# Poetical Works of John Oldham/The Thirteenth Satire of Juvenal, imitated

THE THIRTEENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL, IMITATED.
THERE is not one base act which men commit,
But carries this ill sting along with it, That to the author it creates regret; And this is some revenge at least, that he Can ne'er acquit himself of villany, Though a bribed judge and jury set him free. All people, sir, abhor (as 'tis but just) Your faithless friend, who lately broke his trust, And curse the treacherous deed; but, thanks to fate, That has not blessed you with so small estate, But that with patience you may bear the cross, And need not sink under so mean a loss. Besides, your case for less concern does call, Because 'tis what does usually befall; Ten thousand such might be alleged with ease, Out of the common crowd of instances.
Then cease, for shame, immoderate regret,
And don't your manhood and your sense forget;
'Tis womanish and silly to lay forth
More cost in grief than a misfortune's worth.
You scarce can bear a puny trifling ill, It goes so deep, pray Heaven, it does not kill! And all this trouble, and this vain ado, Because a friend (forsooth) has proved untrue. Shame o’ your beard! can this so much amaze? Were you not born in good King Jimmy's days? And are not you at length yet wiser grown, When threescore winters on your head have snown? Almighty Wisdom gives in Holy Writ Wholesome advice to all that follow it; And those that will not its great counsels hear, May learn from mere experience how to bear (Without vain struggling) fortune's yoke, and how They ought her rudest shocks to undergo. There's not a day so solemn through the year, Not one red letter in the calendar, But we of some new crime discovered hear: Theft, murder, treason, perjury, what not? Money by cheating, padding, poisoning got. Nor is it strange; so few are now the good, That fewer scarce were left at Noah's flood; Should Sodom's angel here in fire descend, Our nation wants ten men to save the land. Fate has reserved us for the very lees Of time, where ill admits of no degrees; An age so bad old poets ne'er could frame, Nor find a metal out to give't a name. This your experience knows, and yet for all On faith of God, and man, aloud you call, Louder than on Queen Bess's day the rout For Antichrist burned in effigy shout.
But, tell me, sir, tell me, grey-headed boy, Do you not know what lechery men enjoy In stolen goods? For God's sake don't you see How they all laugh at your simplicity, When gravely you forewarn of perjury? Preach up a god, and hell, vain empty names, Exploded now for idle threadbare shams,
Devised by priests, and by none else believed, E’er since great Hobbes the world has undeceived! This might have passed with the plain simple race Of our forefathers in King Arthur's days; Ere mingling with corrupted foreign seed, We learned their vice, and spoiled our native breed; Ere yet blessed Albion, high in ancient fame, With her first innocence resigned her name. Fair dealing then, and downright honesty, And plighted faith were good security; No vast engrossments for estates were made, Nor deeds, large as the lands which they conveyed; To bind a trust there lacked no formal ties Of paper, wax, and seals, and witnesses, Nor ready coin, but sterling promises; Each took the other's word, and that would go For current then, and more than oaths do now; None had recourse to Chancery for defence, Where you forego your right with less expense; Nor traps were yet set up for perjurers, That catch men by the heads, and whip off ears. Then knave, and villain, things unheard of were, Scarce in a century did one appear, And he more gazed at that a blazing star. If a young stripling put not off his hat In high respect to every beard he met, Though a lord's son and heir, 'twas held a crime, That scarce deserved its clergy in that time; So venerable then was four years odds, And grey old heads were reverenced as gods. Now if a friend once in an age prove just, If he miraculously keep his trust, And without force of law deliver all That's due, both interest and principal,
Prodigious wonder! fit for Stow to tell, And stand recorded in his Chronicle;
A thing less memorable would require As great a monument as London fire. A man of faith and uprightness is grown So strange a creature, both in court and town, That he with elephants may well be shown; A monster, more uncommon than a whale At Bridge, the last great comet, or the hail, Than Thames his double tide, or should he run With streams of milk or blood to Gravesend down. You're troubled that you've lost five hundred pound 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; And more than would a whole ship's crew maintain To the East Indies hence, and back again ’As God shall pardon me, sir, I am free Of what you charge me with; let me ne'er see His face in heaven else; may these hands rot, These eyes drop out, if I e'er had a groat Of yours, or if they ever touched, or saw't.'
