THE CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CLERGY.

From the "HIND AND THE PANTHER."

A plain good man whose name is understood,*
(So few deserve the name of plain and good)
Of three fair lineal lordships stood possess'd,
And liv'd, as reason was, upon the best.-
His house with all convenience was purvey'd,

The rest he found, but rais'd the fabric where he pray'd.t

And in that sacred place his beauteous wife

Employ'd 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 Dovest were hous'd too near their hall,
Who cross the proverb, and abound in gall.
Though some, 't is true, are passively inclin'd,
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 privileg'd by laws.

Another farm he had behind his house,
Not overstock'd, but barely for his use;
Wherein his poor Domestic Poultry fed,

And from his pious hands receiv'd their bread. §

* James II.-Dryden was at this time a Catholic.

+ The Catholic chapel set up by James in Whitehall.

The clergy of the Church of England. It is amusing to see them represented as living on the "alms" of the barely tolerated king. § The Catholic clergy maintained by the king.

Our pamper'd 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)1

Yet still they grudg'd that modicum, and thought
A sheaf in every single grain was brought :
Fain would they filch that little food away,
While unrestrain'd these happy gluttons prey;
And much they griev'd to see so nigh their hall,
The bird that warn'd St. Peter of his fall;2
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 matins at uncivil hours;
Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest
Just in the sweetness of their morning rest.
Beast of a bird,3 supinely when he might
Lie still and sleep, to rise before the light.
What if his dull forefathers us'd that cry,
Could he not let a bad example die ?
The world was fall'n 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 cloister'd walls.
Expell'd 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 mien severe.

* The Nuns.

'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.

1 "A cruise of water and an ear of corn."-The ideal monastic regimen! very different from that of monks in general.

2 "The bird that warn'd St. Peter of his fall."-This verse is from Spenser :—

"The bird that warnèd Peter of his fall."

Spenser, whom chance had put on the side of the Puritans (for no man would naturally have been more for a gorgeous creed than he), not unwillingly omitted the title of Saint to Peter. The Catholic Dryden as willingly availed himself of the abbreviated past tense to restore it. The reader may remember Sir Roger de Coverley's perplexity at the successive rebukes he received, when a little boy, from a Catholic for asking his way to "Marybone," and from a Puritan for restoring the saint her title.

3 “Beast of a bird."-What a happy anomaly, and vigour of alliteration! How well it comes, too, after the fond pathos of the luxury of the line before it!

JOHN PHILIPS was a young and lively writer, who, having succeeded in a burlesque, was unfortunately induced to attempt serious poetry, and devoted himself to it with a scholarly dulness which he would probably have seen the folly of in any one else. His serious imitations of Milton are not worth a penny; but his burlesque of the style of Paradise Lost, though it no longer possesses the novelty which made it popular, is still welcome to the lover of wit. The low every-day circumstances, and the lofty classic manner with its nomenclatures, are happily interwoven; the more trivial words are brought in with unlooked-for effect; the motto is particularly felicitous; and the comparison of the rent in the small-clothes with the ship that has sprung a leak at sea, and founders, concludes the poem with a tremendous and calamitous grandeur, only to be equalled by the exclamation of the Spaniard; who

said he had torn his " breeches, as if heaven and earth had come together."

THE SPLENDID SHILLING.

66 Sing, heavenly muse,

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme;"
A shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire.

Happy the man, who, void of cares and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cry'd, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpye, or Town-hall repairs;
Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye
Transfix'd his soul, and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe or Phyllis, he each circling glass

Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile, he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping penury surrounds,

And hunger, sure attendant upon want,

With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,

(Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain :
Then solitary walk, or doze at home

In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chill'd fingers; or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well polish'd jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent.
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton (vers'd in pedigree,