Part 35

The vicars are a numerous tribe, So are the cobblers too; And if a general quarrel rise, What must the country do?

Our outward and our inward soals Must quickly want repair; And all the neighbourhood around Would the misfortune share.

Sir, quoth the grazier, I believe Our outward soals indeed May quickly want the cobbler’s help To be from leakings freed.

But for our inward souls, I think They’re of a worth too great To be committed to the care Of any holy cheat,

Who only serves his God for gain, Religion is his trade; And ’tis by such as these our Church So scandalous is made.

Why should I trust my soul with one That preaches, swears, and prays, And the next moment contradicts Himself in all he says?

His solemn oaths he looks upon As only words of course! Which like their wives our fathers took For better or for worse.

But he takes oaths as some take w—s, Only to serve his ease; And rogues and w—s, it is well known, May part whene’er they please.

At this the cobbler bolder grew, And stoutly thus reply’d,— If you’re so good at drubbing, Sir, Your manhood shall be try’d.

What I have said I will maintain, And further prove withal— I daily do more good than you In my respective call.

I know your character, quoth he, You proud insulting vicar, Who only huff and domineer And quarrel in your liquor.

The honest gentleman, who saw ’Twould come again to blows, Commands the cobbler to forbear, And to the vicar goes.

Vicar, says he, for shame give o’er And mitigate your rage; You scandalize your cloth too much A cobbler to engage.

All people’s eyes are on your tribe, And every little ill They multiply and aggravate And will because they will.

But now let’s call another cause, So let this health go round; Be peace and plenty, truth and right, In good old England found.

Quoth Ralph, All this is empty talk And only tends to laughter; If these two varlets should be spared, Who’d pity us hereafter?

Your worship may do what you please, But I’ll have satisfaction For drubbing and for damages In this ungodly action.

I think that you can do no less Than send them to the stocks; And I’ll assist the constable In fixing in their hocks.

There let ’em sit and fight it out, Or scold till they are friends; Or, what is better much than both, Till I am made amends.

Ralph, quoth the knight, that’s well advised, Let them both hither go, And you and the sub-magistrate Take care that it be so.

Let them be lock’d in face to face, Bare buttocks on the ground; And let them in that posture sit Till they with us compound.

Thus fixt, well leave them for a time, Whilst we with grief relate, How at a wake this knight and squire Got each a broken pate.

THE GENEVA BALLAD.

From Samuel Butler’s Posthumous Works.

OF all the factions in the town Moved by French springs or Flemish wheels, None turns religion upside down, Or tears pretences out at heels, Like Splaymouth with his brace of caps, Whose conscience might be scann’d perhaps By the dimensions of his chaps;

He whom the sisters do adore, Counting his actions all divine, Who when the spirit hints can roar, And, if occasion serves, can whine; Nay, he can bellow, bray, or bark; Was ever sike a Beauk-learn’d clerk That speaks all linguas of the ark?

To draw the hornets in like bees, With pleasing twangs he tones his prose; He gives his handkerchief a squeeze, And draws John Calvin thro’ his nose; Motive on motive he obtrudes, With slip-stocking similitudes, Eight uses more, and so concludes.

When monarchy began to bleed, And treason had a fine new name; When Thames was balderdash’d with Tweed, And pulpits did like beacons flame; When Jeroboam’s calves were rear’d, And Laud was neither loved nor fear’d, This gospel-comet first appear’d.