Inured to hardships from his early youth,
Much had he done and suffered for his truth:
At land and sea, in many a doubtful fight,
Was never known a more adventurous knight,
Who oftener drew his sword, and always for the
right.
As fortune would, (his fortune came, though late,) He took possession of his just estate;
Nor racked his tenants with increase of rent,
Nor lived too sparing, nor too largely spent,
But overlooked his hinds; their pay was just,
And ready, for he scorned to go on trust:
Slow to resolve, but in performance quick;
So true, that he was awkward at a trick.
For little souls on little shifts rely,
And cowards arts of mean expedients try;
The noble mind will dare do any thing but lie.
False friends, his deadliest foes, could find no way,
But shows of honest bluntness, to betray;
That unsuspected plainness he believed;
He looked into himself, and was deceived.
Some lucky planet sure attends his birth,
Or heaven would make a miracle on earth;
For prosperous honesty is seldom seen
To bear so dead a weight, and yet to win.
It looks as fate with nature's law would strive,
To show plain-dealing once an age may thrive;
And, when so tough a frame she could not bend,
Exceeded her commission, to befriend.
This grateful man, as heaven increased his store, Gave God again, and daily fed his poor.
His house with all convenience was purveyed; The rest he found, but raised the fabric where he prayed;*
*The Catholic chapel in Whitehall.
And in that sacred place his beauteous wife
Employed her happiest hours of holy life.
Nor did their alms extend to those alone,
Whom common faith more strictly made their own;
A sort of Doves* were housed too near their hall,
Who cross the proverb, and abound with gall.
Though some, 'tis true, are passively inclined,
The greater part degenerate from their kind;
Voracious birds, that hotly bill and breed,
And largely drink, because on salt they feed.
Small gain from them their bounteous owner draws;
Yet, bound by promise, he supports their cause,
As corporations privileged by laws.
That house, which harbour to their kind affords, Was built long since, God knows, for better birds; But fluttering there, they nestle near the throne, And lodge in habitations not their own, By their high crops and corny gizzards known. Like Harpies, they could scent a plenteous board, Then to be sure they never failed their lord: The rest was form, and bare attendance paid; They drunk, and eat, and grudgingly obeyed. The more they fed, they ravened still the more; They drained from Dan, and left Beersheba poor. All this they had by law, and none repined; The preference was but due to Levi's kind: But when some lay-preferment fell by chance, The Gourmands made it their inheritance. When once possessed, they never quit their claim, For then 'tis sanctified to heaven's high name; And hallowed thus, they cannot give consent, The gift should be profaned by worldly manage
* The clergy of the church of England, and those of London in particular. See Note XXIV.
Their flesh was never to the table served, Though 'tis not thence inferred the birds were starved; But that their master did not like the food, As rank, and breeding melancholy blood. Nor did it with his gracious nature suit, E'en though they were not doves, to persecute : Yet he refused, (nor could they take offence,) Their glutton kind should teach him abstinence. Nor consecrated grain their wheat he thought, Which, new from treading, in their bills they brought; But left his hinds each in his private power, That those who like the bran might leave the flower. He for himself, and not for others, chose, Nor would he be imposed on, nor impose; But in their faces his devotion paid, And sacrifice with solemn rites was made, And sacred incense on his altars laid.
Besides these jolly birds, whose corpse impure Repaid their commons with their salt manure, Another farm he had behind his house, Not overstocked, but barely for his use; Wherein his poor domestic poultry fed, And from his pious hands received their bread. Our pampered Pigeons, with malignant eyes, Beheld these inmates, and their nurseries; Though hard their fare, at evening, and at morn, (A cruise of water and an ear of corn,)
Yet still they grudged that modicum, and thought
A sheaf in every single grain was brought.
Fain would they filch that little food away,
While unrestrained those happy gluttons prey;
And much they grieved to see so nigh their hall,
The bird that warned St Peter of his fall; †
* The Catholic clergy, maintained by King James. + The cock is made an emblem of the regular clergy of Rome, on account of their nocturnal devotions and mattins.
That he should raise his mitred crest on high,
And clap his wings, and call his family
To sacred rites; and vex the Ethereal powers
With midnight mattins at uncivil hours;
Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest,
Just in the sweetness of their morning rest.
Beast of a bird, supinely when he might
Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light!
What if his dull forefathers used that cry,
Could he not let a bad example die?
The world was fallen into an easier way;
This age knew better than to fast and pray.
Good sense in sacred worship would appear,
So to begin, as they might end the year.
Such feats in former times had wrought the falls
Of crowing chanticleers in cloistered walls.
Expelled for this, and for their lands, they fled;
And sister Partlet, with her hooded head, *
Was hooted hence, because she would not pray
a-bed.
The way to win the restiff world to God,
Was to lay by the disciplining rod,
Unnatural fasts, and foreign forms of prayer;
Religion frights us with a mein severe.
'Tis prudence to reform her into ease,
And put her in undress, to make her please;
A lively faith will bear aloft the mind,
And leave the luggage of good works behind.
Such doctrines in the Pigeon-house were taught;
You need not ask how wondrously they wrought;
But sure the common cry was all for these,
Whose life and precepts both encouraged ease.
Yet fearing those alluring baits might fail,
And holy deeds o'er all their arts prevail,
(For vice, though frontless, and of hardened face,
Is daunted at the sight of awful grace,)
An hideous figure of their foes they drew,
Nor lines, nor looks, nor shades, nor colours true ;
And this grotesque design exposed to public view *
One would have thought it some Egyptian piece,
With garden-gods, and barking deities,
More thick than Ptolemy has stuck the skies.
All so perverse a draught, so far unlike,
It was no libel where it meant to strike.
Yet still the daubing pleased, and great and small,
To view the monster, crowded Pigeon-hall.
There Chanticleer was drawn upon
his knees,
Adorning shrines, and stocks of sainted trees; t
And by him, a mishapen, ugly race,
The curse of God was seen on every face:
No Holland emblem could that malice mend, ‡
But still the worse the look, the fitter for a fiend.
The master of the farm, displeased to find
So much of rancour in so mild a kind,
Enquired into the cause, and came to know,
The passive church had struck the foremost blow;
With groundless fears, and jealousies possest,
As if this troublesome intruding guest
Would drive the birds of Venus § from their nest.
A deed his inborn equity abhorred;
But interest will not trust, though God should plight his word.
A law, the source of many future harms, Had banished all the poultry from the farms;
+ The worship of images, charged upon the Romish church by Protestants as idolatrous.
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