University of Virginia Library

To Mr. Dryden, upon his declaring himself a Roman Catholick.

Great Truckling Soul! whose stubborn Honesty
Does with all Revolutions still comply.
Thy Youthful Muse gilt an Usurper's Bays,
And for King-killing smoothly sang his Praise;
Nay, valiantly and wisely fawn'd on's Herse,
And strove 't embalm his Name in Loyal Verse.
And then Reformers were not call'd prick-ear'd,
But plain Religion Primitive appear'd,
Because, like its first Master, all its Charms
Were Truth and Peace, not jugling Shews nor Arms.
When Heav'n was pleas'd our Princes to restore,
Thou with the first didst servilely adore
Those Earthly Gods thou hadst Blasphem'd before.
In High Weak Verse then fulsomely didst load
With Titles due only to th'Heavenly God,
By thee as much unknown, as are his Ways untrod.
The Mitre, which meer Priest-Craft, and Priest-Pride
With Gordian Knots have to the Crown fast ty'd,
As if one Empire could not stand by Law,
But by another within to keep't in Aw,
Receiv'd thy Homage too, and then our Creed
Seem'd only some weak Christian's feeble Reed;
And true Religion, which must save Mankind,
T'Indifferent necessary Rites confin'd.
So like thou thought'st thine and the Churches Scene,
That Poet Squab would fain have been a Dean:

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But thy lewd Life, and publick Blasphemys
Made a Loose Clergy such gross Vice despise.

Being thus deny'd the Loaves, thou didst decry
The Miracles as a meer Forgery.
No Sect nor Clergy could secure their Fame,
All Priests and all Religions were the same.
E'en Holy Church was lug'd into thy Farce,
And Ghostly Fry'r made Pimp to Bully's Tarse;
A meer Almanzor grewst in e'ery Sin,
In Atheism didst outvie thy Maximin;
Lampoon'st our God, thy Patrons, e'en the Great
And Sacred David's self, who gave thee Meat.
No Vice which thy lewd Thought and Poverty
Could reach, but was us'd, and disgrac'd by thee.
Thus by bad Men deipis'd, abhor'd by Good,
Thou bungled'st out a Life like a loath'd Toad,
Impatiently then waiting a new Wind
Of Doctrine fit for thy licentious Mind,
Till a curst Western blast of Popery came;
Pop'ry, of Christendom the Plague and Shame,
The Yoke of Princes, the true Politick Cheat,
To cramp the Honest, and to make Knaves Great.
Thou suckd'st th'Infection in the very Nick,
And pliant Conscience veer'd to Catholick;
Thy Zeal e'en nimble Harry Hills outran,
And Turn-coat Nich. Butler the Publican.
Should Mahomet this Antichrist o'erthrow,
Thy Crucifix would to the Crescent bow.
At thy Conversion, Jack, thus Whigs rejoice,
Who see not through the Prudence of thy Choice.
What so fit refuge for thee as New Rome,
Which, like the Old, receives all Nations Scum?
Or what so fit retirement couldst thou choose
For an old Bawdy, Prophane, Thieving Muse,
When all her Stock of purloin'd Wit was gone,
As making the dry fumbling Jade a Nun?
Now she may translate Legends for our Land,
According to his Majesty's Command;

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And drivel out her dregs of Poetry
In Hymns on all the Sacred Trumpery
Of Reverend Relicks, pretty Miracles,
Which the Monk forges, then devoutly sells:
How Mary's Image weeps for sinning Souls,
Though with dry Eyes she bore the Carvers Tools,
When through her Trunk he drill'd the Squirting holes:
How the Milk which from her Paps did distil,
Is grown a Flood enough to drive a Mill;
How the curst Cross, at first but one man's Weight,
Is now encreased to a Navy's Freight,
(And 'tis but fit they multiply the Wood,
Who so oft make and crucify the God.)
Such lofty Themes I leave thee to pursue;
So Jack of all Faiths, and of none, Adieu.