Poems by J.C. ; with additions. — Poems. Selections

Poems by J.C. ; with additions. — Poems. Selections

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Title page

TO THE STATE of LOVE, OR, The Senses Festival.

THE HECATOMB TO HIS MISTRESSE.

UPON Sir THOMAS MARTIN, Who subscribed a Warrant thus: We the Knights and Gentlemen of the Committee, &c. when there was no Knight but himself.

On the memory of Mr. Edward King, drown'd in the Irish Seas.

On the same.

The Hue and Cry after Sir Iohn Presbyter.

The Antiplatonick.

Vpon an Hermaphrodite.

The Authors Hermaphrodite, made after Mr. Randolphs death, yet inserted into his Poems.

Square-Cap.

Vpon Phillis walking in a morning before Sunrising.

Vpon a Miser that made a great feast, and the next day died for grief.

A young Man to an old Woman Courting him.

To Mrs. K. T. who ask't him why he was dumb.

A Faire Nymph scorning a Black Boy Courting her.

A Dialogue between two Zealots, upon the &c. in the Oath.

Smectymnuns, or the Club-Divines.

The Mixt Assembly.

The Kings Disguise.

The Rebell Scot.

The Scots Apostasie.

Rupertismus.

Epitaph on the Earle of Strafford.

Epitaphium Thomae Comitis Straffordii, &c.

On the Archbishop of Canterbury.

On I. W. A. B. of York.

Marke Anthony.

The Authors Mock-Song to Marke Anthony.

THE CHARACTER OF A London-Diurnall.

The Character of a Country-COMMITTEE-MAN, With the Ear-mark of a SEQUESTRATOR.

§

§

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POEMS.

BY J. C.

WITH ADDITIONS.

Printed in the Year 1651.

TO THE STATE of LOVE, OR, The Senses Festival.

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I Saw a Vision yesternight

Enough to tempt a Seekers sight:

I wisht my self a Shaker there,

And her quick pulse my trembling sphear.

It was a She so glittering bright:

You'd think her soul an Adamite.

A person of so rare a frame,

Her bodie might be lin'd with'same.

Beauties chiefest Maid of Honour:

You'd break a Lent with looking on her.

Not the fair Abbess of the skies,

With all her Nunnery of eyes,

Can shew me such a glorious prize.

And yet, because 't is more renown

To make a shadow shine, she's brown;

A brown, for which, Heaven would disband

The Gallaxye, and stars be tann'd.

Brown by reflection, as her eye

Dazels the Summers livery.

[Page]Old dormant windows must confesse,

Her beams their glimmering spectacles;

Struck with the splendour of her face,

Do th' office of a burning-glass.

Now, where such radiant lights have shown,

No wonder if her cheeks be grown

Sun-burnt with lustre of her own.

My sight took pay, but (thank my charms)

I now empale her in mine arms,

(Loves Compasses) confining you

Good Angels, to a Compass too.

Is not the Universe strait-lac't,

When I can clasp it in the Waste?

My amorous foulds about thee hurl'd,

With Drake, I compass in the world.

I hoop the Firmament, and make;

This my Embrace the Zodiack.

How would thy Center take my Sense,

When Admiration doth commense,

At the extream Circumference.

Now to the melting kiss that sips

The jelly'd Philtre of her lips

So sweet, there is no tongue can phras't,

Till transubstantiate with a taste,

Inspit'd like Mahomet from above,

By th' billing of my heav'nly Dove;

Love prints her Signets in her smacks,

Those Ruddy drops of squeezing wax;

Which, wheresoever she imparts,

They're Privie Seals to take up hearts.

[Page]Our Mouthes encountering at the sport,

My slippery soul had quit the fort,

But that she stopt the Salley-port.

Next to those sweets her lips dispence,

As Twin-conserves of Eloquence;

The sweet perfume her breath affords;

Incorporating with her words;

No Rosary this Votress needs,

Her very syllables are beads.

No sooner 'twixt those Rubies born▪

But Jewels are in Ear-rings worn.

With what delight her speech doth enter,

It is a kiss oth' second venter.

And I dissolve at what I hear,

As if another Rosomond were

Couch'd in the Labyrinth of my Ear.

Yet, that 's but a preludious bliss;

Two souls pickearing in a kiss.

Embraces do but draw the Line,

'Tis storming that must take her in.

When Bodies whine, and victory hovers

'Twixt the equal fluttering Lovers,

This is the game, make stakes my Dear,

Hark how the sprightly Chanticlere,

That Baron Tell-clock of the night,

Sounds Boot-esel to Cupids knight.

Then have at all, the pass is got,

For coming off, oh name it not:

Who would not die upon the spot.

THE HECATOMB TO HIS MISTRESSE.

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BE dumb ye beggers of the rhiming trade,

Geld the loose wits, and let the Muse be splaid.

Charge not the parish with the bastard phrase

Of Balm, Elixar, both the Indias,

Of shrine, saint, sacriledge, and such as these

Expressions, common as their Mistresses.

Hence ye fantastick Postillers in song,

My text defeats your art, ties natures tongue,

Scorns all his tinsil'd metaphors of pelf,

Illustrated by nothing but his self.

As Spiders travel by their bowels spun

Into a thread, and when the race is run,

Wind up their journey in a living clew,

So is it with my Poetry and you.

From your own essence must I first untwine,

Then twist again each Panegyrick line.

Reach then a soaring Quill that I may write,

As with a Jacobs staff to take the height.

Suppose an Angel darting through the air,

Should there encounter a religious prayer

Mounting to Heaven, that Intelligence

Should for a Sunday-suit thy breath condense

[Page]Into a body. Let me crack a string

In ventring higher; were the note I sing

Above heavens Ela, should I undecline,

And with a deep-mouth'd Gammut sound agen

From pole to pole, I could not reach her worth,

Nor find an Epithet to set it forth.

Mettals may blazon common beauties, she

Makes pearl and planets humble herauldy.

As then a purer substance is defin'd,

But by an heap of Negatives combin'd;

Ask what a spirit is, you'l hear them crie

It hath no matter, no mortalitie:

So can I not define how sweet, how fair,

Onely I say she's not as others are.

For what perfections we to others grant,

It is her sole perfection to want.

All other forms seem in respect of thee

The Almanacks misshap'd Anatomie,

Where Aries, head and face; Bull, neck and throat;

The Scorpion gives the secrets; knees, the Goat:

A brief of limbs foul as those beasts, or are

Their name-sak'd signs in their strange character.

As the Philosophers to every Sence

Marry its object, yet with some dispence,

And grant them a polygamie withal,

And these their common Sensibles they call:

So is't with her, who stinted unto none,

Unites all Sences in each action.

The same beam heats and lights; to see her well,

Is both to hear and feel, to taste and smell.

[Page]For can you want a palate in your eyes,

When each of his contains a double prize,

Venus his apple? can th'eyes want nose,

When from each cheek buds forth a fragrant Rose?

Or can the sight be deaf, if she but speak,

A well-tun'd face such moving Rhetorick?

Doth not each look a flash of light'ning feel

Which spare the bodies sheath, and melts the steel?

Thy soul must needs confess, or grant thy sence

Corrupted with the objects excellence.

Sweet Magick, which can make five sences lye

Conjur'd within the circle of an eye.

In whom since all the Five are intermixt,

Oh now that Scaliger would prove his fixt.

Thou man of mouth, that canst not name a She

Unless all nature pay a Subsidie,

Whose language is a Tax, whose Musk-cat verse

Voids nought but flowers for thy Muses herse,

Fitter than Celia's looks, who in a trice

Canst state the long disputed Paradice:

And with Divines hunt with so cold a sent,

Canst in her bosom find it resident.

Now come aloft, come, come and breath a vein,

And give some vent unto thy daring strain.

Say the Astrologer, who spells the Stars,

In that fair Alphabet reads Peace and Wars,

Mistakes his Globe, and in her brighter eye

Interprets Heavens phisiognomy.

Call her the Metaphysicks of her Sex,

And say she tortures wits, as Quartans vex

[Page]Physitians: call her the Square Circle, say

She is the very rule of Algebra.

What ere you undertake not, say't of her,

For that's the way to write her Character.

Say this and more, and when thou hop'st to raise

Thy fansie so as to inclose her praise,

Alas poor Gotham with thy Cookko hedge,

Hyperboles are here but sacriledge.

Then rouse up Muse, what thou hast reveal'd out

Some comments clear not, but increase the doubt.

She that affords poor mortals not a glance

Of knowledge, but is known by ignorance,

She that commits a rape on every sence,

Whose breath can countermaund a pestilence,

She that can strike the best invention dead,

Till bafled Poetry hangs down her head,

She, she it is, She that contains all bliss,

And make the world but her Periphrasis.

UPON Sir THOMAS MARTIN, Who subscribed a Warrant thus: We the Knights and Gentlemen of the Committee, &c. when there was no Knight but himself.

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HAng out a flag, and gather pence apiece

(Which Africke never bred, nor swelling Greece

With stories timpany) a beast so rare

No Lecturers wrought cap, nor Bartlemew Fare

Can match him; Natures whimsey, one that out-vyes

Tredeskin, and his ark of Novelties.

The Gog and Magog of prodigious sights

With reverence to your eyes, Sir Thomas Knights:

But is this bigamy of titles due?

Are you Sir Thomas, and Sir Martin too?

Issachar Couchant 'twixt a brace of Sirs,

Thou Knighthood in a pair of Panniers:

Thou that look'st wrapt up in thy Warlike leather,

Like Valentine and Orson bound together,

Spurs representative! thou that art able

To be a Voider to King Arthurs Table:

Who in this sacrilegious mass of all

It seems ha's swallowed Windsors Hospital.

[Page]Pair-royal headed Cerberus his Cozen:

Hercules labours were a Bakers dozen.

Had he but trumpt on thee whose forked neck

Might well have answered at the Font for Smeck;

But can a Knighthood on a Knighthood lie

Mettal on Mettal is ill Armorie.

And yet the known Godfrey of Bulloin's coat

Shines in exception to the Heraulds vote.

Great spirits move not by pedantick laws,

Their actions though eccentrick, state the cause,

And Priscan bleeds with honour; Caesar thus

Subscrib'd two Consuls with one Iulius.

Tom never oaded Squire, scarce Yeoman high,

Is Tom twice dipt Knight of a double dy?

Fond man! whose fate is in his name betray'd,

It is the setting Sun doubles his shade;

But its no matter, for Amphibious he

May have a Knight hang'd, yet Sir Tom go free.

On the memory of Mr. Edward King, drown'd in the Irish Seas.

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I Like not tears in tune, nor do I prize

His artificial grief who scans his eyes.

Mine weep down pious beads: but why should I

Confine them to the Muses Rosary?

I am no Poet here; my pen's the spout

Where the Rain-water of mine eyes runs out

In pitie of that Name, whose fare we see

Thus copi'd out in griefs Hydrography.

The Muses are not Mair-maids; though upon

His death the Ocean might turn Helicon.

The Sea's too rough for verse; who rhimes upon't

With Xerxes strives to fetter th' Hellespont.

My tears will keep no channel, know no laws

To guid their streams; but (like the waves their cause)

Run with disturbance, till they swallow me

As a description of his miserie.

But can his spacious virtue find a grave

Within th' impostum'd bubble of a wave?

Whose learning if we sound, we must confess

The Sea but shallow, and him bottomless.

Could not the Winds to counter-maund thy death,

With their whole card of Lungs redeem thy breath?

Or some new Island in thy rescue peep,

To heave thy resurrection from the deep?

That so the world might see thy safety wrought

With no less wonder than thy self was thought.

The famous Stagarite, who in his life

Had nature as familiar as his wife,

[Page]Bequeath'd his Widow to survive with thee,

Queen Dowager of all Philosophie.

An ominous Legacy, that did portend

Thy fate, and Predecessours second end!

Some have affirm'd, that what on earth we find

The sea can parallel in shape, and kind:

Books, arts, and tongues were wanting, but in thee

Neptune hath got an Universiitie.

We'l dive no more for pearls, the hope to see

Thy sacred reliques of mortality

Shall welcome storms, and make the Sea-men prize

His shipwrack now more than his merchandize.

He shall embrace the waves, and to thy Tomb

As to a Royaller Exchange shall come.

What can we now expect? water, and fire,

Both elements our ruine do conspire;

And that dissolves us which doth us compound:

One Vatican was burnt, another drown'd.

We of the Gown our Libraries must toss,

To understand the greatness of our loss,

Be Pupils to our grief, and so much grow

In learning, as our sorrows overflow.

