When the worm-eaten book, linked to a chain,
In dust lay mouldering in the Vatican,
Despised, neglected, and forgot; to none
But poring rabbies, or the Sorbonne known:
Then in full power our sovereign prelate swayed,
By kings, and all the rabble world obeyed;
Here humble monarch at his feet kneeled down,
And begged the alms, and charity of a crown;
There, when in solemn state he pleased to ride,
Poor sceptred slaves ran henchboys by his side;
None, though in thought, his grandeur durst blaspheme
Nor in their very sleep a treason dream.
'But since the broaching that mischievous piece,
Each alderman a Father Lombard is,
And every cit dares impudently know
More than a council, pope, and conclave too.
Hence the late damned friar, and all the crew
Of former crawling sects their poison drew;
Hence all the troubles, plagues, rebellion's breed,
We've felt, or feel, or may hereafter dread.
Wherefore enjoin, that no lay coxcomb dare
About him that unlawful weapon wear;
But charge him chiefly not to touch at all
The dangerous works of that old Lollard, Paul;[1]
That arrant Wickliffist, from whom our foes
Take all their batteries to attack our cause.
Would he in his first years had martyred been,
Never Damascus, nor the Vision seen;
Then he our party was, stout, vigorous,
And fierce in chase of heretics, like us;
- ↑ The famous Father Paul Sarpi, whose bold resistance to the encroachments of popery brought him under the vengeance of the church. His History of the Council of Trent, transmitted to the country through his personal friend, Sir Henry Wotton, the English resident at Venice, was translated into English by Sir Adam Newton and Sir Nathaniel Brent, and published in London in 1619. Dr. Johnson; soon after he came to London, made proposals to Mr. Cave undertake a new translation, but the project never went farther than a few specimen pages, and a life of Paul Sarpi, which afterward appeared in the Gentlemen’s Magazine.
