Now for thoroughgoing anti-clerical verse, nothing
beats "The Yahoo! a Satirical Rhapsody" (1830) a
heavily footnoted, anonymous book-length rant
apparently written by a pissed-off English engraver
named William Watts. The book went into two London
editions, but many more in America, where, let us
note, the good-old-godly days of yore weren't what the
current batch of ranters thinks.
Here's a random swatch (p. 9, 2nd English edition),
with notes:
From gospel-light, or rather gospel-dung, [47]
What crops of muddled nincompoops have sprung!
Hernhutters, Jumpers, Ranters, Harmonites,
Revivers, Squatters, Calvinists, New Lights,
Arminians, Quakers, Muggletonians,
Socinians, Anabaptists, Antinomians,
Swedenbourgs, Arians, Shilo-Southcotites;
The major part rank fools, the rest rank bites.
Such are the Christian Yahoos, who delight
To blindfold reason with their _inward_ light. [48]
Peter and Paul are conn'd; but, still perplex'd,
They rummage Luke, and Mark, and Matthew next:
From text to text the pious buzzards fly,
While "the land stinks, so num'rous are the fry."
Yet some of these pure saints _now_ seem to think
Young girls may too much in the bible squint;
And stumbling upon passages obscene, [49]
Must wonder what such paw-paw words can mean.
[47] Whitfield, in one of his ranting sermons at
Glasgow, in the year 1742, thus expresses himself: "O
lord, dung us with Jesus Christ, that we may bring
forth much fruit meet for thee." See _Lewis's
Memoirs_. And in writing to Lady Huntingdon, the same
preacher of the blessed gosepl says, "I have just now
risen from the ground, after praying to the lord of
all lords to water your soul every moment, honoured
madam."--_Southey's Wesley._ Tom brown quotes the
following prayer from one of the frothy spouters in
his time: "Souse us, O lord, in the powdering-tub of
thy grace, that we may become tripes fit for thy
heavenly table: sweeten us with the sugar-candy of thy
mercy, O lord, that we may all be rendered lollypops
and bulls'-eyes for the rightous in kingdom come!"
[48] 'Tis such a light as putrefaction breeds
In fly-blown flesh, whereon the maggot feeds;
Shines in the dark, but usher'd into day,
The stench remains, the lustre dies away.--Cowper
[49] Teaching the poor to read so generally has cut
out plenty of employment for the spiritual
sow-gelders, who are now as busy as the devil in a
high wind in grubbing out the impurities from the holy
balderdash, lest their chaste female devotees might
now and then be shocked by reading so often about
"going in unto her," &c.
Some may be glad to hear that even with all the
canon-busting going on nobody has stumbled across _The
Yahoo!_ yet. I got my copy on eBay.
David Latane
http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)
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