John Oldham

“ Whom the same vows, and oaths, and order join,
The faithful band, whom I and Home have chose,
The last support of our declining cause;
Whose conquering troops I with success have led
'Gainst all opposers of our Church and Head;
Who e'er to the mad German owe their rise,
Greneva's rebels, or the hot-brained Swiss;
Revolted heretic!, who late have broke
And durst throw off the long-worn sacred yoke;
You, by whose happy influence Rome can boast
A greater empire than by Luther lost:
By whom wide nature's far-fetched limits now,
And utmost Indies to its crosier bow. ”

“ Distracting frenzy! that would make me believe contradictions, and hope to fly out of the reach of him whose presence is everywhere, not excluding hell itself; for he is there in the effects of his vengeance. Shall I invoke some power infinite as that that created me, to reduce me to nothing again, and rid me at once of my being and all that tortures it? Oh no, 'tis in vain; I must be forced into being, to keep me fresh for torment, and retain sense only to feel pain. I must be dying to all eternity, and live ever, to live ever wretched. ”

“ Be highly excellent, or not at all.
⁠In all things else, save only poetry,
Men show some signs of common modesty.
You'll hardly find a fencer so unwise,
Who at Bear-garden e'er will fight a prize,
Not having learnt before; nor at a wake
One, that wants skill and strength, the girdle take,
Or be so vain the ponderous weight to sling,
For fear they should be hissed out of the ring. [12]
Yet every coxcomb will pretend to verse,
And write in spite of nature and his stars;
All sorts of subjects challenge at this time
The liberty and property of rhyme. ”

“ Content with but a quarter of mankind:
Had he been Jesuit, and but put on
Their savage cruelty, the rest had gone;
His hand had sent old Adam after too,
And forced the godhead to create anew.
And yet 'twere well, were their foul guilt but thought
Bare sin: 'tis something even to own a fault.
But here the boldest flights of wickedness
Are stamped religion, and for current pass.
The blackest, ugliest, horridest, damnedst deed,
For which hell-flames, the schools a title need,
If done for holy church is sanctified. ”

“ And view thy rival in a private mind.
Thou heretofore deservedst such praise,
When acts of goodness did compute thy days,
Measured not by the sun's, but thine own kinder rays.
Thou thoughtest each hour out of life's journal lost,
Which could not some fresh favour boast,
And reckonedst bounties thy best Clepsydras.
11
Some fools, who the great art of giving want,
Deflower their largess with too slow a grant:
Where the deluded suitor dearly buys
What hardly can defray
The expense of importunities,
Or the suspense of torturing delay. ”

“ Gave lessons to instruct the ploughman’s toil.
Verse was the language of the gods of old,
In which their sacred oracles were told;
In verse were the first rules of virtue taught,
And doctrine thence, as now from pulpits sought;
By verse some have the love of princes gained,
Who oft vouchsafe so to be entertained,
And with a muse their weighty cares unbend.
Then think it no disparagement, dear sir.
To own yourself a member of that choir
Whom kings esteem, and Heaven does inspire.
⁠Concerning poets there has been contest,
Whether they're made by art or nature best ”

“ Go, set the universe a tilt, turn the globe up,
⁠Squeeze out the last, the slow unwilling drop:
A pox of empty nature! since the world's drawn dry,
⁠'Tis time we quit mortality,
⁠'Tis time we now give out, and die,
Lest we are plagued with dulness and sobriety.
⁠Beset with link-boys, we'll in triumph go,
A troop of staggering ghosts, down to the shades below:
⁠Drunk we'll march off, and reel into the tomb,
⁠Nature's convenient dark retiring-room;
And there, from noise removed, and all tumultuous strife,
Sleep out the dull fatigue, and long debauch of life. ”

“ I've known physicians who respect might claim,
Though they ne'er rose to Willis's [10] great fame;
And there are preachers who have great renown,
Yet ne'er come up to Sprat, or Tillotson;
And counsellors, or pleaders in the Hall,
May have esteem and practice, though they fall
Far short of smooth-tongued Finch in eloquence.
Though they want Selden's learning, Vaughan's sense;
But verse alone does of no mean admit;
Whoe'er will please, must please us to the height;
He must a Cowley or a Flecknoe [11] be,
For there's no second-rate in poetry. ”

