Epigram On Hearing A Parson Read Very Badly A Sermon He Had Bought

That sermon, reverend Sir, which you have bought,
To save your idle brain the toil of thought,
You read in such a dull, lethargic tone,
It seems almost as stupid as your own.

    *        *        *        *        *

Pursefull's a stickler for the law's abuse:
To him, 'tis clear, it was of sterling use.

    *        *        *        *        *

Pursefull still advocates the law's abuse.
What moralist can gratitude condemn?
They, formerly, have done so much for him;
Ought he not, now, to do his best for them?

Thomas Oldham

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Thomas Oldham

Summer-Evening, A

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Epitaph On Napoleon

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Epigram On The Conduct Of Some Few Clergymen, Who Are A Disgrace To Their Sacred Profession

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Epitaph On Wilberforce

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

English

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Epigram On Hearing A Clergyman Preach A Dull Sermon In A Loud, Shrill Voice

Still, still his bell-like voice rings through my head;
Yet not one bright thought cheers my mental view;
O! would that I were deaf, asleep, or dead!
Ye marble statues! how I envy you!

    *        *        *        *        *

To hear him preach the Methodistic creed,
What eager crowds to Ranter's chapel speed!
His eloquence the harden'd sinner frightens;
Like heaven itself says Fame, he thunders, lightens.
I go to hear him; Fame has made a blunder;
I see no lightning, though I hear the thunder.

For flowery sermons Doctor Drudge
    Of preachers at the top is;
If from their influence we may judge,
    His flowers are only poppies.

    *        *        *        *        *

Sir! you're both fool and knave! to Frank, Blunt cries

Thomas Oldham

Epigram To A Hypocritical Calvinist

By faith alone, you say, not works,
    Man must obtain salvation;
If you are saved, the doctrine needs
    No better confirmation.

    *    *    *    *    *

My Lady Sceptical, for want of proof,
    What all believe, denies;
Yet she believes what all, with proof, deny,
    That she is wondrous wise.


    *    *    *    *    *

'The dullest ass may write
    In verse, that jingling stuff!'
Indeed, Sir? have you tried?
    'I have.' That's proof enough.

Yon fop has strangely got it in his noddle
That he excels in tragic declamation;
Kemble's the favourite, and the model,
That claims his praise, and prompts his imitation;
Now, that the praise is just, none can deny;
But the imitation gives that praise the lie:

Thomas Oldham

Epigram After Having Seen Several Bad Paintings Of The Death Of Sir John Moore

Cease, daubers! profane not the theme, I implore ye!
But leave him, O leave him alone with his glory!

    *        *        *        *        *

Man's owl-eyed reason Popish Priests assert
Can't safely bear the gospel's heavenly light;
Therefore, with kindest zeal, they do their best
To keep their flocks in unillumined night.

    *        *        *        *        *

'The brokers of the Stock-Exchange
Are nicknamed bears and bulls; how strange!
What reason, Sir, to call them so?'
Ma'am, see their manners, you will know.

Thomas Oldham

Late Tithe Case.

        "sic vos non vobis."


        "The Vicar of Birmingham desires me to state that, in consequence of the passing of a recent Act of Parliament, he is compelled to adopt measures which may by some be considered harsh or precipitate; but, in duty to what he owes to his successors, he feels bound to preserve the rights of the vicarage."
        --Letter from Mr. S. Powell, August 6.


No, not for yourselves, ye reverend men,
Do you take one pig in every ten,
But for Holy Church's future heirs,
Who've an abstract right to that pig, as theirs;
The law supposing that such heirs male
Are already seized of the pig, in tail.
No, not for himself hath Birmingham's priest
His "well-beloved" of their pennies fleeced:
But it is that, bef...

Thomas Moore

Epigram On Hearing A Lady Talk Very Fast And Unintelligibly

Words upon words impetuous rush along,
And tread each other's brains out as they throng.

    *        *        *        *        *

'Admire my wife! did ever mortal eyes'
Cornuto, in a rapture, boasting cries
'Such a fine set of teeth of ivory view?
And such a fine complexion's ivory hue?
Fool! hide thy head! both her and thee we scorn:
Oft the wife's ivory makes the husband's horn.

    *        *        *        *        *

I'm told Sir Pigmy mimics me; what then?
Don't we all know that monkies mimic men?
'I cannot say your poem I admire;
It wants originality and fire;
Besides, I find it, by no means, correct;
You've written it in haste, I should suspect,'
"What! do you think me then a jackass, pray?"
'I shall think so if you so lou...

Thomas Oldham

The Satires Of Dr John Donne, Dean Of St Paul's,[171] Versified.

'Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes Mollius?'

HOR.

Satire II.

Yes; thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too:
Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,
That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
It brought (no doubt) the Excise and Army in:
Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how,
But that the cure is starving, all allow
Yet like the papist's is the poet's state,
Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!

Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner,...

Alexander Pope