Thus hell run on two hours in length, till he Spin out a curse long as the Litany; Till heaven has scarce a judgment left in store For him to wish, deserve, or suffer more. There are, who disavow all Providence, And think the world is only steered by chance; Make God at best an idle looker on, A lazy monarch lolling in his throne, Who his affairs does neither mind, nor know, But leaves them all at random here below; And such at every foot themselves will damn, And oaths no more than common breath esteem; No shame, nor loss of ears, can frighten these, Were every street a grove of pillories. Others there be, that own a God, and fear His vengeance to ensue, and yet forswear: Thus to himself, says one, ’Let Heaven decree What doom soe'er, its pleasure will, of me; Strike me with blindness, palsies, leprosies, Plague, pox, consumption, all the maladies Of both the Spittles; so I get my prize And hold it sure; I'll suffer these, and more; All plagues are light to that of being poor. There's not a begging cripple in the streets, (Unless he with his limbs has lost his wits, And is grown fit for Bedlam) but no doubt To have his wealth would have the rich man's gout. Grant Heaven's vengeance heavy be; what though? The heaviest things move slowest still we know; And, if it punish all that guilty be, 'Twill be an age before it come to me. God, too, is merciful, as well as just; Therefore I'll rather his forgiveness trust, Than live despised and poor, as thus I must; I'll try and hope he's more a gentleman Than for such trivial things as these, to damn.
Besides, for the same feet, we've often known One mount the cart, another mount the throne; And foulest deeds, attended with success, No longer are reputed wickedness, Disguised with virtue's livery and dress.' With these weak arguments they fortify, And harden up themselves in villany; The rascal now dares call you to account, And in what court you please, join issue on't; Next term he'll bring the action to be tried, And twenty witnesses to swear on 's side; And if that justice to his cause be found, Expects a verdict of five hundred pound. Thus he, who boldly dares the guilt out-face, For innocent shall with the rabble pass; While you, with impudence and sham run down, Are only thought the knave by all the town. Meantime, poor you at heaven exclaim, and rail,
Louder than Jeffreys at the bar does bawl:
'Is there a power above? and does he hear?
And can he tamely thunderbolts forbear?
To what vain end do we with prayers adore, And on our bended knees his aid implore?
Where is his rule, if no respect be had,
Of innocence, or guilt, of good, or bad? And who henceforth will any credit show
To what his lying priests teach here below?
If this be providence, for aught I see,
Blessed Saint Vaninus! I shall follow thee:
Little's the odds betwixt such a God, and that
Which atheist Lewis wore upon his hat.' Thus you blaspheme, and rave; but pray, sir, try
What comforts my weak reason can apply, Who never yet read Plutarch, hardly saw, And am but meanly versed in Seneca. In cases dangerous, and hard of cure, We have recourse to Scarborough, or Lower; But if they don't so desperate appear, We trust to meaner doctors' skill and care. If there were never in the world before So foul a deed, I'm dumb, not one word more; In God's name, then, let both your sluices flow,
And all the extravagance of sorrow show; And tear your hair, and thump your mournful breast, As if your dearest firstborn were deceased.
'Tis granted that a greater grief attends
Departed moneys than departed friends;
None ever counterfeits upon this score,
Nor need he do't; the thought of being poor
Will serve alone to make the eyes run o'er.
Lost money's grieved with true unfeignèd tears,
More true than sorrow of expecting heirs
At their dead fathers’ funerals, though here
The back and hands no pompous mourning wear.
But if the like complaints be daily found
At Westminster, and in all courts abound;
If bonds, and obligations can't prevail, But men deny their very hand and seal, Signed with the arms of the whole pedigree
Of their dead ancestors to vouch the lie, If Temple Walks, and Smithfield never fail
Of plying rogues, that set their souls to sale To the first passenger, that bids a price,
And make their livelihood of perjuries;
For God's sake why are you so delicate,
And think it hard to share the common fate?