“ What more assaults could weak detraction raise,
When thou couldst saint disgrace,
And turn reproach to praise.
So clouds which would obscure the sun, oft gilded be,
And shades are taught to shine as bright as he;
So diamonds, when envious night
Would shroud their splendour, look most bright,
And from its darkness seem to borrow light.
26
Had heaven composed thy mortal frame,
Free from contagion as thy soul or fame:
Could virtue been but proof against death's arms,
Thou hadst stood unvanquished by these harms,
Safe in a circle made by thy own charms. ”

“ Thy heart no island was, disjoined
(Like thine own nation) from all human kind;
But 'twas a continent to other countries fixed
As firm by love, as they by earth annexed.
Thou scornedst the map should thy affection guide,
Like theirs who love by dull geography,
Friends but to whom by soil they are allied:
Thine reached to all beside,
To every member of the world's great family.
Heaven’s kindness only claims a name more general,
Which we the nobler call,
Because 'tis common, and vouchsafed to all. ”

“ I’ll pity Caesar's self, with all his trophies and his fame,
And the vile brutish herd of epicures contemn,
And all the under-shrievalties of life not worth a name;
⁠Nor will I only owe my bliss,
⁠Like others, to a multitude,
Where company keeps up a forcèd happiness;
⁠Should all mankind surcease to live,
⁠And none but individual I survive,
Alone I would be happy, and enjoy my solitude. ”

“ Never had hell; each day came thronging down
Vast shoals of ghosts, and mine was pleased and glad,
And smiled, when it the brave revenge surveyed.
⁠Nor do I mention these great instances
For bounds, and limits to your wickedness:
Dare you beyond, something out of the road
Of all example, where none yet have trod,
Nor shall hereafter: what mad Catiline
Durst never think, nor's madder poet feign; [12]
Make the poor baffled pagan fool confess,
How much a Christian crime can conquer his;
How far in gallant mischief overcome,
The old must yield to new and modern Rome. ”

“ They durst not any stamp but that of virtue bear,
And free from stain, as thy most public actions, were.
Let wild debauchees hug their darling vice,
And court no other paradise,
Till want of power
Bids them discard the stale amour,
And when disabled strength shall force
A short divorce,
Miscall that weak forbearance abstinence,
Which wise morality, and better sense,
Styles but, at best, a sneaking impotence.
Thine a far nobler pitch did fly,
'Twas all free choice, nought of necessity.
Thou didst that puny soul disdain
Whose half-strain virtue only can restrain ”

“ A good round sum must the deliverance buy,
For none may there swear out on poverty.
Your rich, and bounteous shades are only eased;
No Fleet, or King's-bench ghosts are thence released.
⁠A third, the wicked and debauched to please,
Cries up the virtue of indulgences,
And all the rates of vices does assess;
What price they in the holy chamber bear,
And customs for each sin imported there;
How you at best advantages may buy
Patents for sacrilege and simony;
What tax is in the lechery-office laid
On panders, bawds, and punks, that ply the trade ”

“ Yielding, and soft to every print of vice,
Resty to those who would his faults chastise,
Careless of profit, of expenses vain,
Haughty, and eager his desires to obtain,
And swift to quit the same desires again.
Those, who to manly years and sense are grown,
Seek wealth and friendship, honour and renown;
And are discreet, and fearful how to act
What after they must alter and correct.
⁠Diseases, ills, and troubles numberless
Attend old men, and with their age increase;
In painful toil they spend their wretched years,
Still heaping wealth, and with that wealth new cares ”

“ Of that which thine might justly claim,
And injure it by a degrading name:
Conceive the tender care
Of guardian angels to their charge assigned,
Or think how dear
To heaven expiring martyrs are;
These are the emblems of thy mind,
The only types to show how thou wast kind.
19
On whomsoe'er thou didst confer this tie,
'Twas lasting as eternity,
And firm as the unbroken chain of destiny.
Embraces would feint shadows of your union show,
Unless you could together grow. ”

“ The writings of Dryden have transmitted to posterity an impression, too hastily adopted by modern historians, that the Tories immeasurably transcended the Whigs in malignity and intemperance; but in the invectives of Oldham we find a display of bitterness and rancour which even Dryden himself has not surpassed. The advantage of superior skill was with the greater poet; but Oldham rivals him in the breadth and torrent of his vituperation.
Nor are these Satires less curious as a picture of living manners. They reflect with minute fidelity the life of the Restoration. ”

