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Oculus Britanniae

An Heroi-Panegyrical poem on the University of Oxford. Illustrated with divers beautiful Similes, and useful Digressions [by Nicholas Amhurst]
 
 

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Behold him now, by Fiddes varnish'd o'er,
Unlike the monstrous fiend you shunn'd before,
His magick pages wipe off every taint,
The atheist and the brute becomes a saint;
His drunkenness is only nature's slip,
(For who alas! can from temptation keep?)
His impudence, in courtly language drest,
The great ascendant happily express'd;

14

His rage is only zeal for romish laws,
And persecution is the church's cause;
Revenge is taking God almighty's part,
And pride the token of a noble heart.
His whoredom and pollution who can blame,
Since Solomon was guilty of the same?
His college-frauds, it must be understood,
Were well design'd, and for the publick good,
To finish towers, old steeples to repair,
And build religious castles in the air:
Nor is he last of all that godly croud,
To whom this candid plea has been allow'd.
That of the pox he dy'd, and such like stuff,
Great Fiddes says 'tis false, and that's enough.
 

See his life of Wolsey. p. 11, 12.