Bishop Bonner's ghost

THE ARGUMENT.

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IN the gardens of the palace at Fulham is a dark receſs; at the end of this ſtands a chair which once belonged to biſhop Bonner.—A certain biſhop of London, more than 200 years after the death of the aforeſaid Bonner, juſt as the clock of the gothic chapel had ſtruck ſix, undertook to cut with his own hand a narrow walk thro' this thicket, which is ſince called the monk's walk. He had no ſooner begun to clear the way than, lo! ſuddenly up-ſtarted from the chair the ghoſt of biſhop Bonner, who in a tone of juſt and bitter indignation uttered the following verſes.

BONNER's GHOST.

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REFORMER, hold! ah! ſpare my ſhade,
Reſpect the hallow'd dead;
Vain pray'r! I ſee the op'ning glade,
See utter darkneſs fled.

Juſt ſo your innovating hand
Let in the moral light;
So, chas'd from this bewilder'd land,
Fled intellectual night.

Where now that holy gloom which hid
Fair truth from vulgar ken?
Where now that wiſdom which forbid
To think that monks were men?

The tangled mazes of the ſchools
Which ſpread ſo thick before,
Which knaves intwin'd to puzzle fools,
Shall catch mankind no more.

Thoſe charming intricacies where?
Thoſe venerable lies?
Thoſe legends, once the church's care,
Thoſe ſweet perplexities?

[2]

Ah! fatal age, whoſe ſons combin'd

Of credit to exhauſt us;

Ah! fatal age, which gave mankind

A Luther and a Fauſtus! ^*

Had only Jack and Martin † liv'd,
Our pow'r had ſlowly fled;
Our influence longer had ſurviv'd
Had laymen never read.

For knowledge flew, like magic ſpell,
By typographic art:
Oh, ſhame! a peaſant now can tell
If prieſts the truth impart.

Ye councils, pilgrimages, creeds!
Synods, decrees, and rules!
Ye warrants of unholy deeds,
Indulgencies and bulls!

[3]

Where are ye now? and where, alas!

The pardons we diſpenſe?

And penances, the ſponge of ſins;

And Peter's holy pence?

Where now the beads, which us'd to ſwell
Lean virtue's ſpare amount?
Here only faith and goodneſs fill
A heretic's account.

But ſoft—what gracious form appears?
Is this a convent's life?
Atrocious ſight! by all my fears,
A prelate with a wife!

Ah! ſainted Mary, * not for this
Our pious labours join'd;
The witcheries of domeſtic bliſs
Had ſhook ev'n Gardiner's mind.

Hence all the ſinful, human ties,
Which mar the cloyſter's plan;
Hence all the weak fond charities,
Which make man feel for man.

[4]

But tortur'd memory vainly ſpeaks

The projects we deſign'd,

While this apoſtate biſhop ſeeks

The freedom of mankind.

Oh, born in ev'ry thing to ſhake
The ſyſtems plann'd by me!
So heterodox, that he wou'd make
Both ſoul and body free.

Nor clime nor colour ſtays his hand;
With charity deprav'd,
He wou'd, from Thames' to Gambia's ſtrand,
Have all be free and ſav'd.

And who ſhall change his wayward heart;
His wilful ſpirit turn?
For thoſe his labours can't convert,
His weakneſs will not burn.

Ann. Dom. 1900.

A GOOD OLD PAPIST.

Appendix A

By the lapſe of time the three laſt ſtanzas are become unintelligible. Old chronicles ſay, that towards the latter end of the 18th century a bill was brought into the Britiſh parliament by an active young reformer for the aboli⯑tion of a pretended traffic of the human ſpecies. But this only ſhews how little faith is to be given to the exaggerations of hiſtory, for as no veſtige of this incredible trade now remains, we look upon the whole ſtory to have been one of thoſe fictions, not uncommon among authors, to blacken the memory of former ages.

Notes

The ſame age which brought hereſy into the church unhappily introduced printing among the arts, by which means the ſcriptures were unluckily diſſe⯑minated among the vulgar.

†

How biſhop Bonner came to have read Swiſt's Tale of a Tub it may now be in vain to inquire.

An orthodox queen of the 16th. century, who laboured with might and main, conjointly with theſe two venerable biſhops to extinguiſh a dangerous hereſy y-cleped the reformation.