Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/136

126 Less those, which Sicily's tyrant heretofore From plundered gods, and Jove's own shoulders tore. Hither, as to some fair, the rabble come, To barter for the merchandize of Rome; Where priests, like mountebanks, on stage appear, To expose the frippery of their hallowed ware; This is the laboratory of their trade, The shop where all their staple drugs are made; Prescriptions and receipts to bring in gain, All from the church dispensatories ta'en. The pope's elixir, holy water's here. Which they with chemic art distilled prepare; Choice above Goddard's drops, and all the trash Of modern quacks; this is that sovereign wash For fetching spots and morphew from the face, And scouring dirty clothes, and consciences. One drop of this, if used, had power to fray The legion from the hogs of Gadara; This would have silenced quite the Wiltshire Drum, And made the prating fiend of Mascon dumb. That vessel consecrated oil contains, Kept sacred, as the famed ampoule of France, Which some profaner heretics would use For liquoring wheels of jacks, of boots, and shoes; This makes the chrism, which, mixed by cunning priests, Anoints young catholics for the church's lists; And when they're crossed, confessed, and die, by this Their launching souls slide off to endless bliss; As Lapland saints, when they on broomsticks fly, By help of magic unctions mount the sky. Yon altar-pix of gold is the abode And safe repository of their god. A cross is fixed upon 't the fiends to scare, And flies which would the deity besmear;