When we have fil'd the Rundlets of our eyes,

We'l issue't forth, and vent such Elegies,

As that our tears shall seem the Irish Seas,

We floating Islands, living Hebrides.

On the same.

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TEll me no more of Stoicks: canst thou tell

Who't was, that when the waves began to swell,

The ship to sink, sad passengers to call,

[Master we perish] slept secure of all?

Remember this, and him that waking kept

A mind as constant as he did that slept.

Canst thou give credit to his zeal and love,

That went to Heaven, and to those flames above

Wrapt in a fiery chariot? Since I heard

Who't was, that on his knees the Vessel steer'd

With hands bolt up to Heaven, since I see

As yet no sign of his mortality;

Pardon me, Reader, if I say he's gone

The self same journey in a watry one.

The Hue and Cry after Sir Iohn Presbyter.

[Page]

WIth Hair in Characters, and Lugs in Text;

With a splay mouth, & a nose circumflext;

With a set Ruff of Musket bore, that wears

Like Cartrages, or linnen Bandileers,

Exhausted of their sulphurous Contents,

In Pulpit fire-works, which that Bomball vents;

The Negative and Covenanting Oath,

Like two Mustachoes, issuing from his mouth;

The Bush upon his chin, (like a carv'd story,

In a Box knot) cut by the Directory;

Madams Confession hanging at his ear,

Wiredrawn through all the questions, How and Where,

Each circumstance, so in the hearing Felt,

That when his ears are cropt, he'l count them gelt;

The sweeping Cassock scar'd into a Jump,

A sign the Presbyter's worn to the stump:

The Presbyter, though charm'd against mischance

With the Divine right of an Ordinance.

If you meet any that do thus attire'em,

Stop them, they are the tribe of Adoniram.

What zealous Frenzie did the Senate seize,

That tare the Rotchet to such Rags as these?

Episcopacy minc't, Reforming Tweed

Hath sent us Runts, even of her Churches breed;

Lay-interlining Clergy, a Device

That's nick-name to the stuff call'd Lops and Lice.

The Beast at wrong end branded, you may trace

[Page]The Devills footsteps in his cloven Face.

A Face of severall Parishes and sorts,

Like to a Sergeant shav'd at Inns of Court.

What mean the Eldders else, those Kirk Dragoons,

Made up of Ears and Ruffs like Ducatoons?

That Hierarchy of Handicrafts begun?

Those new Exchange-men of Religion?

Sure they're the Antick heads, which plac'd without

The Church, go gape and disembogue a spout:

Like them above the Commons House, have bin

So long without, now both are gotten in;

Then, what Imperious in the Bishop sounds,

The same the Scotch Executor rebounds.

This stating Prelacy, the Classick Rout,

That spake it often, ere it spake it out.

So by an Abbies Scheleton of late,

I heard an Eccho Supererogate

Through imperfection, and the voice restore,

As if she had the hicop, o're and o're.

Since they our mixt Dioc [...]sans combine

Thus to ride double in their Discipline;

That Pauls shall to the Consistory call

A Dean and Chapter out of Weavers-Hall,

Each at the Ordinance for to assist.

With the five thumbs of his groat-changing Fist.

Down Dagon Synod with thy motley ware,

Whilst we do swagger for the Common-Prayer.

That Dove-like Embassie, that wings our sence

To heavens gate in shape of innocence:

[Page]Pray for the Miter'd Authors, and defie

These Demicasters of Divinity.

For where Sir John with Jack-of-all-trades joyns,

His Finger's thicker thah the Prelat's Loyns.

The Antiplatonick.

FOR shame, thou everlasting Woer,

Still saying Grace, and never falling to her!

Love that's in Contemplation plac't,

Is Venus drawn but to the Wast.

Unlesse your Flame confesse its Gender,

And your Parley cause surrender;

Y'are Salamanders of a cold desire,

That live untouch't amid the hottest fire.

What though she be a Dame of stone,

The Widow of Pigmalion;

As hard and un-relenting She,

As the new-crusted Niobe;

Or what doth more of Statue carry

A Nunne of the Platonick Quarrey?

Love melts the rigor which the rocks have bred,

A Flint will break upon a Feather-bed.

For shame you pretty Female Elves,

Cease for to Candy up your selves:

No more, you Sectaries of the Game,

No more of your calcining flame.

[Page]Women Commence by Cupids Dart;

As a Kings Hunting dubs a Hart.

Loves Votaries inthrall each others soul,

Till both of them live but upon Paroll.

Vertue's no more in Women-kind

But the green-sicknesse of the mind.

Philosophy, their new delight,

A kind of Charcoal Appetite.

There's no Sophistry prevails,

Where all-convincing Love assails:

But the disputing Petticoat will Warp,

As skilfull Gamesters are to seek at Sharp.

The souldier, that man of Iron,

Whom Ribs of Horror all inviron;

That's strung with Wire, in stead of Veins,

In whose imbraces you're in chains,

Let a Magnetick Girle appear,

Straight he turns Cupids Cuiraseer.

Love storms his lips, and takes the Fortresse in,

For all the Brisled Turn-pikes of his chin.

Since Loves Artillery then checks

The Breast-works of the firmest Sex,

Come let's in Affections Riot,

Th'are sickly pleasures keep a Diet.

Give me a Lover bold and free,

Not Eunuch't with Formality;

Like an Embassador that beds a Queen,

With the Nice Caution of a sword between.

Vpon an Hermaphrodite.

[Page]

SIr, or Madame, chuse you whether,

Nature twist'd you both together:

And makes thy soul two garbes confesse,

Both Petticoat and Breeches dresse.

Thus we chastise the God of Wine,

With water that is Feminine,

Untill the cooler Nymph abate

His wrath, and so concorporate.

Adam till his rib was lost;

Had both Sexes thus ingrost:

When Providence our Sire did cleave,

And out of Adam carved Eve,

Then did man 'bout Wedlock treat,

To make his body up compleat:

Thus Matrimony speaks but Thee

In a grave solemnity.

For man and wife make but one right

Canonicall Hermaphrodite.

Ravell thy body, and I find

In every limb a double kind.

Who would not think that head a pair,

That breeds such faction in the hair?

One halfe so churlish in the touch,

That rather then indure so much,

I would my tender limbs apparell

In Regulus his nailed barrell:

[Page]But the other halfe so small,

And so amorous withall,

That Cupid thinks each hair doth grow

A string for his invis'ble bow.

When I look babies in thine eyes,

Here Venus, there Adonis lies.

And though thy beauty be high noon,

Thy Orbe contains both Sun and Moon.

How many melting kisses skip

'Twixt thy Male and Female lip?

'Twixt thy upper brush of hair

And thy nether beards despair.

When thou speak'st, I would not wrong

Thy sweetnesse with a double tongue:

But in every single sound

A perfect Dialogue is found.

Thy breasts distinguish one another;

This the sister, that the brother.

When thou joyn'st hands, my eare still fancies

The Nuptiall sound, I Iohn take Frances:

Feel but the difference, soft, and rough;

This a Gantlet, that a Muffe:

Had sly Vlysses, at the sack

Of Troy brought thee his Pedlers pack,

And weapons too to know Achilles

From King Nicomedes Phillis,

His plot had fail'd; this hand would feel

The Needle, that the warlike steel.

[Page]When musick doth thy pace advance,

Thy right leg takes thy left to dance.

Nor is't a Galliard danc'd by one,

But a mixt dance, though alone:

Thus every heteroclite part

Changes gender, but thy heart.

Nay those which modest can mean,

And dare not speak, are Epicoene;

That Gamester needs must overcome,

That can play both Tib and Tom.

Thus did Natures mintage vary,

Coyning thee a Philip and Mary.

The Authors Hermaphrodite, made after Mr. Randolphs death, yet inserted into his Poems.

PRobleme of Sexes; must thou likewise be

As disputable in thy Pedigree?

Thou twins-in-one, in whom Dame Nature tries

To throw lesse then Aumes-ace upon two Dice:

Wer't thou serv'd up two in one dish, the rather

To split thy Sire into a double father?

True, the worlds scales are even: what the main

In one place gets, another quits again.

Nature lost one by thee, and therefore must

Slice one in two, to keep her number just:

[Page]Plurality of livings is thy state,

And therefore mine must be impropriate.

For, since the child is mine, and yet the claim

Is intercepted by anothers name,

Never did steeple carry double truer,

His is the Donative, and mine the Cure.

Then say my Muse (and without more dispute)

Who 'tis that fame doth superinstitute.

The Theban Wittall, when he once descries,

Iove is his rivall, falls to sacrifice:

That name hath tipt his hornes: see, on his knees,

A health to Hans-en▪ Kelder Hercules.

Nay sublunary Cuckolds are content

To entertain their Fate with complement;

And shall not he be proud, whom Randolph daigns

To quarter with his Muse both Arms and Brains?

Grammercy Gossip, I rejoyce to see

Shee'th got a leap of such a Barbary.

Talk not of hornes, horns are the Poets Crest;

For since the Muses left their former nest,

To found a Nunnery in Randolphs quill,

Cuckold Pernassus is a forked hill.

But stay, I've wak't his dust, his Marble stirs,

And brings the worms for his Compurgators.

Can Ghost have naturall sonnes? say Ogg, is't meet,

Penance bear date after the winding sheet?

Were it a Phaenix (as the double kind

May seem to prove, being there's two combin'd)

[Page]It would disclaim my right: and that it were

The lawfull issue of his ashes, swear.

But was he dead? did not his soul translate

Her self into a shop of lesser rate?

Or break up house, like an expensive Lord,

That gives his purse a sob, and lives at board?

Let old Pythagoras but play the Pimp,

And still there's hopes 't may prove his bastard imp.

But I'me prophane; For grant the world had one,

With whom he might contract an union,

They two were one, yet like an Eagle spread,

I'th body joyn'd, but parted in the head.

For you my brat, that pose the Porph'ry Chair,

Pope Iohn, or Ioan, or whatsoere you are,

You are an nephew, grieve not at your state,

For all the world is illegitimate.

Man cannot get a man, unlesse the Sun

Club to the act of generation.

The sun and man get man, thus Tom and I

Are the joynt fathers of thy Poetry.

For since (blest shade) this Verse is Male, but mine

O'th' weaker Sex, a fancie Foeminine:

Wee'l part the child, and yet commit no slaughter,

So shall it be thy Son, and yet my daughter.

Square-Cap.

[Page]

COme hither Apollo's bouncing Girle,

And in a whole Hippocrene of Sherry

Let's drink a round till our brains do whirle,

Tuning our pipes to make our selves mecry:

A Cambridge-Lasse, Venus-like, born of the froth

Of an old half-fill'd Jug of Barley broth,

She, she is my Mistris, her Suiters are many,

But shee'l have a Square-cap if ere she have any.

And first for the Plush-sake the Monmouth-cap coms,

Shaking his head like an empty bottle;

With his new-fangled Oath, By Iupiters thumbs,

That to her health hee'l begin a pottle:

He tells her that after the death of his Grannam,

He shall have—God knows what per annum:

But still she replies, good Sir La-bee,

If ever I have a man, Square-cap for mee.

Then Calot-Leather-cap strongly pleads,

And fain would derive the pedigree of fashion:

The Antipodes weare their shoes on their heads,

And why may not we in their imitation?

Oh, how this foot-ball noddle would please,

If it were but well tost on S. Thomas his Lees.

But still she replied, &c.

[Page]

Next comes the Puritan in a wrought-Cap,

With a long-wasted conscience towards a Sister,

And making a Chappell of Ease of her lap,

First he said grace, and then he kist her.

Belov'd, quoth he, thou art my Text,

Then falls he to Use and Application next:

But then she replied, you Text (Sir) I'le be,

For then I'm sure you'l ne'r handle me.

But see where Sattin-Cap scouts about,

And faine would this wench in his fellowship marry,

He told her how such a man was not put out,

Because his wedding he closely did carry.

Hee'l purchase Induction by Simony,

And offers her money her Incumbent to be.

But still she replied, good Sir La-bee,

If ever I have a man Square-cap for me.

The Lawyer's a Sophister by his round-cap,

Nor in their fallacies are they divided;

The one milks the pocket, the other the tap,

And yet this wench he fain would have brided.

Come leave these thred-bare Schollers, quoth he,

And give me livery and season of thee:

But peace Iohn-a-Nokes, and leave your Oration,

For I never will be your Impropriation.

I pray you therefore good Sir La-bee;

For if ever I have a man Square-cap for me.

