Thus perfecution rofe, and farther space
Produc'd the mighty hunter of his race.
Not fo the bleffed Pan his flock increas'd,
Content to fold them from the famish'd beast:
Mild were his laws; the fheep and harmless hind
Were never of the persecuting kind.

Such pity now the pious pastor shows,
Such mercy from the British lion flows,

That both provide protection from their foes.
Oh happy regions, Italy and Spain,
Which never did thofe monfters entertain!

The wolf, the bear, the boar, can there advance
No native claim of just inheritance.

And felf-preferving laws, fevere in show,

May guard their fences from th' invading foe.
Where birth has plac'd them, let them fafely share
The common benefit of vital air.

Themselves unharmful, let them live unharm'd;
Their jaws difabled, and their claws difarm'd:

Here, only in nocturnal howlings bold,

They dare not feize the Hind, nor leap the fold.
More 'powerful, and as vigilant as they,

The lion awfully forbids the prey.

Their rage repres'd, though pinch'd with famine fore,
They stand aloof, and tremble at his roar:
Much is their hunger, but their fear is more.
Thefe are the chief: to number o'er the reft,
And ftand, like Adam, naming every beaft,
Were weary work; nor will the Mufe defcribe
A flimy-born and fun-begotten tribe;

Who, far from steeples and their facred found,
In fields their fullen conventicles found.
These gross, half-animated, lumps I leave;
Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive.
But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher
Than matter, put in motion, may aspire:
Souls that can fcarce ferment their mass of clay :
So droffy, fo divifible are they,

As would but ferve pure bodies for allay:
Such fouls as fhards produce, fuch beetle things
As only buz to heaven with evening wings;
Strike in the dark, offending but by chance,
Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.
They know not beings, and but hate a name;
To them the Hind and Panther are the fame.

The Panther fure the nobleft, next the Hind,
And faireft creature of the spotted kind ;
Oh, could her in-born stains be wash'd away,
She were too good to be a beaft of prey!
How can I praise, or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend?
Her faults and virtues lie fo mix'd, that the
Nor wholly ftands condemn'd, nor wholly free.
Then, like her injur'd lion, let me speak;
He cannot bend her, and he would not break.
Unkind already, and estrang'd in part,
The wolf begins to fhare her wandering heart.
Though unpolluted yet with actual ill,

She half commits who fins but in her will.

८

If, as our dreaming platonists report,
There could be spirits of a middle fort,

Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,
Who juft dropt half way down, nor lower fell;
So pois'd, fo gently she descends from high,
It seems a foft difmiffion from the sky.
Her houfe not ancient, whatfoe'er pretence
Her clergy heralds make in her defence.
A fecond century not half-way run,
Since the new honours of her blood begun.
A lion old, obfcene, and furious made
By luft, comprefs'd her mother in a fhade;
Then, by a left-hand marriage, weds the dame,
Covering adultery with a specious name:
So fchifm begot; and facrilege and she,
A well-match'd pair, got graceless herefy.
God's and kings rebels have the fame good cause,
To trample down divine and human laws :
Both would be call'd reformers, and their hate
Alike deftructive both to church and state:
The fruit proclaims the plant; a lawless prince
By luxury reform'd incontinence;

By ruins, charity; by riots, abstinence.
Confeffions, fafts, and penance set aside;
Oh with what eafe we follow fuch a guide,
Where fouls are starv'd, and fenfes gratify'd!
Where marriage pleasures midnight prayer supply,
And mattin bells, a melancholy cry,

Are tun'd to merrier notes, Increase and multiply.

5

}

Religion

Religion fhews a rofy-colour'd face;

Not batter'd out with drudging works of
A down-hill reformation rolls apace.

grace:

What flesh and blood would crowd the narrow gate,
Or, till they waste their pamper'd paunches, wait?
All would be happy at the cheapest rate.

Though our lean faith these rigid laws has given,
The full-fed Muffulman goes fat to heaven;
For his Arabian prophet with delights
Of fenfe allur'd his eastern profelytes.
The jolly Luther, reading him, began
T'interpret Scriptures by his Alcoran ;
To grub the thorns beneath our tender feet,
And make the paths of Paradise more sweet:
Bethought him of a wife ere half way gone,
For 'twas uneafy traveling alone;

And, in this masquerade of mirth and love,
Miftook the blifs of heaven for Bacchanals above.
Sure he prefum'd of praise, who came to stock
Th' etherial paftures with so fair a flock,
Burnish'd, and battening on their food, to show
Their diligence of careful herds below.

}

Our Panther, though like these she chang'd her head, Yet as the mistress of a monarch's bed,

Her front erect with majefty fhe bore,
The crofier weilded, and the mitre wore.
Her upper part of decent discipline

Shew'd affectation of an ancient line;

And fathers, councils, church and church's head,
Were on her reverend phylacteries read.

But what difgrac'd and disavow'd the reft,
Was Calvin's brand, that stigmatiz'd the beaft.
Thus, like a creature of a double kind,
In her own labyrinth fhe lives confin'd.
To foreign lands no found of her is come,
Humbly content to be defpis'd at home.
Such is her faith, where good cannot be had,
At least the leaves the refuse of the bad :

Nice in her choice of ill, though not of beft,
And leaft deform'd, becaufe Teform'd the least.
In doubtful points betwixt her differing friends,
Where one for fubstance, one for fign contends,
Their contradicting terms the ftrives to join ;
Sign fhall be fubftance, fubftance shall be sign.
A real prefence all her fons allow,

And yet 'tis flat idolatry to bow,

Because the godhead 's there they know not how.
Her novices are taught, that bread and wine
Are but the visible and outward fign,
Receiv'd by those who in communion join.
But th' inward grace, or the thing fignify'd,
His blood and body, who to fave us dy'd;
The faithful this thing fignify'd receive:
What is 't thofe faithful then partake or leave?
For what is fignify'd and underfood,
Is, by her own confeffion, flesh and blood.
Then, by the fame acknowledgment, we know
They take the fign, and take the fubftance too.
The literal fenfe is hard to flesh and blood,
But nonfenfe never can be understood.

Her