University of Virginia Library

How I grieve you're not with us!—pray, come, if you can,
Ere we're robb'd of this dear, oratorical man,
Who combines in himself all the multiple glory
Of Orangeman, Saint, quondam Papist and Tory;—
(Choice mixture! like that from which, duly confounded,
The best sort of brass was, in old times, compounded)—
The sly and the saintly, the worldly and godly,
All fused down in brogue so deliciously oddly!
In short, he's a dear—and such audiences draws,
Such loud peals of laughter and shouts of applause,
As can't but do good to the Protestant cause.
Poor dear Irish Church!—he to-day sketch'd a view
Of her hist'ry and prospects, to me at least new,
And which (if it takes as it ought) must arouse
The whole Christian world her just rights to espouse.
As to reasoning—you know, dear, that's now of no use,
People still will their facts and dry figures produce,
As if saving the souls of a Protestant flock were
A thing to be managed “according to Cocker!”
In vain do we say, (when rude radicals hector
At paying some thousands a year to a Rector,
In places where Protestants never yet were,)
“Who knows but young Protestants may be born there?
And granting such accident, think, what a shame,
If they didn't find Rector and Clerk when they came!
It is clear that, without such a staff on full pay,
These little Church embryos must go astray;
And, while fools are computing what Parsons would cost,
Precious souls are meanwhile to the' Establishment lost!
In vain do we put the case sensibly thus;—
They'll still with their figures and facts make a fuss,
And ask “if, while all, choosing each his own road,
Journey on, as we can, tow'rds the Heav'nly Abode,
It is right that seven eights of the trav'llers should pay
For one eighth that goes quite a different way?”—
Just as if, foolish people, this wasn't, in reality,
A proof of the Church's extreme liberality,
That, though hating Pop'ry in other respects,
She to Catholic money in no way objects;
And so lib'ral her very best Saints, in this sense,
That they ev'n go to heav'n at the Cath'lic's expense.