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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!

NOTE:
[1] The Horn Gate, through which the ancients supposed all true dreams (such as those of the Popish Plot, etc.) to pass.