And why must you alone be favourite thought
Of heaven, and we for reprobates cast out?
The wrong you bear, is hardly worth regard, Much less your just resentment, if compared
With greater outrages to others done, Which daily happen, and alarm the town. Compare the villains who cut throats for bread,
Or houses fire, of late a gainful trade, By which our city was in ashes laid; Compare the sacrilegious burglary, From which no place can sanctuary be, That rifles churches of communion-plate, Which good King Edward's days did dedicate; Think, who durst steal St. Alban's font of brass, That christened half the royal Scottish race; Who stole the chalices at Chichester, In which themselves received the day before; Or that bold daring hand, of fresh renown, Who, scorning common booty, stole a crown,
Compare too, if you please, the horrid plot, With all the perjuries to make it out, Or make it nothing, for these last three years;
Add to it Thynne's and Godfrey's murderers; And if these seem but slight and trivial things,
Add those, that have, and would have murdered kings. And yet how little's this of villany To what our judges oft in one day try? This to convince you, do but travel down, When the next Circuit comes, with Pemberton, Or any of the Twelve, and there but mind, How many rogues there are of human kind, And let me hear you, when you're back again, Say you are wronged, and, if you dare, complain.
None wonder, who in Essex hundreds live, Or Sheppy Island, to have agues rife;
Nor would you think it much in Africa, If you great lips and short flat noses saw, Because 'tis so by nature of each place, And, therefore, there for no strange things they pass. In lands where pigmies are, to see a crane (As kites do chickens here) sweep up a man In armour dad, with us would make a show, And serve to entertain at Bartholomew ; Yet there it goes for no great prodigy, Where the whole nation is but one foot high. Then why, fond man, should you so much admire, Since knave is of our growth, and common here? 'But must such perjury escape,' say you, ’And shall it ever thus unpunished go?' Grant he were dragged to jail this very hour, To starve, and rot; suppose it in your power To rack and torture him all kinds of ways, To hang, or bum, or kill him, as you please; (And what would your revenge itself have more?)
Yet this, all this would not your cash restore; And where would be the comfort, where the good, If you could wash your hands in's reeking blood?
’But, oh, revenge more sweet than life!' 'Tis true, So the unthinking say, and the mad crew Of hectoring blades, who for slight cause, or none, At every turn are into passion blown, Whom the least trifles with revenge inspire, And at each spark, like gunpowder, take fire; These unprovoked kill the next man they meet, For being so saucy as to walk the street; And at the summons of each tiny drab, Cry, ’Damme! Satisfaction!' draw, and stab.
Not so of old, the mild good Socrates, (Who showed how high without the help of grace,
Well cultivated nature might be wrought) He a more noble way of suffering taught, And, though he guiltless drank the poisonous dose, Ne'er wished a drop to his accusing foes.
Not so our great, good martyred king of late, (Could we his blessed example imitate,) Who, though the greatest of mortal sufferers, Yet kind to his rebellious murderers, Forgave, and blessed them with his dying prayers. Thus we, by sound divinity and sense, May purge our minds, and weed all errors thence;
These lead us into right, nor shall we need Other than them through life to be our guide. Revenge is but a frailty, incident To crazed and sickly minds, the poor content Of little souls, unable to surmount An injury, too weak to bear affront; And this you may infer, because we find, 'Tis most in poor unthinking womankind, Who wreak their feeble spite on all they can, And are more kin to brute than braver man. But why should you imagine, sir, that those Escape unpunished, who still feel the throes And pangs of a racked soul, and (which is worse
Than all the pains which can the body curse) The secret gnawings of unseen remorse? Believe't, they suffer greater punishment Than Rome's inquisitors could e'er invent; Nor all the tortures, racks, and cruelties, Which ancient persecutors could devise, Nor all, that Fox's bloody records tell, Can match what Bradshaw, and Ravaillac feel, Who in their breasts carry about their hell.
