Ecclesiastical and civil, Shall be sent packing to the Devil. Philosophy, whose grasping hands Beneath the cloyster's hallow'd floor * And broach their casks of mellow'd juices, Parent of unexampled crimes! That Will-o'-wisp of the Great Nation, * Rosemary made a part of the ancient decoration of the brawn's or boar's head, as appears from the subsequent stanza of an old Christmas caroll, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, A. D. 1521. "Caput apri defero, "Reddens laudes Domino. "The bore's heed in hande bring I "I pray you all sing merely, "Qui estis in convivio." Whose glimmering sparkles emanate But if perception's door be shut, Chance to make inadmissible Her Gallic Darkness Visible, Philosophy shall crack the pate And all who dare to shut their eyes Or, if they venture to beseech Her pity, drown 'em all and each; Or cut the varlets throats, or gibbet 'em On Tree of Liberty ad libitum, Where influence blest of Gallic sky Their dark Aristocratic dye May bleach to pure Democracy. PHILOSOPHERS! ye grand empirics! Had I the gift, in sounding lyrics, I'd spread your praise from clime to clime, To cleanse from contumacious matter The vitals of the Legislature: Administer, to cure all ills, Your grand specific, leaden pills, Had they as many lives as cats, Send them, where-, hous'd in their last home, Where Numa, Romulus, and Ancus, Hippocrates and Saltinbancoes, Where vermin catchers, law expounders, Conveyancing Biographers, And knight's o' the pad who rob and stop men, Mayors, marquisses, and Monmouth shop-men, Tapsters, and conventicle praters, Quest mongers and quodlibetarians, Varlets who set mankind at variance; Bear leader, brawn and sturgeon dealer, All toast their cheese at the same fire.* There your Whitehaven collier's soul Ενδ ̓ ἰῇ τιμῇ Ἶρος κρείων Αγαμεμνων, Θερσίτη δ ̓ ἴσω Θέτιδα- παῖς κϋκόμοιο. + The Earl of Lonsdale. Homer. There, from terrestrial stage dismiss'd, And not unsuitably with thém mix I' the cause of type or mystery; *What rage impels grave theologiaus To loggerheads like Greeks and Trojans ! *Tantæne animis Cœlestibus Iræ! The learned and pious Sir Henry Wooton desired these words might be inscribed on his monument, Hic jacet hujus Sententiæ primus Auctor: "PRURITUS DISPUTANDI SCABIES ECCLESIÆ." |