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133

Or Labeo's poems, or base Lolio's pride,
Or ever what I thought or wrote beside ;
When once I thinke if carping Aquine's spright "
To see now 13+ Rome were licenc'd to the light,
How his enraged ghost would stampe and stare,
That Cæsar's throne is turn'd to Peter's chayre.
To see an olde shorne Lozell 13 perched hy,
Crossing beneath a golden Canopy;

The whiles a thousand hairelesse crownes crouch low,
To kisse the precious case of his proude toe:
And, for the lordly Fasces borne of olde,
To see two quiet crossed keyes of golde;

Or Cybele's shrine, the famous Pantheon's frame,
Turn'd to the honour of our Ladie's name.
But that he most would gaze and wonder at,
Is th' horned miter, and the bloudy hat,

The crooked staffe, their coule's strange form and store,
Save that he saw the same in hell before:

To see the broken nuns, with new-shorne heads,
In a blinde 136 cloyster tosse their idle beades;
Or louzy coules come smoking from the stewes,
To raise the leud rent to their lord accrewes 137,
(Whọ, with ranke Venice, doth his pompe advance
By trading of ten thousand curtezans 139)

Yet backward must absolve a female's sin;
Like to a false dissembling Theatine 139,

carping Aquine's spright.

Meaning Juvenal, who was born at Aquinum, a town in Campania. EDITOR. The thought of Juvenal's rising from the tomb to survey Papal Rome, might perhaps originate with Spenser's lines when figuring the Ruins of Rome;

134

135

Words.

"O that I had the Thracian Poet's harp

For to awake out of th' infernal shade

Those antique Cæsars, sleeping long in dark,
The which this antient city whilome made."
St. 25. E.

now-present.

Lozell" A lazy lubber, a slothfull booby". Phillips's New World of

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138 Who, with ranke Venice, doth his pompe advance By trading of ten thousand curtezans.

"Scorta Romæ Julium nummum solvunt Pontifici; exhinc census illius annuus excedit 40,000 Ducatos. Paul iii. in Tabellis suis habuit Meretrices 45,000". See Note at p. 201 of this volume.

139 Like to a false dissembling Theatine.

Friars thus named, from Teate in the kingdom of Naples. Their history may be found in the Dictionaries of the French Academy and of Moreri. E.

140

Who, when is skine is red with shirts of male
And rugged haire-cloth, scoures his greazy nayle;
Or wedding garment tames his stubburne backe,
Which his hempe girdle dyes all blew and blacke:
Or, of his almes-boule three dayes sup'd and din'd,
Trudges to open stewes of either kinde:

Or takes some Cardinal's stable in the way,
And with some pamper'd mule doth weare the day,
Kept for his lord's own sadle when him list.
Come, Valentine, and play the satyrist,
To see poor sucklings welcom'd to the light
With searing yrons of some sowre Jacobite ",
Or golden offers of an aged foole,

To make his coffin some Franciscan's coule
To see the Pope's blacke knight, a cloked Frere,
Sweating in the channell like a Scavengere;
Whom earst thy bowed hamme did lowly greete,
When at the corner-crosse thou did'st him meete,
Tumbling his Rosaries hanging at his belt,
Or his Barietta, or his towred felt "4":

To see a lasie dumb Acholithite 43,
Armed against a devout flye's despight,

Which at th' hy alter doth the Chalice vaile
With a broad flie-flappe of a Peacocke's tayle;
The whiles the likerous priest spits every tryce ***
With longing for his morning sacrifice,

some sowre Jacobite.

A Jacobite, or Jacobin, was a Grey Friar. E.

141 Or golden offers of an aged foole,

To make his coffin some Franciscan's coule.

How highly a cowl was prized to keep away Demons, may be seen in Pennant's London, under Christ Church, Newgate Street. E.

142 Or his BARRETTA, or his TOWRED FELT.

The Bireta was a covering for the head; the bireta coccinea was a Cardinal's Hat; and the birretum album the covering worne by Serjeants at Law. See Spelman under the word Birrus.-The toured felt must mean a high crowned

hat.

143 To see a lasie dumb Acholithite,

&c. &c.

This was an inferior part of the Acholite's office; whose chief business was to deliver the water vessels and candlesticks to the Priest. The Form of the Peacock Fan may be seen in Bp. Carleton's Remembrance, p. 37, where it occurs in the head-piece to chap. iv. E.

Weever says, "The Acolites or Acoluthites were to follow and serve the Bishop or chief Priest, to provide and kindle the lights and lamps of the Church, and to register the names of such as were catechized". See Mason's Supplement to Johnson.

144 The whiles the likerous priest spits every trice,

&c. &c.

"Thi sort of ridicule is improper and dangerous. It has a tendency, even with、 10.

2 A

Which he réres up quite perpendiculare,

That the mid-church doth spite the Chancel's fare,
Beating their emptie mawes that would be fed
With the scant morsels of the Sacrist's bread.
Would he not laugh to death, when he should heare
The shamelesse legends of S. Christopher,
S. George, the Sleepers, or S. Peter's well,
Or of his daughter good S. Petronell 145 ?
But had he heard the female father's grone,
Yeaning in mids of her procession 146;
Or now should see the needlesse tryall-chayre,
(When ech is proved by his bastard heyre)
Or saw the churches, and new calendere
Pestred with mungrell saints and reliques dere,
Should hee cry out on Codro's tedious tomes '47

When his new rage would aske no narrower rooms ?

out an entire parity of circumstances, to burlesque the celebration of this awful solemnity in the Reformed Church. In laughing at false religion, we may some times hurt the true. Though the rites of the Papistic Eucharist are erroneous and absurd, yet great part of the ceremony, and above all the radical idea, belong also to the Protestant Communion". This is Mr. Warton's Note on the passage; which I wished not to suppress, though I think his censure of the Satirist, in great part at least, misplaced. The satire is directed, not against any circumstance to be found in the simple and dignified celebration of the Protestant Communion, but singly against the unscriptural and ridiculous custom of the priest appropriating all the wine to himself and distributing wafers only to the other communicants. EDITOR.

145 Would he not laugh to death, when he should heare
The shamelesse legends of S. Christopher,

S. George, the Sleepers, or S. Peter's well,
Or of his daughter good S. Petronell?

Among the MSS. which Bishop Fell presented to the Bodleian are four volumes of great antiquity, entitled "Vitæ et Passiones Sanctorum." In these may be found the legends here alluded to. E.

The story of Petronella, the daughter of St. Peter, seems, in part at least, to have been believed by our author. See Works, vol. ix. pp. 137, 143.

146 But had he heard the Female Father's grone,

Yeaning in mids of her procession.

Alluding to the story of Pope Joan.

147 Should he cry out on Codro's tedious tomes ·

The edition of 1599, followed by the Oxford, reads toombes; with manifest impropriety, as the Satirist alludes to the opening lines of his favourite Juvenal;— Semper ego auditor tantùm? nunquámne reponam,

Vexatus toties rauci Theseide CODKI?

Impunè ergo mihi recitaverit ille togatas,
Hic elegos impunè diem consumserit ingens
Telephus aut summi plená jam margine libri
Scriptus, et in tergo, nec dum finitus Orestes?

VIRGIDEMIARUM.

LIB. V.

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