I've read this story, but I know not where, Whether in Hakewill, or Beard's Theatre; 'A certain Spartan, whom a friend, like you, Had trusted with a hundred pound or two, Went to the Oracle, to know if he With safety might the sum in trust deny. 'Twas answered, ’No, that if he durst forswear, He should ere long for's knavery pay dear;' Hence fear, not honesty, made him refund; Yet to his cost the sentence true he found: Himself, his children, all his family, Even the remotest of his whole pedigree, Perished,' as there 'tis told, ’in misery.' Now to apply: if such be the sad end Of perjury, though but in thought designed, Thank, sir, what fate awaits your treacherous friend, Who has not only thought, but done to you All this, and more; think, what he suffers now, And think, what every villain suffers else, That dares, like him, be faithless, base, and false.
Pale horror, ghastly fear, and black despair Pursue his steps, and dog him wheresoe'er He goes, and if from his loathed self he fly, To herd, like wounded deer, in company, These straight creep in and pall his mirth and joy. The choicest dainties, even by Lumly dressed, Afford no relish to his sickly taste, Insipid all as Damocles' feast. Even wine, the greatest blessing of mankind,
The best support of the dejected mind, Applied to his dull spirits, warms no more Than to his corpse it could past life restore. Darkness he fears, nor dares he trust his bed Without a candle watching by his side; And, if the wakeful troubles of his breast To his tossed limbs allow one moment's rest, Straightways the groans of ghosts, and hideous screams Of tortured spirits, haunt his frightful dreams;
Straight then returns to his tormented mind His perjured act, his injured God, and friend; Straight he imagines you before his eyes, Ghastly of shape, and of prodigious size, With glaring eyes, cleft foot, and monstrous tail, And bigger than the giants at Guildhall, Stalking with horrid strides across the room, And guards of fiends to drag him to his doom; Hereat he falls in dreadful agonies, And dead cold sweats his trembling members seize; Then starting wakes, and with a dismal cry, Calls to his aid his frighted family; There owns the crime, and vows upon his knees The sacred pledge next morning to release. These are the men whom the least terrors daunt, Who at the sight of their own shadows faint; These, if it chance to lighten, are aghast, And quake for fear, lest every flash should blast; These swoon away at the first thunderclap, As if 'twere not what usually does hap,
The casual cracking of a cloud, but sent By angry Heaven for their punishment; And if unhurt they 'scape the tempest now, Still dread the greater vengeance to ensue. These the least symptoms of a fever fright, Water high-coloured, want of rest at night, Or a disordered pulse straight makes them shrink, And presently for fear they're ready to sink Into their graves; their time, they think, is come, And Heaven in judgment now has sent their doom. Nor dare they, though in whisper, waft a prayer, Lest it by chance should reach the Almighty's ear, And wake his sleeping vengeance, which before So long has their impieties forbore. These are the thoughts which guilty wretches haunt, Yet entered, they still grow more impudent; After a crime, perhaps, they now and then Feel pangs and strugglings of remorse within, But straight return to their old course again;
They who have once thrown shame and conscience by, Ne'er after make a stop in villany; Hurried along, down the vast steep they go, And find 'tis all a precipice below. Even this perfidious friend of yours, no doubt,
Will not with single wickedness give out; Have patience but a while, you'll shortly see His hand held up at bar for felony; You'll see the sentenced wretch for punishment To Scilly Isles, or the Caribbees sent; Or, if I may his surer fate divine, Hung like Boroski, for a gibbet-sign; Then may you glut revenge, and feast your eyes With the dear object of his miseries; And then, at length convinced, with joy you'll find That the just God is neither deaf nor blind.
* ↑ Written in April, 1682.
* ↑ When remedies are past, the griefs are ended, By knowing the worst, which late on hopes depended. To mourn a mischief that is past and gone, Is the next way to draw new mischief on. What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, Patience her injury a mockery makes. The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. Shakespeare.—Othello.
