The Hypocrite, by Mr. Caryll. on the Lord Shaftesbury. 1678

Thou 'rt more inconstant than the wind or sea, Or that still veering sex out-done by thee: Reeling from vice to vice, thou hast run through Legions of sins more than the casuists know: Of whom thy friends were wont to say, "Poor devil! At least he was not constant to his evil!" Dealing so long in sins of pomp and glory, Who would have thought (to make up Guzman's story) Hypocrisy at last should enter in, And fix this floating mercury of sin? All his old sins, like misses out of date, Turn pensioners to this new miss of state: His actions, look, and garb, take a new frame, And wear the livery of this sullen dame: Plain band, and hair, and cloaths, disguise the man, All, but his dealing and his heart, is plain. Not Ovid's stories, nor the wife of Lot, Can boast a change beyond our state-bigot: All on the sudden, in one fatal morn, Our courtier did to a stark Quaker turn. Some think He does, as criminals who would defeat The course of Justice, madness counterfeit: No, Godliness, that once much-pitied thing, Of his new fiddle is the only string: For the poor Church is all his tender care, And Popery's growth he sounds in every ear; At which the dirty rout run grunting in, As when the old wife's kettle rings the swine.

So the court-dame, who in her youthful pride No pleasure to her craving sense deny'd, But, unreserv'd, with every fresh delight, Did prodigally feast her appetite, Age drawing on, when through her youth's decay, Her servants with her beauty drop away; For winter quarters, she Religion takes, And of necessity a virtue makes. And when the wrinkles of her face no cure Will longer from the help of art endure, Covering the worn-out sinner with the saint, As once her face, she now her soul does paint. Since churches are not, must religion be Of guilty persons still the sanctuary? When great men fall, or popular men would rise, Both from religion borrow their disguise. Then, like Achilles in his fate-proof arms, They boldly march, guided with holy charms, And brow-beat Caesar, and defy his laws; Who dare resist the champion of God's cause? But, when the place or pension is your own, When the opposing party is run down, Religion and God's cause aside are cast, Like actor's habit, when the play is past.

This dame Hypocrisy, with sour face, Does fit supply old mother Mosely's place: She for his body did provision find, This caters for the letchery of his mind, And for his vast ambition, and his pride, And his insatiate avarice, does provide; His body thus and soul together vie In Vice's empire for the sovereignty. In ulcers that, this does abound in sin, Lazar without, and Lucifer within; The silver-pipe is no sufficient drain For the corruption of this little man; Who, though he ulcers have in every part, Is no where so corrupt as in his heart.