Vpon Phillis walking in a morning before Sunrising.

[Page]

THe sluggish morn, as yet undrest,

My Phyllis brake from out her East;

As if shee'd made a match to run

With Venus, Usher to the Sun.

The trees, like Yeomen of her Guard,

Serving more for pomp, then ward,

Bank'd on each side with loyall duty,

Wave branches to inclose her beauty.

The Plants whose luxury was lopt,

Or age with crutches underpropt;

Whose wooden carkases are grown

To be but coffins of their own;

Revive, and at her generall dole

Each receives his ancient soul.

The winged Choristers began

To chirp their Mattins: and the Fan

Of whistling winds, like Organs, plai'd,

Untill their Voluntaries made

The wakned earth in odours rise,

To be her morning-Sacrifice.

The flowers, call'd out of their beds,

Start, and raise up their drowsie heads:

And he that for their colour seeks,

May find it vaulting in her cheeks,

[Page]Where Roses mix: no civill war

Between her York and Lancaster.

The Marigold, whose Courtiers face

Ecchoes the Sun, and doth unlace

Her at his rise, at his full stop

Packs, and shuts up her gawdy shop;

Mistakes her kue, and doth display:

Thus Phyllis antidates the day.

These miracles had cramp't the Sun,

Who thinking that his Kingdom's won,

Powders with light his frizled locks,

To see what Saint his lustre mocks.

The trembling leaves through which he plaid,

Dapling the walk with light and shade,

Like lattice-windows, give the spie

Room but to peep with half an eye;

Least her full Orb his sight should dim,

And bids us all good-night in him,

Till she would spend a gentle ray,

To force us a new-fashion'd day.

But what religious Palsie's this

Which makes the boughs divest their Bliss?

And that they might her footsteps straw,

Drop their leaves with shivering awe.

Phillis perceives, and (least her stay

Should wed October unto May;

And as her beauty caus'd a Spring,

Devotion might an Autumne bring)

[Page]With-drew her beams, yet made no night,

But left the Sun her curate light.

Vpon a Miser that made a great feast, and the next day died for grief.

NOr 'scapes he so: our dinner was so good,

My liquorish Muse cannot but chew the cood:

And what delight she took i th' invitation,

Strives to tast o're again in this relation.

After a tedious Grace in Hopkins rithme,

Not for devotion, but to take up time,

March't the train'd-band of dishes usher'd there,

To shew their postures, and then as they were.

For he invites no teeth, perchance the eye

He will afford the Lovers gluttony;

This is a feast, a muster, not a fight,

Our weapons not for service but for sight.

But are we Tantaliz'd? is all this meat

Cook'd by a Limner, for to view, not eat?

Th' Astrologers keep such Houses when they sup

On joynts of Taurus, or their heavenly Tup.

Whatever feasts he made are sum'd up here,

His table vyes not standing with his cheare.

His Churchings Christ'nings, in this meal are all,

And not transcrib'd, but i'th Originall.

[Page]Christmas is no Feast moveable: for loe

The self-same dinner was ten years ago:

'Twill be immortall if it longer stay,

The Gods will eat it for Ambrosia.

But stay awhile, unlesse my whinyard fail,

Or it inchanted, I'le cut off th' intail.

Saint George for England then: have at the mutton,

When the first cut calls me blood-thirsty glutton:

What Ajax with his anger quodl'd brain

Killing a sheep, thought Agamemnon slain:

The fiction's now prov'd true; wounding his rost,

I lamentably butcher up mine host.

Such sympathy is with his meat, my weapon

Makes him an Eunuch, when it ca [...]ves his Capon.

Cut a Goose-leg, and the poor soul for moan

Turns Creeple too, and after stands on one.

Have you not heard th' abominable sport

A Lancaster Grand Jury will report?

The souldier with his Morglay watcht the Mill,

The cats they came to feast, when lusty Will

Whips off great Pusses leg, which by some charm

Proves the next day such an old womans arm:

'Tis so with him, whose carkase never 'scapes,

But still we slash him in a thousand shapes.

Our serving-men like Spaniells rang, to spring

The fowl which he hath clockt under his wing.

Should he on Widgeon, or on Woodcock feed,

It were (Thyestes like) on his own breed.

[Page]To pork he pleads a superstition due,

But not a mouth is muzled by the Jew.

Sawces we should have none, had he his wish,

The Oranges i'th margent of the dish,

He with such Hucsters tells them o're and o're,

The Hesperian Dragon never watcht them more.

But being eaten now into despair,

Having nought else to do, he falls to prayer.

As thou didst once put on the form of Bull,

And turnst thy Io to a lovely Mull,

Defend my rump great Iove, grant this poor beef

May live to comfort me in all this grief.

But no Amen was said: See, see it comes,

Draw boys, let Trumpets sound, & strike up Drums.

See how his blood doth with the gravy swim,

And every trencher has a limb of him.

The Ven'sons now in view, our hounds spend deeper,

Strange Deer, which in the Pasty hath a Keeper

Stricter then in the Park, making his guest

(As he had stoln't alive) to steal it drest:

The scent was hot, and we pursuing faster,

Then Ovids pack of dogs e're chas'd their Master,

A double prey at once may seize upon,

Actaeon and his Case of Venison:

Thus was he torn alive. To vex him worse

Death serves him up now as a second course.

Should we, like Thratians, our dead bodies eat,

He would have liv'd only to save his meat.

A young Man to an old Woman Courting him.

[Page]

PEace Beldam Eve; surcease thy suit:

There's no temptation in such fruit.

No rotten Medlers, whilst there be

Whole Orchards in Virginity.

Thy stock is too much out of date

For tender plants t' inoculate.

A match with thee, thy bridegroom fears,

VVould be thought Int'rest in his years;

Which when compar'd to thine, become

Odd money to thy Grandam summe.

Can Wedlock know so great a curse

As putting husbands out to Nurse?

How Pond and Rivers would mistake,

And cry new Almanacks for our sake?

Time sure hath wheel'd about his year,

December meeting Ianiveer.

Th' Egyptian Serpent figures time,

And stript, returns unto his Prime:

If my affection thou would'st win,

First cast thy Hieroglyphick skin.

My modern lips know not (alack)

The old Religion of thy smack.

I count that primitive embrace,

As out of fashion as thy face.

And yet so long 'tis since thy fall,

Thy Fornications Classicall.

[Page]Our sports wil differ: thou may'st play,

Leero, and I Alphonso way.

I'me no Translator; have no vein

To turn a woman young again:

Unlesse you'l grant the [...]ailor's due,

To see the forebodies be new:

I love to wear cloaths that are flush.

Not prefacing old rags with plush:

Like Aldermen, or Monster-Sheriffs,

With Canvas backs, and velvet sleeves.

And just such discord there would be

Betwixt thy Skeleton and me.

Go study salve and Treacle, ply

Your tenants leg, or his sore eye;

Thus Matrons purchase credit, thank

Six penni-worth of Mountebank.

Or chew thy cood on some delight

Thou takest in thy Eighty Eight.

Or be but bedrid once, and then

Thou'lt dream thy youthfull sins agen.

But if thou needs wilt be my Spouse,

First hearken, and attend my Vowes.

"When AEtnas fires shall undergo

"The penance of the Alps in snow,

"When Sol at one blast of his horn

"Posts from the Crab to Capricorn,

"When th' Heavens shuffle all in one,

"The Torrid with the Frozen Zone;

[Page]"When all these contradictions meet,

"Then (Sybill) thou and I will greet.

"For all these similies do hold

"In my young heat and thy dull cold;

"Then if a Feaver be so good

"A Pimp, as to inflame thy bloud,

Hymen shall twist thee, and thy Page

The distinct Tropicks of mans age.

Well (Madam time) be ever bald,

I'le not thy Pery wig be call'd.

I'le never be 'stead of a lover,

An aged Chronicles new cover.

To Mrs. K. T. who ask't him why he was dumb.

STay, should I answer (Lady) then

In vain would be your question.

Should I be dumb, why then again

Your asking me would be in vain.

Silence nor speech (on neither hand)

Can satisfie this strange demand.

Yet since your will throws me upon

This wished contradiction,

I'le tell you how I did become

So strangely (as you hear me) dumb.

[Page]Ask but the Chap-falne Puritan,

'Tis zeal that tongue-ties that good man:

For heat of Conscience, all men hold,

Is th' only way to catch their cold.

How should loves zealot then forbear

To be your silenc'd Minister?

Nay your religion, which doth grant

A worship due to you my Saint,

Yet counts it that devotion wrong

That does it in the vulgar tongue.

My ruder words would give offence

To such an hallow'd excellence;

As th' English Dialect would vary

The goodnesse of an Ave Mary.

How can I speak, that twice am checkt

By this and that Religious Sect?

Still dumb, and in your face I spie

Still cause, and still Divinity.

As soon as blest with your salute,

My manners taught me to be mute:

For, least they cancell all the blisse

You sign'd with so divine a kisse,

The lips you seal must needs consent

Unto the tongues imprisonment.

My tongue in hold, my voice doth rise

(With a strange E-la to my eyes;

Where it gets bail, and in that sense

Begins a new-found Eloquence.

[Page]Oh listen with attentive sight

To what my pratling eyes indite:

Or (Lady) since 'tis in your choice,

To give, or to suspend my voice,

With the same key set ope the door

Wherewith you lockt it fast before;

Kisse once again, and when you thus

Have doubly been miraculous,

My Muse shall write with Handmaids duty

The Golden Legend of your beauty.

He, whom his dumbnesse now confines,

But mean-to speak the rest by signs.

I. C.

A Faire Nymph scorning a Black Boy Courting her.

Nymph.

STand off, and let me take the air,

Why should the smoak pursue the fair?

Boy.

My face is smoak, thence may be guest

What flames within have scorch'd my brest.

Nymph.

The flame of love I cannot view,

For the dark Lanthorn of thy hue.

Boy.

And yet this Lanthorn keeps loves Taper

Surer then yours, that's of white paper.

[Page]Whatever midnight hath been here,

The Moon-shine of your light can clear.

Nymph.

My Moon of an Eclipse is 'fraid,

If thou shouldst interpose thy shade.

Boy.

Yet one thing (sweet-heart) I wil ask,

Buy me for a new false Mask.

Nympth.

Yes: but my bargain shall be this,

I'le throw my Mask off when I kisse.

Boy.

Our curl'd imbraces shall delight

To checquer limbs with black, and white.

Nymph.

Thy ink, my paper, make me guesse,

Our Nuptiall bed will make a Presse;

And in our sports if any came,

They'l read a want on Epigram

Boy.

Why should my black thy love impair?

Let the dark shop commend thy ware:

Or if thy love from black forbears,

I'le strive to wash it off with tears.

Nymph.

Spare fruitlesse tears, since thou must needs

Still wear about thee mourning weeds.

Tears can no more affection win,

Then wash thy Ethiopian skin.

A Dialogue between two Zealots, upon the &c. in the Oath.

[Page]

SIr Roger, from a zealous piece of Freeze,

Rais'd to a Vicar of the Childrens threes;

Whose yearly Audit may, by strict accompt,

To twenty Nobles, and his Vails amount;

Fed on the Common of the femall charity,

Untill the Scots can bring about their parity;

So shotten, that his soul, like to himself,

Walks but in Querpo: this same Clergy Elf,

Encount'ring with a Brother of the Cloth,

Fell presently to Cudgells with the Oath.

The Quarrell was a strange mis-shapen Monster,

&c. (God blesse us) which they conster,

The brand upon the buttock of the Beast,

The Dragons tail ti'd on a knot, a nest

Of young Apocryphaes, the fashion

Of a new mentall Reservation.

While Roger thus divides the text, the other

Winks and expounds, saying, My pious brother,

Hearken with reverence; for the point is nice,

I never read on't, but I fasted twice,

And so by Revelation know it better

Then all the learn'd Idolaters o'th' Letter.

With that he swell'd, and fell upon the Theam,

Like great Goliah with his Weavers beam:

[Page]I say to thee &c. thou li'st,

Thou art the curled lock of Antichrist:

Rubbish of Babel, for who will not say

Tongues were confounded in &c.?

Who swears &c. swears more oaths at once

Then Cerberus out of his triple Sconce.

Who views it well, with the same eye beholds

The old half Serpent in his numerous foulds.

Accurst &c. thou, for now I scent

What lately the prodigious Oysters meant.

Oh Booker, Booker, how cam'st thou to lack

This sign in thy prophetick Almanack?

