For he recks not their bells, books, and candlesa fig (He scarce looks like a man who would _stay_ treated shabbily, Sophroniscus’ son’s head o’er the features of Rabelais); He bangs and bethwacks them,--their backs he salutes With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the roots; His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced, And he talks in one breath of Confutzee, Cass, Zerduscht, Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, Dathan, Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, _that_ he’s nofaith in), Pan, Pillicock, Shakespeare, Paul, Toots, Monsieur Tonson, Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben Jonson, Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, Judah Mouis, Musæus, Muretus, _hem_,--μ Scorpionis, Maccabee, Maccaboy, Mac--Mac--ah! Machiavelli, Condorcet, Count d’Orsay, Conder, Say, Ganganelli, Orion, O’Connell, the Chevalier D’O, (See the Memoirs of Sully,) το παν, the great toe Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to pass For that of Jew Peter by good Romish brass. (You may add for yourselves, for I find it a bore, All the names you have ever, or not, heard before, And when you’ve done that--why, invent a few more.) His hearers can’t tell you on Sunday beforehand, If in that day’s discourse they’ll be Bibled or Koraned, For he’s seized the idea (by his martyrdom fired) That all men (not orthodox) _may be_ inspired; Yet though wisdom profane with his creed he may weave in, He makes it quite clear what he _doesn’t_ believe in, While some, who decry him, think all Kingdom Come Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of Hum, Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a crumb Would be left, if we didn’t keep carefully mum, And, to make a clean breast, that ’tis perfectly plain That _all_ kinds of wisdom are somewhat profane; Now P.’s creed than this may be lighter or darker, But in one thing, ’tis clear, he has faith, namely--Parker, And this is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher, There’s a background of god to each hardworking feature, Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest: There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest, If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least, His gestures all downright and same, if you will, As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a drill; But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke, Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak, You forget the man wholly, you’re thankful to meet With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street, And to hear, you’re not over-particular whence, Almost Taylor’s profusion, quite Latimer’s sense.