THE ARGUMENT. 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 two hundred years after the death of the aforesaid BONNER, one morning, just as the clock of the Gothic Chapel had struck six, undertook to cut with his own hand a narrow walk through this thicket, which is since called the Monks-Walk. He had no sooner begun to clear the way, than, lo! suddenly upstarted from the chair the Ghost of Bishop BONNER, who in a tone of just and bitter indignation, uttered the following Verses. BISHOP BONNER'S GHOST.* REFORMER, hold! ah, spare my shade, Just so your innovating hand So, chas'd from this bewilder'd land, Where now that holy gloom which hid Where now that wisdom which forbid The author accompanied the late Bishop PORTEUS when he first went to take possession of the Palace at Fulham. He complained to her that he found no retired walk to which he might withdraw occasionally. She pointed out a spot where such a retreat might be formed; and while he was clearing away the branches, the following verses were written. A few copies only were printed by HORACE WALPOLE, Earl of Orford, at his press at Strawberry Hill. The tangled mazes of the schools, Those charming intricacies where? Those legends, once the church's care? Ah! fatal age, whose sons combin'd Ah! fatal age, which gave mankind Had only JACK and MARTIN + liv'd, Our influence might have still surviv’d, For knowledge flew, like magic spell, Oh, shame! a peasant now can tell Ye councils, pilgrimages, creeds! Ye warrants of unholy deeds, The same Age which brought Heresy into the Church, unhappily introduced Printing among the Arts, by which means the Scriptures were unluckily disseminated among the Vulgar. How Bishop BONNER came to have read SWIFT's Tale of a Tub it may now be in vain to inquire. Where are ye now? and where, alas! And penances, the sponge of sins ; Where now the beads, which us'd to swell Here only faith and goodness fill But soft- what gracious form appears? Ah! sainted MARY*, not for this 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 But tortur'd memory vainly speaks An orthodox Queen of the sixteenth century, who laboured with might and main, conjointly with these two venerable Bishops, to extinguish a dangerous heresy ycleped the Reformation. |