He comes from Erin's speechful shore
Like fervid kettle, bubbling o'er
With hot effusions--hot and weak;
Sound, Humbug, all your hollowest drums,
He comes, of Erin's martyrdoms
To Britain's well-fed Church to speak.
Puff him, ye Journals of the Lord,[1]
Twin prosers, _Watchman_ and _Record_!
Journals reserved for realms of bliss,
Being much too good to sell in this,
Prepare, ye wealthier Saints, your dinners,
Ye Spinsters, spread your tea and crumpets;
And you, ye countless Tracts for Sinners,
Blow all your little penny trumpets.
He comes, the reverend man, to tell
To all who still the Church's part take,
Tales of parsonic woe, that well
Might make even grim Dissenter's heart ache:--
Of ten whole bishops snatched away
For ever from the light of day;
(With God knows, too, how many more,
For whom that doom is yet in store)--
Of Rectors cruelly compelled
From Bath and Cheltenham to haste home,
Because the tithes, by Pat withheld,
Will _not_ to Bath or Cheltenham come;
Nor will the flocks consent to pay
Their parsons thus to stay away;--
Tho' with _such_ parsons, one may doubt
If 'tisn't money well laid out;--
Of all, in short, and each degree
Of that once happy Hierarchy,
Which used to roll in wealth so pleasantly;
But now, alas! is doomed to see
Its surplus brought to nonplus presently!
Such are the themes this man of pathos,
Priest of prose and lord of bathos,
Will preach and preach t'ye, till you're dull again;
Then, hail him, Saints, with joint acclaim,
Shout to the stars his tuneful name,
Which Murtagh _was_, ere known to fame,
But now is _Mortimer_ O'Mulligan!
All true, Dick, true as you're alive--
I've seen him, some hours since, arrive.
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