And proudly talk of recreant Berengare- Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, And was it strange if he withdrew the ray The ascending day-star with a bolder eye SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM ; A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND, FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S BOOK OF THE CHURCH. POET. I NOTE the moods and feelings men betray, These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth! made up of impudence and trick, With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick, Who now defends would then have done the deed. POET. (aside) (Rome's smooth go-between!) FRIEND Laments the advice that soured a milky queen(For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess An antiquated error of the press :) Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, With actual cautery staunched the church's wounds! POET. What think I now? Ev'n what I thought before ;— What boasts tho' may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way. So much for you, my Friend! who own a Church, Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, And who shall blame him that he purrs applause, Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS. I. FROM his brimstone bed at break of day To visit his snug little farm the Earth, II. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane. III. And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through. IV. He saw a Lawyer killing a viper On a dung hill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother Abel. V. He saw an Apothecary on a white horse And the Devil thought of his old friend VI. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin VII. He peep'd into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! "We are both of one college! For I sate myself, like a cormorant, once Hard by the tree of knowledge.1" And all amid them stood the tree of life High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold (query paper money :) and next to Life Our Death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by.— So clomb this first grand thief Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life Sat like a cormorant. PAR. LOST. IV. The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "life" Cod. quid. habent, "trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called kar' óxηv, may be regarded as Life sensu eminentiori; a |