* ↑ ’The horrid designs and contrivances of the Papists,’ says a pamphlet, entitled An Account of the Burning of the Pope at Temple-bar (1679), 'for many years past, for rooting out the Protestant religion from under heaven in this kingdom, as well as in all the Protestant countries in Europe, has raised such a just indignation in the breast of every good Christian and true Englishman, that the people of this nation have, upon all occasions, endeavoured to discover their generous detestation of those cursed invaders of their religions and civil liberties.' One of the occasions selected for the display of this 'generous detestation' was that alluded to by Oldham. The commemoration of the day when Queen Bess ascended the throne, which was celebrated in 1679, 1680, and 1681. by a solemn procession beginning at Moorgate, and winding its way through Bishopsgate- street, down Hounds-ditch to Aldgate, and thence by Leadenhall-street, Cornhill, past the Royal Exchange, through Cheapside to Temple-bar, where the object the ceremonial was communicated. First came six whifflers (pipers or horn blowers, who, going in advance, cleared the way) ; then, a bell-man ringing a bell, and calling out dolefully, 'Remember Justice Godfrey!' Next a figure representing the dead body of the justice, mounted on a white horse, with one of his murderers behind to prevent him from falling off, with spots of blood over his dress, &c.; then a priest, with deadmen's skulls, giving out pardons to all who would undertake to murder Protestants, another priest with a cross, Carmelite and Grey Friars, Jesuits with bloody daggers, followed by bishops, and cardinals, and the Pope's physician carrying Jesuit's powder in one hand, and a urinal in the other; and lastly the Pope in effigy, in a grand scarlet chair of state, with two boys at his feet, and banners emblazoned with consecrated daggers for murdering Protestant kings and princes. Behind his holiness stood the devil, hugging and whispering him, and instructing him how to set fire to the city, to destroy his Majesty, and to render other diabolical services to the church. The procession was closed by a hundred and fifty flambeaux, which, it being evening when the demonstration took place, played a conspicuous part in the pageant. As the procession advanced, it was augmented by thousands of idlers, who manifested their Protestant zeal by vociferous uproar. Arrived at Temple-bar, where the four statues of Queen Elizabeth, and James, and Charles I. and II. were appropriately adorned, and lighted up with torches, the Pope was brought up close to the gate, and after a song, written in wretched doggrel, was sung by the assembled thousands, a bonfire was made into which his holiness was tumbled; the devil, who, up to this time, had attended him faithfully, laughing out at the joke and abandoning him to his fate. 'This last act of his holiness's tragedy,' adds the pamphlet referred to, from which these particulars are derived, 'was attended with such a prodigious shout of the joyful spectators, that it might be heard far beyond Somerset-house, and we hope the sound thereof will reach all Europe.' Some account will be found in North's Examen of a Club, called the Green Ribbon Club, which sat in conclave at a neighbouring tavern to arrange and direct their proceedings.
* ↑ Hobbes of Malmesbury, whose Leviathan brought down the censure of parliament and the special displeasure of the King, on account of its atheistical principles. Hobbes died in 1679, three years before the date of this Satire.
* ↑ John Stow, the antiquary, like Speed, the contemporary of Spelman and Cotton, was the son of a tailor, and born in London about 1525. His principal works were the Summary of the Chronicles of England, and the Survey of London. Notwithstanding the high reputation he obtained by these valuable publications, he died in great poverty at the age of eighty, in 1605.
* ↑ The hospitals of St. Thomas in Southwark, and St. Bartholomew in West Smithfield.
* ↑ Judge Jeffreys.—See p. 214, note.
* ↑ Lucilio Vanini, born at Tourosano, in the kingdom of Naples, in 1585. He appears to have been a physician by profession, but to have devoted his life to the active diffusion of the doctrines of atheism. He was an indefatigable propagandist, and travelled into Germany and the Low Countries, Geneva, and France, for the purpose of disseminating his opinions. In 1614 he was in London, where he was imprisoned for forty-nine days, and he was banished from Genoa, where he set up as a teacher. After this he attempted to reconcile himself to the church, by pretending to undertake a refutation of the atheistical writers, contriving insidiously to make his arguments in defence of Christianity so vulnerable as to give an easy victory to the other side. In France he carried the imposition so far as to become a monk in the convent of Guienne, from whence he was afterwards expelled. He obtained high patronage, however, elsewhere; became chaplain to the Mareschal de Bassompierre, with a pension of two hundred crowns, and published, with the King's privilege, a book of Dialogues, in which he took some pains to disguise his real convictions; but the Doctors of the Sorbonne detected the fraud, and condemned the book to the flames. Thus exposed, and held up to universal obloquy, he left Paris, and went to Toulouse, where he commenced a course of lectures, in which he openly resumed and defended his former doctrines. For this offence he was prosecuted, and sentenced to be burned to death. His execution took place on the 19th February, 1619. Gramond, the President of the Parliament of Toulouse, describing his character, says of him, that 'he laughed at everything sacred, abominated the incarnation of our Saviour, and denied the being of a God, ascribing all things to chance.'