It's the dark Vault wherein th' infernall plot

Of powder 'gainst the State was first begot.

Peruse the Oath, and you shall soon descry it

By all the Father Garnets that stand by it.

'Gainst whom the Church, whereof I am a Member,

Shall keep another fifth day of November.

Yet here's not all, I cannot half untruss

&c. it's so abominous.

The Trojan Nag was not so fully lin'd,

Unrip &c. and you shall find

Og the great Commissary, and which is worse,

Th' Apparatour upon his skew-bald horse.

Then (finally my Babe of Grace) forbear,

&c. will be too far to swear:

For 'tis (to speak in a familiar stile]

A York-shire Wea-bit, longer then a mile.

[Page]Then Roger was inspir'd, and by Gods-diggers,

Hee'l swear in words at large, and not in figures.

Now by this drink, which he takes off, as loth

To leave &c. in his liquid Oath.

His brother pledg'd him, and that bloudy wine,

He swears shall seal the Synods Cataline.

So they drunk on, not offering to part

Till they had quite sworn out th' eleventh quart:

While all that saw and heard them, joyntly pray,

They and their Tribe were all &c.

Smectymnuns, or the Club-Divines.

SMectymnuns? the Goblin makes me start:

I'th' Name of Rabbi Abraham, what art?

Syriack? or Arabick? or Welsh? what skilt?

Ap all the Bricklayers that Babel built.

Some Conjurer translate, and let me know it:

Till then 'tis fit for a West-Saxon Poet.

But do the brother-hood then play their prizes,

Like Mummers in Religion with disguises?

Out-brave us with a name in Rank and File,

A Name which if'twere train'd would spread a mile?

The Saints Monoply, the zealous cluster,

Which like a Porcupine presents a Muster

And shoots his quills at Bishops and their Sees,

A devout litter of young Maccabees.

[Page]Thus Jack-of-all-trades hath devoutly showne

The twelve Apostles on a Cherry-stone.

Thus faction's All-a-Mode in treasons fashion;

Now we have Heresie by Complication.

Like to Don Quixots Rosary of Slaves

Strung on a chain; A Murnivall of Knaves

Packt in a trick; like Gypsies when they ride,

Or like Colleagues which sit all of a side:

So the vain Satyrists stand all a row;

As hallow teeth upon a Lute-string show.

Th' Italian Monster pregnant with his brother,

Natures Dyaeresis, half one another,

He, with his little sides-man Lazarus,

Must both give way unto Smectymnuus.

Next Sturbridge-Fair is Smec's; for loe his side

Into a five fold Lazar's shultipli'd.

Under each arm there's tuckt a double Gyssard,

Five faces lurk under one single vizzard.

The Whore of Babylon left these brats behind,

Heirs of confusion by Gavel-kind.

I think Pythagoras's soul is rambl'd hither.

With all the change of Rayment on together:

Smec is her generall Ward-robe, shee'l not dare

To think of him as of a thorough-fare;

He stops the Gossopping Dame; alone he is

The Purlew of a Metempsuchesis.

Like a Scotch mark, where the more modest sense

Checks the loud phrase, and shrinks to 13. pence:

[Page]Like to an Ignis fatuus, whose flame,

Though sometimes tripartite, joyns in the same:

Like to nine Taylors, who if rightly spell'd,

Into one man, are monysyllabled.

Short-handed zeal in one hath cramped many,

Like to the Decalogue in a single penny.

See, see, how close the Curs hunt under a sheet,

As if they spent in Quire, and scan'd their feet;

One Cure, and five Incumbents leap a truss,

The title sure must be litigious.

The Sadduces would raise a question,

Who must be Smec at the Resurrection.

Who cook'd them up together were to blame,

Had they but wyre-drawn, and spun out their name,

'Twould make another Prentises Petition

Against the Bishops, and their Superstition.

Robson and French (that count from five to five

As farre as nature fingers did contrive,

She saw they would be Sessers, that's the cause

She cleft their hoof into so many claws)

May tire their Carret-bunch, yet ne're agree

To rate Smectymnuus for Polemonie.

Caligula, whose pride was mankinds bail,

As who disdain'd to murder by retail;

Wishing the world had but one generall Neck,

His glutton blade might have found game in Smec.

No Eccho can improve the Author more,

Whose lungs paies use on use to half a score.

[Page]No Fellon is more letter'd, though the brand

Both superscribes his shoulder and his hand.

Some Welch-man was his God-father, for he

Wears in his name his Genealogy.

The Banes are askt, would but the times give way,

Betwixt Smectymnuus and Et caetera.

The Guests invited by a friendly Summons,

Should be the Convocation, and the Commons.

The Priest to tye the Foxes tails together,

Moseley, or Sancta Clara, chuse you whether.

See, what an off-spring every one expects!

What strange pluralities of men and Sects?

One saies hee'l get a Vestery, another

Is for a Synod: Bet upon the Mother.

Faith cry St. George, let them go to't, and stickle,

VVhether a Conclave, or a Conventicle.

Thus might Religions caterwaul, and spight,

Which uses to divorce, might once unite.

But their crosse fortunes interdict their trade,

The Groom is Rampant, but the Bride displai'd.

My task is done, all my hee-Goats are milkt;

So many Cards, it'h stock, and yet be bilkt?

I could by letters now untwist the rabble;

Whip Smec from Constable to Constable.

But there I leave you to another dressing,

Only kneel down, and take your Fathers blessing.

May the Queen-Mother justifie your fears,

And stretch her Patent to your leather-ears.

The Mixt Assembly.

[Page]

FLeabitten Synod, an Assembly brew'd

Of Clerks and Elders ana, like the rude

Chaos of Presbyt'ry, where Lay-men guide

With the tame Woolpack Clergy by their side.

Who askt the Banes 'twixt these discolour'd Mates?

A strange Grotesco this, the Church and States

(Most divine tick-tack) in a pye-bald crew,

To serve as table-men of divers hue.

She that conceiv'd an AEthiopian heir

By picture, when the parents both were fair,

At sight of you had born a dappled son,

You chequering her 'magination.

Had Iacobs flock but seen you sit, the dams

Had brought forth speckled & ringstreaked lambs.

Like an Impropriators Motley kind,

Whose Scarlet Coat is with a Cassock lin'd.

Like the Lay-thief in a Canonick weed,

Sure of his Clergy e're he did the deed.

Like Royston Crows, who are (as I may say)

Friers of both the Orders Black and Gray.

So mixt they are, one knows not whethers thicker,

A Layre of Burgesse, or a Layre of Vicar.

Have they usurp'd what Royall Iudah had?

And now must Levi too part stakes with Gad?

[Page]The Scepter and the Crosier are the Crutches,

Which if not trusted in their pious Clutches,

Will fail the Criple State. And were't not pity

But both should serve the yardwand of the City?

That Isaac might stroak his beard, and sit

Judge of [...] and Elegerit.

Oh that they were in chalk and charcole drawn!

The Misselany Satyr, and the Fawn,

And all the Adulteries of twisted nature

But faintly represent this ridling feature,

Whose Members being not tallies, they'l not own

Their fellows at the Resurrection.

Strange scarlet Doctors these, they'l passe in story

For sinners half refin'd in Purgatory;

Or parboyl'd Lobsters, where there joyntly rules

The fading Sables, and the coming Gules.

The flea that Falstaffe damn'd, thus lewdly shews

Tormented in the flames of Bardolphs Nose,

Like him that wore the Dialogue of Cloaks,

This shoulder Iohn-a-Styles, that John-a-Noaks.

Like Jews and Christians in a ship together,

With an old Neck-verse to distinguish either.

Like their intended Discipline to boot,

Or whatsoe're hath neither head nor foot:

Such may their stript-stuffe hangings seem to be,

Sacriledge matcht with Codpeece-symony;

Be sick and dream a little, you may then

Phansie these Linsie-Woolsie Vestry-men.

[Page]Forbear good Pembroke, be not over-daring,

Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing:

And these Drum-Major oaths of Bulk unruly,

May dwindle to a feeble By my truly.

He that the Noble Percyes blood inherits,

Will he strike up a Hot-spur of the spirits?

Hee'l fright the Obadiahs out of tune,

With his uncircumcised Algernoon:

A name so stubborn, 'tis not to be scan'd

By him in Gath with the six finger'd hand.

See, they obey the Magick of my words.

Presto; they're gone, and now the House of Lords

Looks like the wither'd face of an old hagg

But with three teeth, like to a triple gagg.

A Jig, a Jig; and in this Antick dance

Fielding, and doxy Marshall first advance.

Twiss blows the Scotch pipes, and the loving brase

Puts on the traces, and treads Cinqu-a-p [...]ce.

Then Say and Seal must his old hamstrings supple,

And he and rumpl'd Palmer make a couple.

Palmer's a fruitfull girle, if hee'l unfold her,

The Midwife may find work about her shoulder.

Kimbolton that rebellious Boanerges,

Must be content to saddle Doctor Burges.

If Burges get a clap, 'tis ne're the worse,

But the fift time of his Compurgators.

Nol Bowls is coy; good sadnesse, cannot dance

But in obedience to the Ordinance.

[Page]Her Wharton wheels about till Mumping Lidy,

Like the full Moon, hath made his Lordship giddy.

Pym and the Members must their giblets levy

T' incounter Madam Smec that single Bevy.

If they two truck together; will not be

A Childbirth, but a Goal-delivery.

Thus every Gibeline hath got his Guelph,

But Selden, hee's a Galliard by himself,

And well may be; there's more Divines in him

Then in all this their Jewish Sanhedrim:

Whose Canons in the forge shall then bear date

When Mules their Cosin-Germanes generate.

Thus Moses Law is violated now,

The Ox and Asse go yok'd in the same plough:

Resign thy Coach-box Twisse; Brook's Preacher, he

Would sort the beasts with more conformity.

Water & earth make but one globe, a Roundhead

Is Clergy-Lay Party-per-pale compounded.

The Kings Disguise.

ANd why a Tenant to this vile disguise,

Which who but sees, blasphemes thee with his eyes?

My twins of light within their pent-house shrink,

And hold it their Allegiance now to wink.

Oh for a State-distinction, to arraign

Charles of high Treason 'gainst my Soveraign.

[Page]What an usurper to his Prince is wont,

Cloyster and shave him, he himself hath don't.

His muffled feature speaks him a recluse,

His ruines prove him a religious house.

The Sun hath mew'd his beams from off his lamp,

And Majesty defac'd the Royall stamp.

Is't not enough thy Dignity's in thrall,

But thou'lt transmute it in thy shape and all?

As if thy Blacks were of too faint a die,

Without the tincture of Tautology.

Flay an Egyptian for his Cassock skin

Spun of his Countrey's darknesse, line't within,

With Presbyterian budge, that drowsie trance,

The Synod sable, foggy ignorance.

Nor bodily nor ghostly Negro could

Rough-cast thy figure in a sadder mould▪

This Privie-chamber of thy shape would be

But the Close mourner of thy Royalty.

'Twill break the circle of thy Jailors spell,

A Pearl within a rugged Oysters shell.

Heaven, which the Minister of thy Person owns,

VVill fine thee for Dilapidations.

Like to a martyr'd Abbeys courser doom,

Devoutly alter'd to a Pigeon room:

Or like the Colledge, by the changeling rabble,

Manchesters Elves; transform'd into a stable.

Or if there be a prophanation higher,

Such is the Sacriledge of thine attire.

[Page]By which th'art half depos'd, thou look'st like one

Whose looks are under Sequestration.

Whose Renegado form, at the first glance,

Shews like the self-denying Ordinance.

Angell of light, and darknesse too, I doubt,

Inspir'd within, and yet possess'd without.

Majestick twilight in the state of grace,

Yet with an excommunicated face.

Charles and his Mask are of a different mint,

A Psalm of mercy in a miscreant print.

The Sun wears Midnight, day is beetle-brow'd,

And lightning is in Keldar of a cloud.

Oh the accurst Stenography of fate!

The Princely Eagleshrunk into a Bat.

What charm, what Magick vapour can it be

That shrinks his raies to this Apostasie?

It is no subtile film of tiffany ayr,

No Cob-web vizard, such as Ladies wear,

When they are veyl'd, on purpose to be seen,

Doubling their lustre by their vanquisht skreen:

Nor the false scabberd of a Princes tough

Metall, and three pil'd darknesse like the slough

Of an imprisoned flame, 'tis Faux in grain,

Dark Lanthorn to our high Meridian.

Hell belcht the damp, the Warwick-Castle-Vote

Rang Britains Curfeu, so our light went out.

