"Here comes Parker, the Orson of parsons, a man Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban,-- (The Church of Socinus, I mean)--his opinions Being So-(ultra)-cinian, they shocked the Socinians; They believed--faith I'm puzzled--I think I may call Their belief a believing in nothing at all, Or something of that sort; I know they all went For a general union of total dissent: He went a step farther; without cough or hem, He frankly avowed he believed not in them; And, before he could be jumbled up or prevented From their orthodox kind of dissent he dissented. There was heresy here, you perceive, for the right Of privately judging means simply that light Has been granted to _me_, for deciding on _you_, And in happier times, before Atheism grew, The deed contained clauses for cooking you too. Now at Xerxes and Knut we all laugh, yet our foot With the same wave is wet that mocked Xerxes and Knut; And we all entertain a sincere private notion, That our _Thus far!_ will have a great weight with the ocean. 'Twas so with our liberal Christians: they bore With sincerest conviction their chairs to the shore; They brandished their worn theological birches, Bade natural progress keep out of the Churches, And expected the lines they had drawn to prevail With the fast-rising tide to keep out of their pale; They had formerly dammed the Pontifical See, And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.; But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and shamming, And cared (shall I say?) not a d-- for their damming; So they first read him out of their church, and next minute Turned round and declared he had never been in it. But the ban was too small or the man was too big, For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig; (He don't look 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 no faith in,) Pan, Pillicock, Shakspeare, Paul, Toots, Monsieur Tonson, Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben Jonson, Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, Judah Monis, 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) τὸ πᾶν, 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,