HINTS FROM HORACE.
417
Then spare our stage, ye methodistic men!
Nor burn damned Drury if it rise again.[1]
But why to brain-scorched bigots thus appeal?
Can heavenly Mercy dwell with earthly Zeal?
For times of fire and faggot let them hope!
Times dear alike to puritan or Pope.
As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze,
So would new sects on newer victims gaze.
E'en now the songs of Solyma begin;
Faith cants, perplexed apologist of Sin!380
While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves,
And Simeon kicks,[2] where Baxter only "shoves."[3]
- ↑ [A few months after lines 370-381 were added to The Hints, in September, 1812, Byron, at the request of Lord Holland, wrote the address delivered on the opening of the theatre, which had been rebuilt after the fire of February 24, 1809. He subsequently joined the Committee of Management.]
- ↑ Mr. Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and castigator of "good works." He is ably supported by John Stickles, a labourer in the same vineyard:—but I say no more, for, according to Johnny in full congregation, "No hopes for them as laughs."—[The Rev. Charles Simeon (1758-1836) was the leader of the evangelical movement in Cambridge. The reference may be to the rigour with which he repelled a charge brought against him by Dr. Edwards, the Master of Sidney Sussex, that a sermon which he had preached in November, 1809, savoured of antinomianism. It may be noted that a friend (the Rev. W. Farish), to whom he submitted the MS. of a rejoinder to Pearson's Cautions, etc., advised him to print it, "especially if you should rather keep down a lash or two which might irritate." Simeon was naturally irascible, and, in reply to a friend who had mildly reproved him for some display of temper, signed himself, in humorous penitence, "Charles proud and irritable." (See Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Mr, Simeon, by Rev. W. Carus (1847), pp. 195, 282, etc.)]
- ↑ Baxter's Shove to heavy-a—d Christians, the veritable