Thy visage is not legible, the letters,

Like a Lords name writ in phantastick fetters:

[Page]Cloaths where a Switzer might be buried quick,

Sure they would fit the Body Politique.

False beard enough, to fit a stages plot,

For that's the ambush of their wit, God wot:

Nay all his properties so strange appear,

Y'are not i'th' presence, though the King be there.

A Libell is his dresse, a garb uncouth,

Such as the * Hue and Cry once purg'd at mouth.

Scribling Assassinate, thy lines attest

An ear-mark due, Cub of the Blatant Beast,

Whose wrath before 'tis syllabled for worse,

Is blasphemy unfledg'd, a callow curse.

The Laplanders when they would sell a wind

Wafting to hell, bag up thy phrase, and bind

It to the Barque, which at the voyage end

Shifts Poop, and brings the Collick in the fiend.

But I'le not dub thee with a glorious scar,

Nor sink thy skuller with a Man of War.

The black-mouth'd Si quis, and this slandering suit,

Both do alike in picture execute.

But since w'are all call'd Papists, why not date,

Devotion to the rags thus consecrate.

As Temples use to have their Porches wrought

With Sphynxes, creatures of an antick draught,

And puzling Pourtraitures, to shew that there

Riddles inhabited, the like is here.

But pardon Sir, since I presume to be

Clark of this Closet to your Majesty;

[Page]Me thinks in this your dark mysterious dresse

I see the Gospell coucht in Parables.

At my next view, my pur-blind fancy ripes

And shews Religion in its dusky types.

Such a Text Royall, so obscure a shade

VVas Solomon in Proverbs all array'd.

Come all ye brats of this expounding age,

To whom the spirit is in pupillage;

You that damn more, then ever Sampson slew,

And with his engine, the same jaw-bone too:

How is't he 'scapes your Inquisition free,

Since bound up in the Bibles Livery?

Hence Cabinet-intruders, Pick-locks hence,

You that dim Jewells with your Bristoll-sense:

And Characters, like VVitches, so torment,

Till they confesse a guilt, though innocent.

Keyes for this Coffer you can never get,

None but S. Peter's ope's this Cabinet.

This Cabinet, whose aspect would benight

Critick spectators with redundant light.

A Prince most seen, is least: VVhat Scriptures call

The Revelation, is most mysticall.

Mount then thou shadow royall, and with hast

Advance thy morning star, Charles's overcast.

May thy strange journey, contradictions twist,

And force fair weather from a Scottish mist.

Heavens Confessors are pos'd, those star-ey'd sages

To interpret Eclipse, thus riding stages.

[Page]Thus Israel-like, he travells with a cloud,

Both as a conduct to him, and a shroud.

But oh! he goes to Gibeon, and renews

A league with mouldy bread, and clouted shoos.

The Rebell Scot.

HOw! Providence! and yet a Scottish crew!

Then Madam, nature wears black patches too:

What? shall our Nation be in bondage thus

Unto a Land that truckles under us?

Ring the bells backward; I am all on fire,

Not all the buckets in a Countrey Quire

Shall quench my rage. A Poet should be fear'd

When angry, like a Comets flaming beard.

And where's the Stoick? can his wrath appease

To see his Countrey sick of Pym's disease

By Scotch invasion? to be made a prey

To such Pig-wiggin Myrmidons as they?

But that there's charm in verse, I would not quote

The name of Scot, without an Antidote;

Unlesse my head were red, that I might brew

Invention there that might be poyson too.

Were I a drowsie Judge, whose dismall note

Disgorgeth halters, as a Juglers throat

Doth ribbands: could I [in Sir Emp'ricks tone]

Speak Pills in phrase, and quack destruction:

[Page]Or roar like Marshall, that Genevah Bull,

Hell and damnation a pulpit full:

Yet to expresse a Scot, to play that prize,

Not all those mouth-Granadoes can suffice.

Before a Scot can properly be curst,

I must (like Hocus) swallow daggers first.

Come keen Iambicks, with your Badgers feet,

And Badger-like, bite till your teeth do meet.

Help ye tart Satyrists, to imp my rage,

With all the Scorpions that should whip this age.

Scots are like Witches; do but whet your pen,

Scratch til the bloud come; they'l not hurt you then.

Now as the Martyrs were inforc'd to take

The shapes of beasts, like hypocrites, at stake,

I'le bait my Scot so; yet not cheat your eyes,

A Scot within a beast is no disguise.

No more let Ireland brag, her harmlesse Nation

Fosters no Venome, since the Scots plantation:

Nor can ours feign'd Antiquity maintain;

Since they came in, England hath Wolves again.

The Scot that kept the Tower, might have shown

(Within the grate of his own brest alone)

The Leopard and the Panther; and ingrost

What all those wild Collegiats had cost.

The honest High-shoes, in their Termly Fees,

First to the salvage Lawyer, next to these.

Nature her self doth Scotch-men beasts confesse,

Making their Countrey such a wildernesse:

[Page]A Land, that brings in question and suspense

Gods omnipresence, but that Charles came thence:

But that Montrose and Crawfords loyall Band

Atton'd their sins, and christ'ned half the Land:

Nor is it all the Nation hath these spots;

There is a Church, as well as Kirk of Scots:

As in a pict [...]re, where the squinting paint

Shews Fiend on this side, and on that side Saint.

He that saw Hell in's melancholy dream,

And in the twilight of his Fancy's theam,

Scar'd from his sins, repented in a fright,

Had he view'd Scotland, had turn'd Proselite.

A Land, where one may pray with curst intent,

O may they never suffer banishment!

Had Cain been Scot, God would have chang'd his doom,

Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home.

Like Jews they spread, and as Infection flie,

As if the Divell had Ubiquity.

Hence 'tis, they live at Rovers; and defie

This or that place, Rags of Geography.

They're Citizens o'th World; they're all in all,

Scotland's a Nation Epidemicall.

And yet they ramble not, to learn the Mode

How to be drest, or how to lisp abroad,

To return knowing in the Spanish shrug,

Or which of the Dutch States a double Jug

Resembles most, in belly, or in Beard:

(The Card by which the Mariners are stear'd.)

[Page]No; the Scots-Errant fight, and fight to eat;

Their Estrich-stomacks make their swords their meat:

Nature with Scots as Tooth-drawers hath dealt,

Who use to hang their teeth upon their Belt.

Yet wonder not at this their happy choice;

The Serpent's fatal still to Paradise.

Sure England hath the Hemeroids, and these

On the North-posture of the patient seize,

Like Leeches: thus they physically thirst

After our bloud, but in the cure shall burst.

Let them not think to make us run o'th' score,

To purchase Villanage, as once before,

When an Act past, to stroak them on the head,

Call them good Subjects, buy them Ginger-bread.

Nor gold, nor Acts of Grace; 'tis steel must tame

The stubborn Scot: A Prince that would reclame

Rebells by yeelding, doth like him, (or worse)

Who sadled his own back to shame his horse.

Was it for this you gave your leaner soil,

Thus to lard Israel with AEgypts spoil?

They are the Gospels Life-guard; but for them,

The Garrison of new Jerusalem,

What would the Brethren do? the Cause! the cause!

Sack possets, and the Fundamentall Laws!

Lord! what a goodly thing is want of shirts!

How a Scotch-stomack, and no meat, converts!

They wanted food, and rayment; so they took

Religion for their Seamstresse, and their Cook.

[Page]Unmask them well; their honours and estate,

As well as conscience are sophisticate.

Shrive but their Titles, and their money poize,

A Laird & twenty pound pronounc'd with noise,

When construed, but for a plain Yeoman go,

And a good sober two-pence; and well so.

Hence then you proud Impostors, get you go [...]e,

You Picts in Gentry and Devotion:

You scandall to the stock of Verse, a race

Able to bring the Gibbet in disgrace.

Hyperbolus by suffering did traduce

The Ostracisme, and sham'd it out of use.

The Indian that heaven did forswear,

Because he heard the Spaniards were there,

Had he but known what Scots in hell had been,

He would Erasmus-like have hung between.

My Muse hath done. A Voider for the nonce;

I wrong the Devil, should I pick their bones▪

That dish is his: for when the Scots decease,

Hell like their Nation feeds on Barnacles.

A Scot, when from the Gallow-Tree got loose,

Drops into Styx, and turns a Solund-Goose.

The Scots Apostasie.

[Page]

IS't come to this? what? shal the cheeks of Fame,

Stretcht wth the breath of learned Lowdōs name,

Be flag'd again? and that great piece of sence,

As rich in Loyalty, as Eloquence,

Brought to the Test, be found a trick of State?

Like Chymists tinctures, prov'd adulterate?

The Devill sure such language did atchieve,

To cheat our un-fore-warned Grandam Eve,

As this Impostor found out, to besot

Th' experienc'd English, to believe a Scot.

Who reconcil'd the Covenants doubtfull sence?

The Commons Argument, or the Cities pence?

Or did you doubt, persistance in one good

Would spoil the Fabrick of your Brotherhood,

Projected first in such a forge of sin,

Was fit for the grand Devills hammering?

Or was't ambition, that this damned fact

Should tell the world you know the sins you act?

The infamie this super-treason brings,

Blasts more then murders of your sixty Kings.

A crime so black, as being advis'dly done,

Those hold with this no competition.

Kings only suffer'd then, in this doth lie

Th' Assasination of Monarchy.

Beyond this sin no one step can be trod,

If not t' attempt deposing of your God.

[Page]Oh were you so ingag'd, that we might see

Heavens angry lightning 'bout your ears to flee,

Til you were shrivel'd to dust; and your cold Land

Parcht to a drought, beyond the Lybian sand!

But 'tis reserv'd, and til heaven plague you worse,

Be Objects of an Epidemick curse.

First, may your brethren, to whose viler ends

Your pow'r hath bauded, cease to count you friends;

And prompted by the dictate of their reason,

Reproach the Traytors, though they hug the treasō,

And may their Jealousies increase and breed,

Till they confine your steps beyond the Tweed.

In forraign Nations may your loath'd name be

A stigmatizing brand of Infamy;

Till forc'd by generall hate, you cease to rome

The world, and for a plague go live at home:

Till you resume your poverty, and be

Reduc'd to beg, where none can be so free

To grant; and may your scabby Land be all

Translated to a generall Hospitall.

Let not the Sun afford one gentle ray,

To give you comfort of a Summers day;

But, as a Guerdon for your traiterous War,

Live cherisht only by the Northern Star.

No stranger deign to visit your rude Coast,

And be to all, but banisht men, as lost.

And such in height'ning of th' infliction due,

Let provok'd Princes send them all to you.

[Page]Your State a Chaos be, where not the Law,

But Power, your Lives and Liberties may awe.

No Subject 'mongst you keep a quiet breast,

But each man strive through bloud to be the best;

Till, for those miseries on us you've brought,

By your own sword our just revenge be wrought.

To sum up all—let your Religion be,

As your Allegiance, mask'd hypocrisie:

Untill, when Charles shall be compos'd in dust,

Perfum'd with Epithetes of Good and Iust;

HE sav'd; incensed Heaven may have forgot

T' afford one act of mercy to a Scot;

Unlesse that Scot deny himself, and do

(Whats easier far) renounce his Nation too.

Rupertismus.

O That I could but vote my self a Poet!

Or had the Legislative knack to do it!

Or, like the Doctors Militant, could get

Dub'd at adventures Verser Banneret!

Or had I Cacus trick to make my Rimes

Their own Antipodes, and track the times:

Faces about, saies the Remonstrant spirit;

Allegiance is Malignant, Treason Merit:

Huntington-colt, that pos'd the Sage Recorder,

Might be a Sturgeon now, and passe by Order:

[Page]Had I but Elsing's gift (that splay-mouth'd brother)

That declares one way, and yet means another:

Could I but write a-squint; then (Sir) long since

You had been sung, A Great and Glorious Prince.

I had observ'd the Language of the daies;

Blasphem'd you; and then Periwig'd the Phrase

With humble service, and such other Fustian,

Bels which ring backward in this great combustion.

I had revil'd you, and without offence,

The Literall, and Equitable Sence

Would make it good: when all fails, that wil do't;

Sure that distinction cleft the Devill's foot.

This were my Dialect, would your Highness please

To read me but with Hebrew Spectacles;

Interpret Counter, what is Crosse rehears'd:

Libells are commendations, when revers'd.

Just as an Optique Glasse contracts the sight

At one end, but when turn'd doth multiply't.

