Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/136

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
126
SATIRES UPON THE JESUITS.

Less those, which Sicily's tyrant heretofore
From plundered gods, and Jove's own shoulders tore.
Hither, as to some fair, the rabble come,
To barter for the merchandize of Rome;
Where priests, like mountebanks, on stage appear,
To expose the frippery of their hallowed ware;
This is the laboratory of their trade,
The shop where all their staple drugs are made;
Prescriptions and receipts to bring in gain,
All from the church dispensatories ta'en.
The pope's elixir, holy water's here.
Which they with chemic art distilled prepare;
Choice above Goddard's drops,[1] and all the trash
Of modern quacks; this is that sovereign wash
For fetching spots and morphew[2] from the face,
And scouring dirty clothes, and consciences.
One drop of this, if used, had power to fray
The legion from the hogs of Gadara;
This would have silenced quite the Wiltshire Drum,
And made the prating fiend of Mascon dumb.
That vessel consecrated oil contains,
Kept sacred, as the famed ampoule[3] of France,
Which some profaner heretics would use
For liquoring wheels of jacks, of boots, and shoes;
This makes the chrism,[4] which, mixed by cunning priests,
Anoints young catholics for the church's lists;
And when they're crossed, confessed, and die, by this
Their launching souls slide off to endless bliss;
As Lapland saints, when they on broomsticks fly,
By help of magic unctions mount the sky.
Yon altar-pix[5] of gold is the abode
And safe repository of their god.
A cross is fixed upon 't the fiends to scare,
And flies which would the deity besmear;


  1. Dr. Jonathan Goddard, who had been physician to Cromwell, and Member of Parliament for Oxfordshire in 1653.
  2. A rash or scurf on the skin. The word is obsolete.
  3. The phial in which holy oil is kept.
  4. The unguent used in the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church.
  5. The vessel in whioh the consecrated Host is kept.