“ This the just right of poets ever was,
And will be still, to coin what words they please,
Well fitted to the present age and place.
⁠Words with the leaves of trees a semblance hold
In this respect, where every year the old
Fall off, and new ones in their places grow;
Death is the fate of all things here below:
Nature herself by art has changes felt,
The Tangier mole (by our great monarch built)
Like a vast bulwark in the ocean set,
From pirates and from storms defends our fleet;
Fens every day are drained, and men now plough,
And sow, and reap, where they before might row ”

“ No time did action want, no action wanted pleasure.
Thy busy industry could time dilate,
And stretch the thread of fate:
Thy careful thrift could only boast the power
To lengthen minutes, and extend an hour.
No single sand could e'er slip by
Without its wonder, sweet as high:
And every teeming moment still brought forth
A thousand rarities of worth.
While some no other cause for life can give,
But a dull habitude to live:
Thou scornedst such laziness while here beneath,
And livedst that time which others only breathe. ”

“ Served up with all the grateful poignancies of wit.
8
Most plays are writ like almanacks of late,
And serve one only year, one only state;
Another makes them useless, stale, and out of date;
But thine were wisely calculated, fit
For each meridian, every clime of wit,
For all succeeding time, and after-age,
And all mankind might thy vast audience sit,
And the whole world be justly made thy stage:
Still they shall taking be, and ever new,
Still keep in vogue in spite of all the damning crew ”

“ By treacherous fraud; another may be found,
Has lost a thousand; and another yet,
Double to that; perhaps his whole estate.
Little do folks the heavenly powers mind,
If they but 'scape the knowledge of mankind.
Observe, with how demure and grave a look
The rascal lays his hand upon the book;
Then, with a praying face and lifted eye,
Claps on his lips, and seals the perjury;
If you persist his innocence to doubt,
And boggle in belief, he'll straight rap out
Oaths by the volley, each of which would make
Pale atheists start, and trembling bullies quake ”

“ LORD, how dreadful is the prospect of death, at the remotest distance! How the smallest apprehension of it can pall the most gay, airy, and brisk spirits! Even I, who thought I could have been merry in sight of my coffin, and drink a health with the sexton in my own grave, now tremble at the least envoy of the king of terrors. To see but the shaking of my glass makes me turn pale, and fear is like to prevent and do the work of ray distemper. ”

“ Whose owners lessen while they raise their price;
Thine were above the very guilt of pride,
Above all others, and thy own hyperbole:
In thee the widest extremes were joined,
The loftiest, and the lowliest mind.
Thus though some part of heaven's vast round
Appear but low, and seem to touch the ground,
Yet 'tis well known almost to bound the spheres,
'Tis truly held to be above the stars. ”

“ Where a grave dean the weighty case might state,
What makes in law a carnal job complete;
They fear no dreadful quo warranto writ,
To shake their ancient privilege and right;
No courts of sessions, or assize are there,
No Common-Pleas, King's-Bench, or Chancery-Bar;
But happier they, by nature's charter free,
Secure and safe in mutual peace agree,
And know no other law but equity.
'Tis man, 'tis man alone, that worst of brutes,
Who first brought up the trade of cutting throats,
Did honour first, that barbarous term, devise,
Unknown to all the gentler savages ”

“ Into a thousand shapes yourselves translate.
Remember what the crafty Spartan taught,
Children with rattles, men with oaths are caught;
Forswear upon the rack, and if you fall,
Let this great comfort make amends for all,—
Those whom they damn for rogues, next age shall see
Made advocates i' th' church's Litany.
Whoever with bold tongue, or pen shall dare
Against your arts and practices declare;
What fool shall e'er presumptuously oppose,
Your holy cheats and godly frauds disclose;
Pronounce him heretic, firebrand of hell,
Turk, Jew, fiend, miscreant, pagan, infidel ”

“ Sad miseries that call for all our breath in sighs,
⁠And all the tribute of our eyes,
And moisture of our veins, our very blood in tears!
When nought can claim our thoughts, Jerusalem, but thou,
Nought but thy sad destruction, fall, and overthrow?
3
5⁠Oh, dearest city! late our nation's justest pride!
⁠Envy of all the wondering world beside!
Oh, sacred temple, once the Almighty's blessed abode,
⁠Now quite forsaken by our angry God! ”