[Line: 54 'in words at large' _1647_ ('at length', one issue of _1647_): 'at words in large' _1651_, _1653_: 'in words at length, and not in figures' _MS._] [Line: 58 Edd. 'Cat_a_line', as usual, but _1677_ 'Catiline'. 'He swears he'll be the Synod's' _MS._] [Line: 59 'Thus they drink on, not offering to depart' _MS._] [Line: 60 _1677_ omits 'quite'--no doubt for the old syllabic reason. _MS._ substitutes 'fully'.] [Line: 62 Perhaps nowhere is the comic surprise of the symbol more wanted than here, and more of a loss when that symbol is extended.] Smectymnuus, or the Club-Divines. Smectymnuus! The goblin makes me start! I' th' name of Rabbi Abraham, what art? Syriac? or Arabic? or Welsh? what skill't? Ap all the bricklayers that Babel built, Some conjurer translate and let me know it; Till then 'tis fit for a West Saxon poet. But do the brotherhood then play their prizes Like mummers in religion with disguises, Out-brave us with a name in rank and file? A name, which, if 'twere trained, would spread a mile! 10 The saints' monopoly, the zealous cluster Which like a porcupine presents a muster And shoots his quills at bishops and their sees, A devout litter of young Maccabees! Thus Jack-of-all-trades hath devoutly shown The Twelve Apostles on a cherry-stone; Thus faction 's _à la mode_ in treason's fashion, Now we have heresy by complication. Like to Don Quixote's rosary of slaves Strung on a chain; a murnival of knaves 20 Packed in a trick, like gipsies when they ride, Or like colleagues which sit all of a side. So the vain satyrists stand all a row As hollow teeth upon a lute-string show. Th' Italian monster pregnant with his brother, Nature's diæresis, half one another, He, with his little sides-man Lazarus, Must both give way unto Smectymnuus. Next Sturbridge Fair is Smec's; for, lo! his side Into a five-fold lazar's multiplied. 30 Under each arm there 's tucked a double gizzard; Five faces lurk under one single vizard. The Whore of Babylon left these brats behind, Heirs of confusion by gavelkind. I think Pythagoras' soul is rambled hither With all the change of raiment on together. Smec is her general wardrobe; she'll not dare To think of him as of a thoroughfare. He stops the gossiping dame; alone he is The purlieu of a metempsychosis; 40 Like a Scotch mark, where the more modest sense Checks the loud phrase, and shrinks to thirteen pence: Like to an ignis fatuus whose flame, Though sometimes tripartite, joins in the same; Like to nine tailors, who, if rightly spelled, Into one man are monosyllabled. Short-handed zeal in one hath cramped many Like to the Decalogue in a single penny. See, see how close the curs hunt under sheet As if they spent in quire and scanned their feet.