But you're inchanted, Sir; you're doubly free

From the great Guns, and squibbing Poetry:

Whom neither Bilbo, nor Invention pierces,

Proof even 'gainst th' Artillery of Verses.

Strange! that the Muses cannot wound your Mail;

If not their Art, yet let their Sex prevail.

At that known Leaguer, where the Bonny Besse's

Supplied the bow-strings with their twisted tresses,

Your spels could ne're have fenc'd you: ev'ry arrow

Had launch'd your noble brest: & drunk the marrow:

[Page]For beauty, like white powder makes no noise;

And yet the silent Hypocrite destroyes.

Then use the Nuns of Helicon with pity,

Lest Wharton tell his Gossips of the City,

That you kill women too; nay maids, and such

Their Generall wants Militia to touch.

Impotent Essex! is it not a shame

Our Common-wealth, like to a Turkish Dame,

Should have an Eunuch-Guardian? may she be

Ravish'd by Charles, rather then sav'd by thee.

But why, my Muse, like a Green-sicknesse-Girle,

Feed'st thou on coals and dirt? a Gelding Earl

Gives no more relish to thy Female Palat,

Then to that Asse did once the Thistle-Sallat.

Then quit the barren Theme; and all at once

Thou and thy sisters like bright Amazons,

Give Rupert an alarum, Rupert? one

Whose name is wit's Supersoetation.

Makes fancy, like et [...]rnitie's round womb,

Unite all Valour, present, past, to come.

He, who the old Philosophy controuls,

That voted down plurality of souls

He breaths a grand Committee; all that were

The wonders of their Age, constellate here.

And as the elder sisters growth and sence

(Souls Paramount themselves) in man commence

But faculties of reasons Queen; no more

Are they to him, who were compleat before.

[Page]Ingredients of his vertue thread the Beads

Of Caesar's Acts, great Pompey's and the Sweds:

And 'tis a bracelet fit for Rupert's hand,

By which that vast Triumvirate is span'd.

Here, here is Palmestry; here you may read

How long the world shall live, & when't shal bleed.

Whatever man winds up, that Rupert hath:

For nature rais'd him of the Publike Faith,

Pandora's brother, to make up whose store,

The Gods were fain to run upon the score.

Such was the Painters Brieve for Venus face;

Item an eye from Iane, a lip from Grace.

Let Isaac and his Cit'z. flea of the place

That tips their A [...]tlets for the Calf of Stace;

Let the zeal twanging Nose, that wants a ridge,

Snuffling devoutly, drop his silver bridge:

Yes, and the Gossips spoon augment the sum,

Although poor Caleb lose his Christendome:

Rupert out-weighs that in his sterling self,

Which their self-wants paies in commuting pelf.

Pardon, great Sir; for that ignoble crew

Gains, when made bankrupt in the seales with you.

As he, who in his character of light

Stil'd it Gods shadow, made it far more bright

By an Eclipse so glorious; (light is dim,

And a black nothing, when compar'd to him:)

So 'tis illustrious to be Ruperts foil,

And a just Trophee to be made his spoil.

[Page]I'le pin my faith on the Diurnalls sleeve

Hereafter, and the Guild Hall Creed beleeve;

The Conquests which the Common-Councel hears

With their wide list'ning mouths from the great Peers,

That ran away in triumph: such a Foe

Can make them victors in their overthrow.

Where providence and valour meet in one,

Courage so poiz'd with circumspection,

That he revives the quarrell once again

Of the souls throne, whether in heart or brain;

And leaves it a drawn match: whose fervour can

Hatch him, whom Nature poach'd but half a man.

His Trumpet, like the Angell's at the last,

Makes the soul rise by a miraculous blast.

'Twas the Mount Athos carv'd in shape of man

(As 't was defin'd by th' Macedonian)

Whose right hand should a populous Land contain,

The left should be a Channell to the main:

His spirit might inform th' Amphibious figure;

Yet straight-lac'd sweats for a Dominion bigger:

The terrour of whose name can out of seven,

(Like Falstaffe's Buckram-men) make fly eleven.

Thus some grow rich by breaking; Vipers thus

By being slain, are made more numerous.

No wonder they'l confesse no losse of men;

For Rupert knocks'em, till they gig agen.

They fear the Giblets of his train; they fear

Even his Dog, that four leg'd Cavalier:

[Page]He that devours the scraps, which Lundsford makes,

Whose picture feeds upon a child in stakes:

Who name but Charles, he comes aloft for him,

But holds up his Malignant leg at Pym.

'Gainst whom they've severall Articles in souse;

First, that he barks against the sence o'th House.

Resolv'd Delinquent, to the Tower straight;

Either to th' Lions, or the Bishops Grate.

Next, for his ceremonious wag o'th tail:

But there the Sisterhood will be his Bail,

At least the Countesse will, Lust's Amsterdam,

That lets in all religious of the game.

Thirdly, he smells Intelligence, that's better,

And cheaper too, then Pym's from his own Letter:

Who's doubly pai'd (fortune or we the blinder?)

For making plots, and then for Fox the finder.

Lastly, he is a Divel without doubt;

For when he would lie down, he wheels about;

Makes circles, and is couchant in a ring,

And therfore score up one for conjuring.

What canst thou say, thou wretch? O Quarter, quarter!

I'me but an Instrument, a meer S. Arthur.

If I must hang, O let not our fates vary,

Whose office 'tis alike to fetch, and carry.

No hopes of a reprieve, the mutinous stir

That strung the Jesuite, will dispatch a cur.

Were I a Devill, as the Rebell fears,

I see the House would try me by my Peers.

[Page]There Iowler, there! ah Iowler! 'st! 'tis nought

Whate're th' Accusers cry, they're at a fault;

And Glyn, and Maynard have no more to say,

Then when the glorious Strafford stood at Bay.

Thus Labells but annex'd to him we see,

Enjoy a copyhold of Victory.

S. Peters shadow heal'd; Ruperts is such,

'Twould find S. Peters work, yet wound as much.

He gags their guns, defeats their dire intent,

The Cannons do but lisp and complement.

Sure Iove descended in a leaden shower

To get this Perseus: hence the fatall power

Of shot is strangled: bullets thus alli'd,

Fear to commit an act of Parricide.

Go on brave Prince, and make the world confesse,

Thou art the greater world, and that the lesse.

Scatter th' accumulative King; untruss

That five-fold fiend, the States Smectymnuus;

Who place Religion in their Velam-ears;

As in their Phylacters the Jews did theirs.

England's a Paradise (and a modest Word)

Since guarded by a Cherub's flaming Sword.

Your name can scare an Athiest to his prayers;

And cure the Chin-cough better then the bears.

Old Sybill charms the Tooth-ach with you: Nurse

Makes you stil children; nay & the pond'rous curse

The Clowns salute with, is deriv'd from you;

(Now Rupert take thee, Rogue; how dost thou do?)

[Page]In fine, the name of Rupert thunders so,

Kimbolton's but a rumbling Wheel-barrow.

Epitaph on the Earle of Strafford.

HEre lies Wise and Valiant Dust,

Huddled up 'twixt Fit and Just:

Strafford, who was hurried hence

'Twixt Treason and Convenience.

He spent his time here in a Mist;

A Papist, yet a Calvinist.

His Prince's nearest Joy, and Grief.

He had, yet wanted all Relief.

The Prop and Ruine of the State;

The people's violent Love, and Hate:

One in extreams lov'd and abhor'd.

Riddles lie here; or in a word,

Here lies Bloud; and let it lie

Speechlesse still, and never cry.

Epitaphium Thomae Comitis Straffordii, &c.

[Page]

E [...]urge Cinis, tuum (que) solus qui potis es, scribe Epitaphiū:

Nequit Wentworthi non esse facundus vel Cinis.

Effare Marmor: & quem coepisti comprehendere,

Macte & Exprimere.

Candidius meretur urna, quàm quod rubris

Notatum est literis, Elogium.

Atlas Regiminis Monarchici hîc jacet lassus:

Secunda Orbis Britannici intelligentia:

Rex Politiae, & Prorex Hiberniae,

Straffordii, & Virtutum, Comes:

Mens Jovis, Mercurii ingenium▪ & lingua Apollinis;

Cui Anglia Hiberniam debuit, seipsam Hibernia.

Syd us Aquilonicum, quo sub rubicundâ vesperâ occidente,

Nox simul & dies visa est: dextróque oculo flevit,

Laevoque laetata est Anglia.

Theatrum Honoris, itémque Scena calamitosa virtutis

Actoribus, morbo, morte, & invidiâ,

Quae ternis animosa Regnis non vicit tamen,

Sed oppressit.

Sic inclinavit Heros (non minus) Caput

Belluae (vel sic) multorum Capitum:

Merces favoris Scotici, praeter pecunias:

Erubuit ut tetigit securis,

Similem quippe nunquam degustavit sanguinem.

Monstrum narro: fuit tam infensus Legibus,

Ut priùs Legem, quàm nata foret, violavit:

Hunc tamen non sustulit Lex,

Verùm Necessitas, non habens Legem.

Abi Viator, caetera memorabunt posteri.

On the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Page]

I Need no Muse to give my passion vent,

He brews his tears that studies to lament.

Verse chymically weeps, that pious rain

Distill'd with Art, is but the sweat o'th' brain.

Who ever sob'd in numbers? can a groan

Be quaver'd out by soft division?

'Tis true, for common formall Elegies,

Not Bushells Wells can match a Poets eyes

In wanton water-works: hee'l tune his tears

From a Geneva Jig up to the Sphears.

But when he mourns at distance, weeps aloof,

Now that the Conduit head is our own roof,

Now that the Fare is publique, we may call

It Britains Vespers, Englands Funerall.

Who hath a Pensill to expresse the Saint,

But he hath eyes too, washing off the paint?

There is no learning but what tears surround

Like to Seths Pillars in the Deluge drown'd.

There is no Church, Religion is grown

From much of late, that shee's increast to none;

Like an Hydropick body ful of Rhewms,

First swells into a bubble, then consumes.

The Law is dead, or cast into a trance,

And by a Law dough-bak't, an Ordinance.

[Page]The Lyturgy, whose doom was voted next,

Died as a Comment upon him the text.

There's nothing lives, life is since he is gone,

But a Nocturnall Lucubration.

Thus you have seen deaths inventory read

In the sum totall—Canterburie's dead,

A sight would make a Pagan to baptize

Himself a Convert in his bleeding eyes.

Would thaw the rabble, that fierce beast of ours,

(That which Agena-like weeps and devours)

Tears that flow brackish from their souls within,

Not to repent, but pickle up their sin.

Mean time no squalid grief his look defiles,

He guilds his sadder fate with noble smiles.

Thus the worlds eye with reconciled streams

Shines in his showers as if he wept his beams.

How could successe such villanies applaud?

The state in Strafford fell, the Church in Laud:

The twins of publike rage, adjudg'd to die,

For Treasons they should act, by Prophecy.

The facts were done before the Laws were made,

The trump turn'd up after the game was plai'd.

Be dull great spirits, and forbear to climbe,

For worth is sin, and eminence a crime.

No Church-man can be innocent and high,

'Tis height makes Grantham steeple stand awry.

On I. W. A. B. of York.

[Page]

SAy, my young Sophister, what think'st of this?

Chimera's reall; Ergo falleris.

The Lamb and Tyger, Fox and Goose agree,

And here concorp'rate in one Prodigie.

Call an Haruspex quickly; let him get

Sulphur and Torches, and a Lawrell wet,

To purifie the place, for sure the harms

This monster will produce, transcend his Charms.

'Tis Natures Master-piece of errour, this;

And redeems whatever she did amiss,

Before, from wonder and reproach, this last

Legitimateth all her by-blows past.

Loe here a Generall Metropolitan,

An Arch-Prelatique Presbyterian.

Behold his pious Garbs, Canonique Face,

A zealous Episcopo-mastix Grace;

A fair blew-apron'd Priest, a Lawn-sleev'd brother,

One Leg a Pulpit holds, a Tub the other.

Let's give him a fit name now, if we can,

And make th' Apostate once more Christian.

Proteus we cannot call him; he put on

His change of shapes by a Succession;

Nor the Welch Weather-cock; for that we find,

At once doth only wait upon the wind:

[Page]These speak him not; but if you'l name him right,

Call him Religious Hermaphrodite.

His head i'th sanctified mould is cast,

Yet sticks th' abominable Miter fast,

He still retains the Lordship and the Grace,

And yet has got a reverend Elders place.

Such acts must needs be his, who did devise

By crying Altars down, to sacrifice

To private malice; where you might have seen

His conscience holocausted to his spleen.

