A Satyr Against Hypocrites

In Short

This seventeenth-century satirical poem is a provocative, messy, and spirited denunciation of the Puritan and Presbyterian elites who rose to influence in England during the Commonwealth. Through a series of vivid, often grotesque scenes set within a church and at a private feast, the work mocks the hypocrisy of leaders who mask their greed, gluttony, and carnal appetites behind a facade of extreme piety. It has endured as a fascinating historical artifact, offering a raw, unfiltered glimpse into the social friction and sectarian tensions that defined the post-Cromwellian political landscape.

The Story

The poem begins with a sweeping, disdainful survey of the congregation, treating the church not as a sacred space but as a theater of vanity and performative holiness. The narrator guides the reader through the pews, pausing to identify various figures—churchwardens, clerks, justices, and wealthy city merchants—each characterized by their physical excess and spiritual emptiness. From the "fat as bacon" mayor to the chambermaids engaged in "curtain-sins," the scene is one of elaborate pretension. The atmosphere is thick with the noise of the service, where the congregation, lacking any musical grace, bellows psalms with a cacophony of whines and screeches that sound like "wheels of carts."

The narrative focus then shifts to the pulpit, where a succession of ministers compete to outdo one another in performative devotion. They adopt exaggerated postures, whine in "doleful" tones, and manipulate the scriptures to serve their own ends, whether it be demanding money or demonizing their political enemies. The satire reaches a fever pitch as the ministers use the pulpit to frame their petty grievances and insatiable hunger as divine mandates. One preacher, in particular, illustrates the sheer absurdity of their rhetoric, conflating the biblical story of Daniel with his own desire for a hearty meal, all while warning the flock against the "felony" of fasting.

As the religious gathering concludes, the scene transitions to a private dinner party, which serves as the ultimate reveal of the characters' true natures. Here, the performative sanctity of the church is abandoned entirely. The ministers and their devout "sisters" engage in gluttonous excess, tearing into beef and pudding with the ferocity of wolves. The meal is not merely a social occasion but a testament to their hypocrisy; the same leaders who preached restraint and spiritual purity now revel in wine, sack, and carnal indulgence. As the evening progresses, the distinction between "grace" and "grease" dissolves completely. The poem concludes with these figures justifying their behavior through a perverted logic that frames their lust and gluttony as holy acts. The ending is stark and unrepentant, leaving the reader with the image of a ruling class that has hollowed out the language of faith to justify a lifestyle of unchecked appetite and moral rot.

How It Unfolds

The survey of the pews The narrator walks through the church, cataloging the physical and moral deformities of the parishioners. He mocks the vanity of the wealthy merchants and the performative piety of the servants who hide their secret indiscretions.

The cacophony of worship The service erupts into a discordant, agonizing musical performance that highlights the lack of genuine spiritual harmony. The narrator compares the congregants to untamed horses, emphasizing their lack of grace and their screeching, unmelodious vocal efforts.

The battle of the preachers Multiple ministers take turns at the pulpit, each displaying a different brand of affected, self-serving rhetoric. They use the platform to denounce their enemies, demand financial support, and frame their own greed as the will of God.

The gluttonous feast The scene shifts to a private home, where the mask of piety is stripped away. The ministers abandon their sermons to indulge in an orgy of eating and drinking, ultimately justifying their behavior through absurd, twisted theological arguments.

The People

The characters are presented as types rather than individuals, each embodying a specific form of hypocrisy. The Ministers are the primary targets, characterized by their "wrath-denouncing" hands and their ability to turn sermons into demands for food and money. They are vain, performative, and deeply materialistic, viewing their flock as a means to sustain their own comfort. Their primary obstacle is the inherent contradiction between their preached asceticism and their actual gluttonous, lustful lives, a gap they bridge through sheer, blustering arrogance.

The Parishioners and Sisters—including figures like Priscilla, Rebecca, and Dorcas—act as the enablers of this system. They admire the ministers' performative displays, provide the "lusty meat" and drink, and participate in the moral gymnastics required to frame their own desires as divine gifts. These figures represent the social base of the movement, and like the ministers, they end up defined by their own greed and hypocrisy. None of them undergo a redemptive arc; rather, they are revealed to be increasingly unmoored from the very values they claim to uphold, settling into a cynical, self-serving existence that prizes "creature-comforts" above all else.

In Its Own Voice

The poem captures the visceral, often messy nature of the satirized services, highlighting the disconnect between the religious intent and the physical reality:

Straight then the Clerk began with potsheard voice / To grope a tune, singing with wofull noise, / Like a crackt Sans-bell jarring in the Steeple.

The narrator mocks the ministers for their blatant, self-interested manipulation of scripture, particularly when they equate their own physical hunger with holy suffering:

But now he smells the pyes begin to reak, / His teeth water, and he can no longer speak.

The final scenes of the book emphasize the total collapse of the moral facade during their private gatherings, where gluttony is celebrated:

Then down he powres the Claret, and down again, / And would the French King were a Puritan / He cryes.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book explores the tension between the public performance of virtue and the private reality of human desire. It interrogates the nature of authority during a period of intense religious upheaval, asking how a system built on piety can be weaponized by those who are motivated only by their own appetites. The argument is that hypocrisy is not just an individual failing but a structural one, where the language of the sacred is co-opted to legitimize the accumulation of power and comfort. It challenges the reader to look past the rhetoric of the "godly" and identify the underlying greed that often masquerades as moral superiority, suggesting that the most vocal defenders of faith are frequently its greatest violators.

Why Read It Today

Readers interested in the history of English satire will find this a fascinating, if occasionally abrasive, example of the genre. It offers a clear, unfiltered view of the Restoration-era reaction against the Puritan Commonwealth, stripped of the polite distance one might find in later, more refined works. The language is sharp and dense with the specific, often bawdy vocabulary of the period, which requires a bit of patience but rewards the reader with a vivid sense of the time's social anxieties and political bitterness.

It is not an easy read; the author's tone is consistently cynical, and the dialect and cultural references—like the specific descriptions of period clothing and local church practices—may feel distant. However, for those who enjoy literature that dares to be ugly and confrontational, the book provides a unique experience. It stays with you not just for its historical importance, but for its relentless, almost obsessive focus on the mechanics of deceit. It feels remarkably modern in its suspicion of public figures who use morality as a cloak for greed. It is a work of high energy and low opinion, perfect for anyone who enjoys seeing a powerful institution taken apart by someone who clearly finds its every gesture absurd.