With holy envy gave one layman place.
When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,
Slow rose a form in majesty of Mud;
Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,
And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.
Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;
Then thus the wonders of the deep declares.
"First he relates how, sinking to the chin,
Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in;
How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamente brown,
Vy'd for his love in jetty bow'rs below,
As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.
Then sung, how shown him by the Nut-brown maids
A branch of Styx here rises from the shades,
That tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams,
And wafting vapors from the land of dreams,
(As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice
Bears Pisa's offering to his Arethuse)
Pours into Thames; and hence the mingled wave
Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave:
Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep;
There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.
"Thence to the banks where rev'rend bards repose,
They led him soft; each rev'rend bard arose;
And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest,
Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.
'Receive (he said) these robes, which once were mine,
Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.'
He ceas'd, and spread the robe; the crowd confess
The rev'rend flamen in his lengthen'd dress.
Around him wide a sable army stand,
A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,
Prompt or to guard or stab, to saint or damn,
Heav'n's Swiss, who fight for any god, or man.
"Through Lud's fam'd gates, along the well-known Fleet,
Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street,
Till show'rs of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fleeces whiten all the ways:
So clouds replenish'd from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow."

The last of the contests offers one or two difficulties. The goddess
will appoint her Supreme Judge in the Court of Criticism, and she
ordains a trial of qualifications. This is the manner of ordeal. A dull
piece in prose, and a dull piece in verse, is to be read aloud. The
auditor who remains the longest awake carries the election. The two
preparations of Morphine exhibited, are a sermon of H--ley's (Henley or
Hoadley?) and Blackmore's Prince Arthur. Six candidate heroes present
themselves, three from the University, and three from the Inns of Co