Unhappy Church! the Viper that did share

Thy greatest honours, helps to make thee bare,

And void of all thy dignities and store.

Alas! thine own son proves the Forrest-boar;

And like the Dam-destroying Cuckow, he,

When the thick shell of his Welsh pedigree,

By thy warm fost'ring bounty did divide

And open, strait thence sprung forth parricide:

As if 'twas just revenge should be dispatcht

In thee, by th'Monster, which thy self hadst hatcht.

Despair not though; in Wales there may be got,

As well as Lincolnshire an antidote,

'Gainst the foul'st venom he can spit, though's head

Were chang'd from subtill gray to poys'nous red.

Heaven with propitious eys will look upon

Our party, now the cursed thing is gone;

And chastise Rebells, who nought else did miss

To fill the measure of their sins, but his;

[Page]Whose foul unparallel'd apostasie,

Like to his sacred character, shall be

Indelible; when ages then of late

More happy grown, with most impartiall fate,

A period to his daies and time shall give,

He by such Epitaphs as this shall live.

Here Yorks great Metropolitan is laid,

Who Gods Anointed, and his Church betraid,

Marke Anthony.

WHen as the Nightingale chanted her Vespers,

And the wild Forester couch'd on the ground,

Venus invited me in th'Evening whispers,

Uno a fragrant field with Roses crown'd:

Where she before had sent

My wishes complement,

Unto my hearts content,

Plaid with me on the Green.

Never Mark Anthony

Dallied more wantonly

With the fair Egyptian Queen.

[Page]

First on her cherry cheeks I mine eys feasted,

Then fear of surfeiting made me retire:

Next on her warm lips, which when I tasted,

My duller spirits made active as fire.

Then we began to dart

Each at anothers heart,

Arrows that knew no smart:

Sweet lips and smiles between.

Never Mark, &c.

Wanting a glasse to plate her amber tresses,

Which like a bracelet rich decked mine arm;

Gawdier then Iuno wears▪ when as she graces

Iove with embraces more stately then warm.

Then did she peep in mine

Eyes humour Chrystalline;

I in her eyes was seen,

As if we one had been.

Never Mark, &c.

Mysticall Grammar of amorous glances,

Feeling of pulses the Physick of Love,

Rhetoricall courtings, and Musicall Dances;

Numbring of kisses Arithmetick prove.

Eyes like Astronomy,

Streight limb'd Geometry:

In her hearts ingeny

Our wits are sharp and keen.

Never Mark, &c.

The Authors Mock-Song to Marke Anthony.

[Page]

WHen as the Night-raven sung Pluto's Mattins

And Cerberus cried three Amens at a houl.

When night-wandring Witches put on their pattins,

Midnight as dark as their faces are foul:

Then did the furies doom

That the night-mare was come;

Such a mis-shapen Groom

Puts down Su. Pomfret clean.

Never did Incubus

Touch sueh a filthy Sus,

As this foul Gypsie Quean.

First on her goosberry cheeks I mine eyes blasted;

Thence fear of vomiting made me retire

Unto her blewer lips, which when I tasted,

My spirits were duller then Dun in the mire.

But then her breath took place,

Which went an ushers pace,

And made way for her face;

You may guesse what I mean.

Never did Incubus

Touch such a filthy Sus,

As this foul Gypsie Quean.

[Page]

Like Snakes ingendring were plated her tresses,

Or like the slimy streaks of ropy ale;

Uglier then Envy wears, when she confesses

Her head is periwig'd with adders tail.

But as foon as she spake,

I heard a harsh Mandrake:

Laugh not at my mistake,

Her head is Epicoene.

Never did, &c:

Mysticall Magick of conjuring wrinckles,

Feeling of pulses, the Palmestry of Hags,

Scolding out belches for Rhetorick twinckles,

With three teeth in her head like to three gags.

Rainbows about her eys,

And her nose weather-wise,

From them th' Almanack lies,

Frost, Pond, and Rivers clean.

Never did, &c.

[Page]

THE CHARACTER OF A London-Diurnall.

[Page]

[Page]

A Diurnall is a puny Chronicle, scarce pin-feather'd with the wings of time: It is an History in Sippets; the English Iliads in a Nut-shell; the Apocryphal Parliaments book of Maccabees in single sheets. It would tire a Welch pedigree, to reckon how many aps 'tis remov'd from an Annall: For it is of that Extract; only of the younger House, like a Shrimp to a Lobster. The originall sinner in this kind was Dutch; Galliobelgicus the Protoplast; and the modern Mercuries but Hans-en-Kelders. The Countesse of Zealand was brought to bed of an Almanack, as many Children, as daies in the year. It may be the Legislative Lady is of that Linage; so she spawns the Diurnals, and they at Westminster, take them in Adoption, by the names of Scoticus, Civicus, Britanicus. In the Frontispice of the old Beldame-Diurnall, like the [Page] Contents of the Chapter, sits the House Commons judging the twelve Tribes of Israel. You may call them the Kingdoms Anatomy before the weekly Kalender: For such is a Diurnall, the day of the moneth, with what weather in the Commonwealth. 'Tis taken for the pulse of the Body politike; and the Emperick Divines of the Assembly, those spirituall Dragoone [...]s, thumb it accordingly. Indeed it is a pretty Synopsis; and those grave Rabbies (though in point of Divinity) trade in no larger Authors. The country-Carrier, when he buyes it for the Vicar, miscalls it the Vrinall: yet properly enough; for it casts the water of the State, ever since it staled blood. It differs from an Aulicus, as the Devill and his Exorcist; or as a black Witch doth from a white one, whose office is to unravell her inchantments.

It begins usually with an Ordinance, which is a Law still-born, dropt, before quickned by the Royall Assent: 'Tis one of the Parliaments by-blowes, (Acts being legitimate) & hath no more Syre then a Spanish Gennet, that's begotten by the wind.

Thus their Militia (like its patron Mars) is the issue only of the mother, without the concourse of Royall Iupiter. Yet Law it is, if they vote it, though in defiance of their Fundamentalls; like the old Sexton, who swore his Clock went true, what ever the Sun said to the contrary.

[Page]The next Ingredient of a Diurnall is plots, horrible plots; which with wonderfull sagacity it hunts dry-foot, while they are yet in their Causes, before Materia prima can put on her smock. How many such fits of the mother have troubled the Kingdoms, and (for all Sir Walter Erle looks like a Man-Midwife) not yet delivered of so much as a cushion! But Actors must have their Properties; And, since the Stages were voted down, the onely Play-house is at Westminster.

Sutable to their plots are their Informers, Skippers and Tailors; Spaniells both for the Land and the Water: Good conscionable Intelligence! For, however Pym's Bill may inflame the reckoning, the honest Vermine have not so much for lying as the publike Faith.

Thus a zealous Botcher in Morefields, while he was contriving some Quirpo-cut of Church-Government, by the help of his out-lying Eares, and the Ot [...]cousticon of the Spirit, discovered such a plot, that Selden intends to combate Antiquity, and maintain it was a Taylors Goose that preserved the Capitol.

I wonder my Lord of Canterbury is not once more all-to-betraytor'd for dealing with the Lions, to settle the Commission of Array in the Tower. It would do well to cramp the Articles Dormant, besides the opportunity of reforming those [Page] Beasts of the Prerogative, and changing their prophaner names of Harry and Charles, into Nehemiah and Eleazer.

Suppose a Corn-cutter, being to give little Isaac a cast of his Office, should fall to paring his Brows, mistaking the one end for the other; because he branches at both. This would be a plot; and the next Diurnall would furnish you with this Scale of Votes.

Resolved upon the Question, that this Act of the Corn-cutters was an absolute Invasion of the Cities Charter, in the representative Forehead of Isaac. Resolved, that the evill Councellours about the Corn-cutter are Popishly affected, and Enemies to the State. Resolved, that there be a publique Thanksgiving for the great deliverance of Isaac's Brow-antlers; and a solemn Covenant drawn up, to defie the Corn-cutter, and all his works.

Thus the Quixots of this Age fight with the Windmills of their own heads; quell Monsters of their own creation, make plots, and then discover them; as who fitter to unkennell the Fox, then the Tarryer, that is a part of him.

In the third place march their Adventures; the Roundheads Legend, the Rebells Romance; stories of a larger size, then the Ears of their Sect; able to strangle the belief of a Soli-fidian.

I'le present them in their Order; and first, as a [Page] Whiffller before the show, enter Stamford, one that trod the Stage with the first, travers'd his ground, made a leg and Exit. The Countrey-people took him for one, that by Order of the Houses was to dance a Morice through the West of England. Well, hee's a nimble Gentleman, set him but upon Banks his Horse in a saddle Rampant, and it is a great question, which part of the Centaur shews better tricks.

There was a Vote passing to translate him, with all his Equipage into Monumentall-Ginger-bread; but it was cross'd by the Female-Committee, alledging that the Valour of his Image would bite their children by the tongues.

This Cubit and an half of Commander, by the help of a Diurnall, routed his enemies fifty miles off: 'tis strange you'l say, and yet it is generally believed, he would as soon do it at that distance, as nearer hand. Sure it was his sword, for which the weapon salve was invented: that so wounding and healing, like loving Correlates, might both work at the same removes.

But the Squib is run to the end of the Rope. Room for the Prodigy of Valour, Madam Atropos in breeches, Wallers Knight-errantry: and, because every Mountibank must have his Zany, throw him in Haslerigge, to set off his story: these two like Bel and the Dragon, are alwaies worshipped in the same Chapter: they hunt in their Couples, [Page] what one doth at the head, the other scores up at the heel.

Thus they kill a man over and over, as Hopkins and Sternhold murder the Psalms, with another to the same; one chimes all in, and then the other strikes up, as the Saints-bell.

I wonder, for how many lives my Lord Hoptons soul took the Lease of his body.

First, Stamford slew him: then Waller out-killed that half a Bar: and yet it is thought the sullen corps would scarce bleed, were both these Manslayers never so near it.

The fame goes of a Dutch-Heads-man, that he would do his office with so much ease and dexterity, that the Head after execution should stand stil upon the shoulders: pray God Sir William be not Probationer for the place. For, as if he had the like kanck too; most of those, whom the Diurnal hath slain for him, to us poor Mortals seem untoucht.

Thus these Artificers of Death can kill the man, without wounding the body, like Lightning, that melts the Sword, and never singes the Scabbard.

This is the William, whose Lady is the Conqueror; This is the Cities Champion, and the Diurnalls Delight; he, that Cuckolds the Generall in his Commission: for, he stalks with Essex, and shoots under his belly, because his Oxcellency himself is [Page] not charged there. Yet in all this triumph there is a Whip and a Bell: translate but the Scene to Round-away-down: There Haslerigg's Lobsters were turned into Crabs, and crawl'd backwards: there poor Sir William ran to his Lady for a use of consolation.

But the Diurnal is weary of an arm of Flesh, and now begins an Hosanna to Crumwel, one that hath beat up his Drums clean thorow the Old Testament: you may learn the Genealogie of our Saviour, by the names in his Regiment. The Muster-master uses no other List then the first Chapter of Matthew.

With what face can they object to the King the bringing in of Forraigners, when themselves entertain such an Army of Hebrews? This Crumwel is never so valorous, as when he is making Speeches for the Association; which nevertheless he doth somewhat ominously, with his neck awry, holding up his ear, as if he expected Mahomet's Pigeon to come and prompt him. He should be a bird of Prey too, by his bloody beak: his Nose is able to try a young Eagle, whether she be lawfully begotten. But all is not Gold that glisters. What we wonder at in the rest of them, is natural to him, To kill without blood-shed: for, most of his Trophees are in a Church-window; when a Looking-glass would shew him more Superstition. [Page] He is so perfect a hater of Images, that he hath defaced God's in his own countenance. If he deal with Men, it is when he takes them napping in an old Monument: Then down goes dust and ashes: and the stoutest Cavalier is no better. O brave Oliver? Times Voider, Sub-sizer to the Worms; in whom Death, that formerly devoured our Ancestors, now chews the Cud. He said Grace once, as if he would have fallen aboard with the Marquess of Newcastle: Nay, and the Diurnal gave you his bill of Fare: but it proved a running-Banquet, as appears by the story. Believe him as he whistles to his Cambridge-Teem of Committee-men, and he doth Wonders. But Holy men (like the Holy Language) must be read backwards. They rifle Colledges, to promote Learning; and pull down Churches, for Edification. But Sacriledge is intailed upon him: There must be a Cromwel for Cathedrals, as well as Abbeys. A secure sinner, whose offence carries its pardon in its mouth: For, How can he be hanged for Church-robbery, which gives it self the benefit of the Clergie?

