What Adam dream'd of when his bride

Came from her closet in his side;

Whether the devil tempted her
By a High-Dutch interpreter;
If either of them had a navel;.

Who first made music malleable:
Whether the serpent at the fall,
Had cloven feet, or none at all:

All this, without a gloss or comment,

He could unriddle in a moment,

In proper terms, such as men smatter,

1

When they throw out and miss the matter.

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Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox

By apostolic blows and knocks;

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Call fire, and sword, and desolation,

A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carry'd on,

And still be doing, never done;

As if religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies:
In falling out with that or this,

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And finding somewhat still amiss:

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More peevish, cross, and splenetic,

Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday

The wrong, than others the right way:
Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,

As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor

One

way, and long another for:
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow.
All piety consists therein

In them, in other men all sin.

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Rather than fail, they will defy

That which they love most tenderly;

Quarrel with minc'd pies, and disparage

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Their best and dearest friend, plumb-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,

And blaspheme custard through the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,

Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon;

To whom our Knight, by fast instinct

230

Of wit and temper, was so linkt,

As if hypochrisy and nonsense

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Had got th' advowson of his conscience.

Thus was he gifted and accouter'd,

We mean on the inside, not the outward.

That next of all we shall discuss:

Then listen, Sirs, it follows thus:

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His tawny beard was th' equal grace

Both of his wisdom and his face;

In cut and die so like a tile,

A sudden view it would beguile:
The upper part thereof was whey,
The nether orange mix'd with grey.
This hairy meteor did denounce
The fall of sceptres and of crowns:

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With grisly type did represent

Declining age of government;

And tell with hieroglyphic spade,

Its own grave and the state's were made.

Like Samson's heart-breakers, it grew

In time to make a nation rue;

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Though it contributed its own fall,

255

To wait upon the public downfal.

It was monastic, and did grow

In holy orders by strict vow;

Of rule as sullen and severe,

As that of rapid Cordeliere:
'Twas bound to suffer persecution,
And martyrdom with resolution;

T'

oppose itself against the hate! And vengeance of th' incensed state:

In whose defiance it was worn,
Still ready to be rent and torn,
With red-hot irons to be tortur'd,

Revil'd, and spit upon, and martyr'd;
Maugre all which, 'twas to stand fast,
As long as monarchy should last;

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But when the state should hap to reel, 'Twas to submit to fatal steel,

And fall, as it was consecrate,

A sacrifice to fall of state;

Whose thread of life the fatal sisters

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Did twist together with its whiskers,

And twine so close, that time should never,

In life or death, their fortunes sever;

But with his rusty sickle mow

Both down together at a blow.

1

So learned Taliacotius, from

The brawny part of porter's bum,
Cut supplemental noses, which
Would last as long as parent breech:
But when the date of Nock was out,
Off dropt the sympathetic snout.

His back, or rather burden, show'd,
As if it stoop'd with its own load.
For as Æneas bore his sire

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285

Upon his shoulders through the fire;
Our Knight did bear no less a pack
Of his own buttocks on his back;

290

Which now had almost.
got the

upper

Hand of his head, for want of crupper.

To poise this equally, he bore

A paunch of the same bulk before;

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