Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i' th' preachers' or the bawds' arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him
That keeps the treasure of Jerusalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
Double our guards, he cries, we are undone.
Protesting that he dares not sleep in 's bed,
Lest he should rise next morn without his head.
Next these, a troop of busy spirits press,
Of little fortunes, and of conscience less;
With them the tribe, whose luxury had drain'd
Their banks, in former sequestrations gain'd;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some future hopes, some present payment draws,
To sell their conscience and espouse the cause.
Such stipends those vile hirelings best befit,
Priests without grace, and poets without wit.
Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse,
third syllable in the Medal, line 285. Thus, in a collection of Loyal Songs, written between 1639 and 1661, vol. ii. p. 16.
V. 320. Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse] Robert Ferguson, a Scotch independent preacher, subtle, plausible, bold, and daring, had for many years preached and writ against the government with great animosity; had weight among the Whigs in the city, and was a very proper instrument to stir up sedition. Shaftesbury knew his excellencies, made use of
Judas, that keeps the rebels' pension-purse;
Judas, that pays the treason-writer's fee,
Judas, that well deserves his namesake's tree;
Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects;
Young prophets with an early care secures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures!
What have the men of Hebron here to do?
What part in Israel's promis'd land have you?
Here Phaleg, the lay Hebronite, is come,
'Cause like the rest he could not live at home;
Who from his own possessions could not drain
An omer, even of Hebronitish grain,
Here struts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injur'd subjects, alter'd property;
An emblem of that buzzing insect just,
That mounts the wheel, and thinks she raises dust.
Can dry bones live? or skeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldizing juice?
Slim Phaleg could, and at the table fed,
them by confiding in him, and he contributed much to the success of his designs.
Robert Ferguson, here meant, says Mr. Granger, was a great dealer in plots, and a prostitute political writer for different parties, and particularly for the Earl of Shaftesbury. He approached nearer to a parallel character with Oates than any of his contemporaries; and was rewarded with a place in the reign of William. though it was well known he merited a halter. Dr. J. W.
Who at Jerusalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of sects]
Ferguson had a chapel near Moorfields. D.
Return'd the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting man to trav'ling nobles chose,
He his own laws would saucily impose,
Till bastinado'd back again he went,
To learn those manners he to teach was sent. 345
Chastis'd he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politics to Absalom.
For never Hebronite, though kick'd and scorn'd,
To his own country willingly return'd.
But leaving famish'd Phaleg to be fed,
And to talk treason for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay, let Hell produce a man
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan,
A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree;
His pride no higher than the desk aspir'd,
But for the drudgery of priests was hir'd
To read and pray in linen ephod brave,
And pick up single shekels from the grave.
V. 353. So made for mischief] Ben-Jochanan was Samuel Johnson, author of the famous pamphlet entitled Julian, in which he drew a parallel betwixt that apostate and James II. And also of another still more offensive, called An Address to the English Protestants in King James's Army. For which he was sentenced to stand in the pillory three several times, at Westminster, Charing Cross, and the Royal Exchange, to pay a fine of five hundred marks, and be whipt from Newgate to Tyburn. The last part of the punishment was mildly executed, and he was degraded from his ecclesiastical functions before it was inflicted. Of all the seditious writers here proscribed by Dryden, he was a man of the greatest learning and pest morals. Dr. J. W.
Married at last, but finding charge come faster 360
He could not live by God, but chang'd his master:
Inspir'd by want, was made a factious tool,
They got a villain, and we lost a fool.
Still violent, whatever cause he took,
But most against the party he forsook.
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in conscience to be double knaves.
So this prose prophet took most monstrous pains
To let his masters see he earn'd his gains.
But as the devil owes all his imps a shame,
He chose the apostate for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflection took the rogue he drew.
A wondrous work, to prove the Jewish nation
In every age a murmuring generation;
To trace 'em from their infancy of sinning,
And show 'em factious from their first beginning.
To prove they could rebel, and rail, and mock,
Much to the credit of the chosen flock;
A strong authority which must convince,
That saints owe no allegiance to their prince.
As 'tis a leading card to make a whore,
Το prove her mother had turn'd up before.
But, tell me, did the drunken patriarch bless
The son that show'd his father's nakedness?
Such thanks the present church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was so primitive.
Must ancient failings be examples made?
Then murtherers from Cain may learn their trade.
As thou the heathen and the saint hast drawn, 390
Methinks the apostate was the better man :
And thy hot father, waving my respect,
Not of a mother church but of a sect.
And such he needs must be of thy inditing,
This comes of drinking asses' milk and writing.
If Balack should be call'd to leave his place,
As profit is the loudest call of grace,
His temple dispossess'd of one, would be
Replenish'd with seven devils more by thee.
Levi, thou art a load, I'll lay thee down,
And show rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor slaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhyme below e'en David's psalms translated;
Some in my speedy pace I must outrun,
As lame Mephibosheth the wizard's son:
To make quick way I'll leap o'er heavy blocks, Shun rotten Uzza, as I would the pox;
And hasten Og and Doeg to rehearse,
Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who, by my muse, to all succeeding times
Shall live, in spite of their own doggerel rhymes.
Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
V. 412. Doeg, though without knowing] This character of Elkanah Settle, which is exquisitely satirical, particularly lines 415, 420, 422, 427, 428, was certainly inserted by Dryden, whom he had offended by writing pamphlets for the Whigs, though he afterwards suddenly changed sides and was as violent a defender of Tory principles, and wrote a poem of high panegyric on the coronation of James II. in 1685. He was the author of seventeen plays, now totally forgotten.
|