
For taking cold, tho’ sure he have none;
A sermon’s end, where he began one,
A new hour long, when’s glass had run one,
New use, new points, new notes to stand on:
See a new teacher, etc.
THE ROUNDHEAD.
From Samuel Butler’s Posthumous Works.
What creature’s that, with his short hairs,
His little band, and huge long ears,
That this new faith hath founded?
The saints themselves were never such,
The prelates ne’er ruled half so much;
Oh! such a rogue’s a Roundhead.
What’s he that doth the bishops hate,
And counts their calling reprobate,
’Cause by the Pope propounded;
And thinks a zealous cobbler better
Than learned Usher in ev’ry letter?
Oh! such a rogue’s a Roundhead.