Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/116

106 Then thus continued he'Since unjust fate Envies my race of glory longer date, Yet, as a wounded general, e'er he dies, To his sad troops, sighs out his last advice, (Who, though they must his fatal absence moan, By those great lessons conquer, when he's gone) So I to you my last instructions give, And breathe out counsel with my parting life: Let each to my important words give ear, Worth your attention, and my dying care. 'First, and the chiefest thing by me enjoined, The solemnest tie, that must your order bind, Let each without demur, or scruple pay A strict obedience to the Roman sway: To the unerring chair all homage swear, Although a punk, a witch, a fiend sit there. Whoe'er is to the sacred mitre reared, Believe all virtues with the place conferred; Think him established there by Heaven, though he Has altars robbed for bribes the choice to buy, Or pawned his soul to hell for simony; Though he be atheist, heathen, Turk, or Jew, Blasphemer, sacrilegious, perjured too: Though he be bawd, pimp, pathick, panderer, Whate'er old Sodom's nest of lechers were; Though tyrant, traitor, poisoner, parricide, Magician, monster, all that's bad beside; Fouler than infamy; the very lees, The sink, the jakes, the common-sewer of vice; Strait count him holy, virtuous, good, devout, Chaste, gentle, meek, a saint, a god, who not? 'Make fate hang on his lips, nor Heaven have Power to predestinate without his leave;