* ↑ Sir Charles Scarborough, a distinguished fellow of the College of Physicians, knighted for his great attainments by Charles II., who appointed him his principal physician. Dr. Scarborough acquired considerable reputation by his anatomical lectures delivered at Surgeons' Hall, which he continued annually for sixteen or seventeen years, and is stated to have been the first person who introduced geometrical and mechanical reasoning on the muscles. Having espoused the King's side during the civil wars, he was ejected from a fellowship he held at Caius College, Cambridge; but upon the Restoration ample amends were made to him. He died at eighty years of age in 1696.
* ↑ See ante, p. 10, note.
* ↑ My companions, the worthy knights of the most noble order of the Post, your peripatetic philosophers of the Temple Walks.'—Otway's Soldier's Fortune, Retain all sorts of witnesses That ply i' th' Temple under trees, Or walk the Round with knights of the Post. Butler.—Hudibras. The lawyers made appointments with their clients in the Round, where they discussed their business, the posts being the points of established rendezvous.—See Mr. Peter Cunningham's Hand-book of London.
* ↑ The horse-market in Smithfield was notorious for the cheats practised on purchasers. Pepys, going thither to buy horses for his coach, records his opinion of the place. 'Here I do see instances of a piece of craft and cunning that I never dreamed of, concerning the buying and choosing of horses.'
* ↑ Thomas Thynne, of Longleat, in Wiltshire, murdered in his coach, close to Pall Mall, at the bottom of the Haymarket, by assassins hired by Count Koningsmark, on the night of the 12th February, 1681-2. Thynne was engaged in marriage to the Lady Elizabeth Percy, and Koningsmark was instigated to this atrocious act either by jealousy, or his desire to possess himself of the lady's wealth. He was tried for the murder, and acquitted; but the assassins he employed were executed on the spot where it took place.
* ↑ John Fox, a divine of the English Church, and author of the Book of Martyrs. He was brought up in the Roman Catholic religion, and reduced to great distress in consequence of having embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. In this extremity, while he was one day sitting in St. Paul's Church, exhausted by long fasting, a person unknown to him came up, and, putting a sum of money in his hands, told him that new means of subsistence would shortly be disclosed to him. The prediction was fulfilled within three days, when he was taken into the family of the Duchess of Richmond, as tutor to the children of her nephew, the famous Earl of Surrey. He never was able to discover the person to whom he was indebted for this seasonable assistance. During the latter part of the reign of Queen Mary, he was obliged to fly the kingdom, to escape the persecutions of Gardner, Bishop of Winchester; and, settling at Basle, on the Rhine, he supported himself and his family by correcting the press for Oporinus, the printer. Here he planned his great work. The History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church, better known as The Book of Martyrs. It occupied him eleven years, and amongst those who contributed to his assistance in the collection of materials was Grindal, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. On the death of Queen Mary (which he is said to have predicted), Fox returned to England, where he had many powerful friends. Cecil procured for him a prebend in the Church of Salisbury; but he refused to subscribe to the Articles of Conformity. So great was the respect, however, entertained for his character and his labours, that he was allowed to hold his prebend till his death, which occurred in 1587, in his 70th year. Fox wrote other works; but his reputation rests exclusively on The Acts and Monuments.
* ↑ Dr. George Hakewill. His works are enumerated by Wood.
* ↑ The Theatre of God's Judgments (1597) written, or compiled, by Dr. Thomas Beard, a puritan minister at Huntingdon, assisted by Dr. Thomas Taylor. Beard was Oliver Cromwell's schoolmaster.
* ↑ Executed for the murder of Mr. Thynne.