But for all Cromwel's Nose wears the Dominical letter, yet, compared to Manchester, he is but like the Vigils to an Holy-day. This, this is the man of God; so sanctified a Thunderbolt, that Burroughs, in a proportionable blasphemy to his Lord of hosts, would stile him the Archangel, [Page] giving Battel to the Devil.

Indeed, as the Angels, each of them makes a several species; so every one of his Souldiers is a distinct Church. Had these Beasts been to enter into the Ark, it would have puzled Noah to have sorted them into pairs. If ever there were a rope of Sand, it was so many Sects twisted into an Association.

They agree in nothing, but they are all Adamites in Understanding. It is the sign of a Coward, to wink, and fight; yet all their Valour proceeds from their Ignorance.

But I wonder whence their General's purity proceeds: it is not by Traduction. If he was begotten a Saint, it was by Equivocal generation: for the Devil in the father, is turn'd Monk in the son: so his Godliness is of the same parentage with good Laws; both extracted out of bad Manners, and would he alter the Scripture as he hath attempted the Creed, he might vary the Text, and say to Corruption, Thou art my Father.

This is he, that hath put out one of the Kingdoms eyes, by clouding our Mother-University; and (if this Scotch mist further prevail) will extinguish this other. He hath the like quarrel to both, because both are strung with the same Optick nerve, Knowing Loyalty. Barbarous Rebel! who will be revenged upon all Learning, because [Page] his Treason is beyond the Mercy of the Book.

The Diurnal, as yet, hath not talkt much of his Victories; but there is the more behinde: For the Knight must always beat the Giant: that's resolv'd. If any thing fall out amiss, which cannot be smothered, the Diurnal hath a help at Maw: it is but putting to Sea, and taking a Danish Fleet, or brewing it with some success out of Ireland, and it goes down merrily.

There are more Puppets, that move by the wyre of a Diurnal; as Brereton and Gell; two of Mars his Petty-toes; such sniveling Cowards, that it is a favour to call them so. Was Brereton to fight with his teeth, as in all other things he resembles the beast, he would have oddes of any man at the weapon: O he's a terrible slaughterman at a Thanksgiving-Dinner: had he been a Cannibal, to have eaten those that he vanquisht, his Gut would have made him valiant.

The greatest wonder is at Fairfax, how he comes to be a babe of Grace. Certainly it is not in his personal, but (as the State-Sophies distinguish) in his Politick capacity; regenerated ab extra, by the zeal of the House he sate in; as Chickens are hatcht at Grand Cairo, by the adoption of an Oven.

There is the Woodmonger too, a feeble crutch to a declining Cause; a new Branch of the old Oak of Reformation.

[Page]And now I speak of Reformation, vous avez Fox the Tinker, the liveliest Embleme of it that may be: For, what did this Parliament ever go about to reform, but Tinker-wise, in mending one hole, they made three.

But I have not Ink enough to cure all the Tetters and Ringworms of the State.

I will close up all, thus: The Victories of the Rebels are like the Magical Combat of Apuleius; who, thinking he had slain all three of his Enemies, found them at last but a Triumvirate of Bladders. Such, and so empty, are the Triumphs of a Diurnal; but so many imposthumated Fancies, so many Bladders of their own blowing.

The Character of a Country-COMMITTEE-MAN, With the Ear-mark of a SEQUESTRATOR.

[Page]

[Page]

A Committee-man by his name should be one that is possessed, ther's number enough in the compellation to make an Epithite for Legion; he is persona in concreto (to borrow the Solecisme of a modern Statesman) you may translate it by the red bull phrase and speak as properly, enter seven devills solus, It is a well trust title that contains both the number and the beast. For a Committee-man is a noun of Multitude, he must be spelled with figures, like Antichrist wrapped in a paire Royal of Sixes, thus the name is as monstrous as the man, a compleat notion of the same linnage with accumulative treason: for his office, it is the resurrection of the Ileptarchy or England fritters, it is [Page] the broken meat of a Crumbling Prince, onely the Royalty is greater, for it is here, as in the miracle of Loaves the voyder exceeds the Bill of fare, the Pope and he rings the Changes; here is a plurality of Crowns to one head, joyne them together and ther's harmony in discord, the tripple crowned Turn-Key of Heaven, with the tripple headed porter of hell. A Committee-man is the reliques of Regal Government, but like holy reliques he out-bulks the substance whereof he is a remnant, ther's a score of Kings in a Committee as in the reliques of the Crosse, ther's the number of twenty. This is the Gyant with the hundred hands that weilds the Scepter, the tyrannical Beade-Roule by which the Kingdome prays backward, and with a kind of Rebus, at every Curse drops a Committee-man. Let CHARLES be wayved whose conducing clemency aggravates the desection, and make Nero the question, better a Nero then a Committee, Ther's lesse execution by a single bullet then by case-shot.

Now a Committee-man is a party coloured Officer, he must be drawn like Ianus with Cross and Pile in his countenance, as he relates to the Souldiers, or face about to his fleecing the Country, look upon him Martially and he is a Justice of War; one that hath bound his Dalton up in Buff, and will needs be of the quorum to the best [Page] Commanders, he is one of Mars his Lay-Elders, he shares in the Government, though a Non-conformist to his bleeding Rubick, he is the like Sectary in Arms as the Platonick is in love, keep a flattering in discourse but proves haggard in the action; he is not of the Souldiers and yet of his flock, it is an Emblem of the golden age (and such indeed he makes it) to him, when so tame a Pigeon may commerce with Vulters. Me thinks a Committee hanging about a Governour, and Bandiliers dangling about a furd Alderman, have an Anagrame resemblance, ther's no Syntax between a Cap of maintenance and a helmet, who ever knew an Enemy routed by a Grand-Jury, and a billa vera: It is a left-handed Garrison where their authority perches▪ but the more preposterous the more in fashion; the right-hand fights while the left rules the Reines, the Truth is the Souldier, and the Gentlemen are like Don-Quicchott and Sancho Pancha, one fights at all adventures to purchase the other the Government of the Island. A Committee-man properly should be the Governour's Matrosse to fit his truckle, and to new-string him with sinnews of War for his chief use, to raise assessements in the neighbouring Wapentake.

The Country-people being like an Irish Cow, that will not give down her milke unless she see [Page] her Calf before her: Hence it is he is the Garrisons dry Nurse▪ he chews their contribution before he feeds them, so the poor Souldiers live like Trochilus by picking the teeth of this sated Crocodile.

So much for his warlike or ammunition face, which is so preternatural, that it is rather a vizard then a face▪ Mars in him hath but a blinking aspect, his face of Arms is like his Coate partie per pale, Souldier and Gentleman much of a scantling.

Now enter his Taxing and deglubing face, a squeezing look like that of Vespasianus, as if he were breeding over a close-stoole. Take him thus and he is the Inquisition of the purse; an Authentick Gypsie, that nips your bung with a canting Ordinance, not a murthered fortune in all the Country but bleeds at the touch of this Malefactor. He is the spleen of the body politick that swels it self to the Consumption of the whole, at at first indeed he ferretted for the Parliament, but since be hath got off his Cope, he set up for himself, he lives upon the sins of the people, and that's a good standing-dish too, he verifies the Axiom Eisdem nutriter ex quibus componiter, his dyet it suitable to his constitution. I have wondered often why the plundered Country-men should repair to him for succor, certainly it is under [Page] the same notion as one whose pockets are pickt goes to Mol-Cutpurse as the predominant in that faculty.

He out-dives a Dutch-man, gets a noble of him that was never worth six pence, for the poorest escape not, but Dutch-like he will be dreyning even in the driest ground, he Aliens a Delinquents Estate with as little remorse as his other holiness gives away an Hereticks Kingdome, and for the truth of the Delinquency, both Chapmen have as little share of Infallability. Lye is the Grand Sallad of Arbitrary Government, Executor to the Star-Chamber, and High-Commission; for those Courts are not extinct, they survive in him like Dollary changed into single moneys. To speak the truth he's the universal tribunal: For since these times all causes fall to his Cognizance, as in a great infection all diseases oft turn to the Plague. It concerns our Masters the Parliament to look about them, if he proceeds at this rate, the Jack may come to swallow the Pike; as the Interest often eats out the Principal. As his commands are great so he looks for a reverence accordingly. He is very punctual in exacting your hat, and to say right, it is his due; but by the same title, as the upper garment is the vails of the executioners. There was a time when such cattle would have hardly been taken upon suspicion for men [Page] in office, unless the old Poverb were renewed, that beggers make a free Company, and those their Wardens. You may see what it is to hang together, look upon them severally, and you cannot but fumble for some thrids of charity; But oh they are Tarmagants in conjunction! like Fidlers who are rogues when they go single; and joyned in consort, gentlemen Musitioners. I care not much if I untwist my Committee-man, and so give him the receipt of this grand Catholican. Take a State Martyr, one that for his good behaviour hath paid the excise of his ears, so suffered Captivity by the Land-Piracy of Ship-money, next a Primitive freeholder, One that hates the King, because he is a Gentleman transgressing the Magna Charta of delving Adam. Adde to these a mortified Bankerupt that helps out his false Weights with some scruples of Conscience, and with his peremptory scales can doome his Prince with a Mene tecall. These with a new blew-stocking'd Justice lately made of a good basket-hilted Yeoman, with a short-handed Clerk tack't to the Reare of him to carry the Knapsack of his understanding, together with two or three Equivocal Sirs, whose Religion like their Gentility is the Extract of their Acres, being therefore spiritual, because they are earthly; not forgetting the man of the Law, whose corruption [Page] gives the Hogan to the sincere Juncto. These are the simples of this pretious Compound, a kinde of Dutch hotch-potch, the Hogan Mogan Committee-man.

A Committee-man hath a Side-man, or rather a setter height, a Sequestrator; of whom you may say, as of the great Sultans horse, Where he treads the grass growes no more. He is the States Cormorant, one that fishes for the Publique, but feeds himself, the misery is, he fishes without the Cormorants property, a rope to strengthen the gullet, and to make him disgorge. A Sequestrator! He is the Devils Nuthooke, the signe with him is alwaies in the clutches. Ther's more Monsters retaine to him, then to all the limbs in Anatomie. 'Tis strange Physitians do not apply him to the soles of the feet in a desparate Feaver, he draws far beyond Pigeons: I hope some Mountebank will slice him, and make the Experiment. He is a Tooth-drawer once removed, here's all the difference, one applauds the Grinder, and the other the Grist. Never till now could I verifie the Poets description, that the ravenous Harpie had a humane visage. Death it selfe cannot quit scores with him. Like the Demoniack in the Gospel he lives among Tombes, nor is all the holywater shed by Widdows and Orphans a sufficient Exorcism to dispossess him. Thus the Cat sucks [Page] your breath, and the Fiend your blood; Nor can the Brotherhood of Witchfinders so sagely instituted with all their terrour, wean the Familiars.

But once more to single out my imbost Committee-man, his Fate (for I know you would fain see an end of him) is either a whipping Audit, when he is wrung in the withers by a Committee of Examinations; and so the spunge weeps out the moisture which he soaked before; Or else he meets his passing peale in the clamorous mutiny of a gut-foundred Garrison; For the Hedge-sparrow will be feeding the Cuckow, till he mistakes his Commons and bite off her head. Whatever 'tis, it is within his desert: for what is observed of some Creatures, that at the same time they trade in productions three stories high, suckling the first, big with the second, and cliketing for the third; A Committee-man is the Counterpoint, his mischief's superfetation, a certain scale of destruction; For he ruines the Father, beggars the Son, and strangles the hopes of all posterity.

FINIS.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

Poems by J.C. ; with additions.Poems. Selections

Cleveland, John, 1613-1658.

Edition statement

1651

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2003-07 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A33439

ID [STC]

Wing C4684

ID [STC]

ESTC R171391

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

12258365

ID [OCLC]

ocm 12258365

ID [VID]

57641

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This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A33439)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 57641)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 176:36)

Source

— Poems by J.C. ; with additions., Poems. Selections, Cleveland, John, 1613-1658..

Extent

[2], 16, 78 p.

s.n.],. [S.l. :: 1651.. ("The character of a London-diurnall" appears on p. 59-69, and "The character of a country-committee-man" appears on p. 71-78.) (Reproduction of original in Huntington Library.)

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