A Sad Case.
By Thomas Moore
"If it be the undergraduate season at which this rabies religiosa is to be so fearful, what security has Mr. Goulburn against it at this moment, when his son is actually exposed to the full venom of an association with Dissenters?"
--The Times, March 25.
How sad a case!--just think of it--
If Goulburn junior should be bit
By some insane Dissenter, roaming
Thro' Granta's halls, at large and foaming,
And with that aspect ultra crabbed
Which marks Dissenters when they're rabid!
God only knows what mischiefs might
Result from this one single bite,
Or how the venom, once suckt in,
Might spread and rage thro' kith and kin.
Mad folks of all denominations
First turn upon their own relations:
So that one Goulburn, fairly bit,
Might end in maddening the whole kit,
Till ah! ye gods! we'd have to rue
Our Goulburn senior bitten too;
The Hychurchphobia in those veins,
Where Tory blood now redly reigns;--
And that dear man who now perceives
Salvation only in lawn sleeves,
Might, tainted by such coarse infection,
Run mad in the opposite direction.
And think, poor man, 'tis only given
To linsey-woolsey to reach Heaven!
Just fancy what a shock 'twould be
Our Goulburn in his fits to see,
Tearing into a thousand particles
His once-loved Nine and Thirty Articles;
(Those Articles his friend, the Duke,[1]
For Gospel, t'other night, mistook;)
Cursing cathedrals, deans and singers--
Wishing the ropes might hang the ringers--
Pelting the church with blasphemies,
Even worse than Parson Beverley's;--
And ripe for severing Church and State,
Like any creedless reprobate,
Or like that class of Methodists
Prince Waterloo styles "Atheists!"
But 'tis too much--the Muse turns pale,
And o'er the picture drops a veil,
Praying, God save the Goulburns all
From mad Dissenters great and small!