Of easy shape, and pliant ev'ry way,
Confessing still the softness of his clay,
And kind as kings upon their coronation day;
With open hands, and with extended space
Of arms, to satisfy a large embrace.
Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man
His kingdom o'er his kindred world began;
Till knowledge misapply'd, misunderstood,
And pride of empire, sour'd his balmy blood:
Then, first rebelling, his own stamp he coins,
The murd'rer Cain was latent in his loins;
And blood began its first and loudest cry,
For diff'ring worship of the Deity.
Thus Persecution rose, and farther space
Produc'd the mighty hunter of his race.
Not so the blessed Pan his flock increased,
Content to fold 'em from the famish'd beast: Mild were his laws; the sheep 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. 290
Oh happy regions! Italy and Spain,
Which never did those monsters entertain !
The wolf, the bear, the boar, can there advance
No native claim of just inheritance;
And self-preserving laws, severe in show,
May guard their fences from th' invading foe.
Where birth has plac'd 'em, let 'em safely share
The common benefit of vital air :
Themselves unharmful, let them live unharm'd,
Their jaws disabled, and their claws disarm'd: 300
Here, only in nocturnal howlings bold,
They dare not seize the Hind, nor leap the fold:
More pow'rful, and as vigilant as they,
The Lion awfully forbids the prey:
Their rage repress'd, tho' pinch'd with famine sore,
They stand aloof, and tremble at his roar;
Much is their hunger, but their fear is more.
These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,
And stand like Adam, naming ev'ry beast,
Were weary work; nor will the Muse describe
A slimy born and sun-begotten tribe,
Who, far from steeples, and their sacred sound,
In fields their sullen 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 high'r
Than matter, put in motion, may aspire:
Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,
So drossy, so divisible are they,
As would serve but pure bodies for allay:
Such souls as sherds produce, such beetle things
As only buz to heav'n with ev'ning 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 same.
The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind,
And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
Oh, could her in-born stains be wash'd away, 330
She were too good to be a beast of prey!
How can I praise, or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend ?
Her fauits and virtues lie so mix'd, that she
Nor wholly stands condemn'd, nor wholly free: 335
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 share her wand'ring heart:
Though unpolluted yet with actual ill,
She half commits, who sins but in her will.
If, as our dreaming Platonists report,
There could be spirits of a middle sort,
Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell,
Who just drop'd half way down, nor lower fell; 345
So pois'd, so gently, she descends from high,
It seems a soft dismission from the sky.
Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretence
Her clergy heralds make in her defence;
A second century not half-way run,
Since the new honours of her blood begun:
A lion old, obscene, and furious made
By lust, compress'd her mother in a shade;
Then, by a left-hand marriage, weds the dame,
Cov'ring adult'ry with a specious name;
So Schism begot; and Sacrilege and she,
A well match'd pair, got graceless Heresy.
God's and kings' rebels have the same good cause
To trample down divine and human laws:
Both would be call'd Reformers, and their hate 360
Alike destructive both to church and state :
The fruit proclaims the plant; a lawless prince
By luxury reform'd incontinence;
By ruins charity; by riots abstinence;
Confessions, fasts, and penance set aside :
Oh with what ease we follow such a guide,
Where souls are starv'd, and senses gratify'd!
Where marriage-pleasures midnight pray'r supply,
And matin bells, a melancholy cry,
Are tun'd to merrier notes, increase and multiply.
Religion shows a rosy-coloured face,
Not hatter'd out with drudging works of grace :
A down-hill reformation rolls apace.
What flesh and blood wouldcrowd 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 Mussulman goes fat to heav'n;
For his Arabian prophet with delights
Of sense allur'd his eastern proselytes.
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 e'er half-way gone,
(For 'twas uneasy travelling alone)
And, in this masquerade of mirth and love,
Mistook the bliss of heav'n for Bacchanals above.
Sure he presum'd of praise, who came to stock
Th' etherial pastures with so fair a flock,
Burnish'd, and bat'ning on their food, to show
Their diligence of careful herds below.
Our Panther, tho' like these she chang'd her head,
Yet as the mistress of a monarch's bed,
Her front erect with majesty she bore,
The crosier wielded, and the mitre wore.
Her upper part, of decent discipline,
Shew'd affectation of an ancient line;
And fathers, councils, church, and churches' head,
Were on her rev'rend phylacteries read :
But what disgrac'd and disavow'd the rest,
Was Calvin's brand, that stigmatiz'd the beast.
Thus like a creature of a double kind,
In her own labyrinth she lives confin'd;
To foreign lands no sound of her is come,
Humbly content to be despis'd at home,
Such is her faith, where good cannot be had,
At least she leaves the refuse of the bad :
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