Corn And Catholics.

utrum horum             dirius borun? Incerti Auctoris.     What! still those two infernal questions,         That with our meals our slumbers mix--     That spoil our tempers and digestions--         Eternal Corn and Catholics!     Gods! were there ever two such bores?         Nothing else talkt of night or morn--     Nothing in doors or out of doors,         But endless Catholics and Corn!     Never was such a brace of pests--         While Ministers, still worse than either,     Skilled but in feathering their nests,         Plague us with both and settle neither.     So addled in my cranium meet         Popery and Corn that oft I doubt,     Whether, this year, 'twas bonded Wheat,         Or bonded Papists, they let out.     Here, landlords, here polemics nail you,         Armed with all rubbish they can rake up;     Prices and Texts at once assail you--         From Daniel these, and those from Jacob,     And when you sleep, with head still torn         Between the two, their shapes you mix,     Till sometimes Catholics seem Corn--         Then Corn again seems Catholics.     Now Dantsic wheat before you floats--         Now Jesuits from California--     Now Ceres linkt with Titus Oats,         Comes dancing thro' the "Porta Cornea."[1]     Oft too the Corn grows animate,         And a whole crop of heads appears,     Like Papists, bearding Church and State--         Themselves, together by the ears!     In short these torments never cease,         And oft I wish myself transferred off     To some far, lonely land of peace         Where Corn or Papists ne'er were heard of.     Yes, waft me, Parry, to the Pole;         For--if my fate is to be chosen     'Twixt bores and icebergs--on my soul,         I'd rather, of the two, be frozen!