Most curious Mercurius Brittanicus, alias Sathanicus, answer'd, cuff'd, cudgell'd, and clapper-claude ...

Most curious Mercurius Brittanicus, alias Sathanicus, answer'd, cuff'd, cudgell'd, and clapper-claude ...

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MOST CURIOUS MERCURIUS BRITTANICUS, ALIAS, SATHANICUS, Answer'd, Cuff'd, Cudgell'd, and Clapper-claude.

MOST CURIOUS MERCURIUS BRITTANICUS, ALIAS, SATHANICUS, Answer'd, Cuff'd, Cudgell'd, and Clapper-claude.

[Page]

Han Gupak Navem Ercu Rius,

Quar Teratray Torb Ritan Nicus.

By Interpretation.

Hang up a Knave Mercurius, Quarter a Traytor Britannicus.

BRittanicus, have at thee, look to thy selfe, for good faith I am IOHN TAYLOR, and let it not make thee proud, that I am pleased to descend so low as to write either to thee or of thee. Your Prophetick writings, (with Bookers conjunction) and delicate foysted Declarations, and Relations (being all Nothings) of their worthy Orders, Acts, and Votes, with their Don Quixotticall, Amadis de Galldicall Battles and Ayery Victories, which being with judgement and discretion weighed and considered are Nothing, nor ever will be any thing to any purpose.

And if the round Iobbernoll of Brittanicus were but capable of the capacity of Owley-glasse, he might see that all the great Somethings which he so dignifies, falsifies and magnifies, are nothing, have done Nothing (but Mischiefe) which is worse then Nothing.

You are merrily pleased to call Aulicus the Scripe, or Register to the Junto, whereby I perceive that you can breake Iests better then make them, and that you have a Foolish Rogueish desire to jeere your betters, but that your plentifull want of Wit is your great impediment.

Then you fall a Scoffing the Nobility here (which is no newes as you promised a Relation of newes in your lying title) but sure it is no new thing (though worth nothing) It is your weekly custome [...] [Page] [Page] to promise the People newes, and pay them with Nonsence, your infamous works have titles of Relations, and the froathy substance within is nothing, but your own inventions, fopperies, and fictions, for what knowledge of the Affaires of great Britaine can the people pick out of your Ignorant and Ridiculous Rayling and Revileing His Majesty, His Royall Queen, Honourable Counsellors, and all our Nobility, Gentry or others, with the Reverend Clergy, calling them Papists, Iesuits, Priests; are these things new intelligences, no, all the World knowes those damnable designes to be no newes from you. But it were newes worth the hearing, to heare any truth at all from you, and it is supposed that you writ purposely to make your selfe merry, and for some other Trencher Respects, to delight as wise men as your selfe in reading and laughing at your fooleries.

What knowledge of intelligence, or what profit have the people for their money and time spent, in buying and reading your scoffing scandalls & calumnies, you are pleased to bestow fine Epithites upon them, as fantasticall Heads and Hydes, and the grave and Reverend Iudges your wickednesse is pleas'd to trench upon Rastalls Abridgements, and to call them Rascalls, neither can the Serjeant at Lawes Quoyfe, or Iudges Night-cap scape the flowt of your fooles cap, the Quoyfes (you say) are Quoifes of injustice, and the Night-caps of false Judgement; Then you boast of your (and none but yours) Parliaments late successe, and your Scottish brethrens advance, It is well known, that your Parliament hath the Art to Create, make, forme, fashion and frame Successe into what shape they please, and be it either good, bad, or indifferent, they can metamorphose it into feares, jealousies, Publique thanksgivings, and these ingredients being melted with zeale in the secret Chrusible of the Publique-Faith, and so with hey passe and Repasse Legerdemaine it is Transformed into money, and that money into Rebellion. For your brethren (the Scots) advance, I will give you leave to bragge of their successe.

Then you seem to be displeased at Aulicus, for speaking truth when he called you Rebells, I doe heartily wish that you might truly give him the Lye, but if you be not Rebells, I shall suppose Faux, and Ravilltack to be Honest men, and that Wat Tyler, Iack Cade, Hackett, Penrye, Iohn a Leiden, and Knipperdolling dyed true Martyrs.

Britanicus saies, the Ensigne is yet unhanged, that said he would [Page] kill the King, tis very likely, for I am sure you have hang'd, Imprisoned, Murdred, Plundred or Beggered as many as you could lay hold on, of such as were either Ecclesiasticall or Temporall Protestants, as would spend their livelihoods and deerest blood in defence of their true Religion, and service of their Soveraigne. But your evasion is, that your Trayterous Ensigne did not meane King Charles, But Generall King is the man he meant to kill, in this you are a Iesuited Equivocater in Generall, and a lying Knave in particular; you bragge what a brave Cornelius Burgesse you have, he is a very wholsome Purified and Repurified man, for the Records of the Spirituall Court doth keep an account, that he hath been twice purg'd in that court, for two female servants of his, who by his joyning of Jyblets were both great with child in his own house. But these spirituall Court purgings, was to weak Physick to work upon him, so that he (relapsing) fell to the old trade againe, for which he was to be let blood, purg'd, dieted, and disciplin'd in the High-Commission; But that he and his friends so labour'd the dissolution of that Court, that it was Abollished, and Cornelius (by that means) was left uncur'd, and I doubt uncurable, and I have heard of Cornelius his Tub, which is the fittest Pulpit for him and his Rebellious doctrine, he is no Cornelius Tacitus, (as you say) but it were better for the peace of the Church and State, if he were Tacitus, with all the Rabble of his Tribe of Sectaries; Tacitus was a Roman Historian, and wrote the lives of some wicked Heathen Emperours, but your Loquatious Burges (whose discretion had more appeared had he bin Tacitus) hath with the Vollubillity of his seditious verbosity, omitted Suetonius and destroyed Tranquillius; In a word, he hath talk'd so much strife and mischiefe, that thereby our former blessed Peace and Tranquillity is as rare to be found as Truth and Loyalty is either in him, or in his Imposture Scribe Mercurius Britanicus.

Next; he pursues the Bishops (in the old Beaten way of Rayling) which is as common as the barking of doggs, and therefore I hold him not worthy of an Answer. His Ridiculous scoffs of the Earle of Bristol, the Lord Cottiugton, and Sir Francis Windebank, calling them Spanish Figgs and Reisins, is such poor silly Rogish stuffe, that the folly of Will Summers, or Iohn Dorye were profound wisdome in respect of it.

Then Sir, (to shew your love to Learning (like the rest of your [Page] sweet Maisters Magnificoes, Clarissimoes Committee and Common-Councell men) you jeere at the Schooles, which is a place renowned for a famous Librarie through more Kingdoms Provinces and Nations, then are in the Christian World, and the ever renowned founder (Sir Tho. Bodley, will for ever stand in the Records of fame, when the memory of the Calumniators of that Magnificent fabrick shall Rot, Stink, and be justly held odious to God and Man.

The Arch-bishop of Armaugh falls next into the Roleing streame or Railing straine of your Aspersions, and indeed your commendations and approbation either of him, or any other man, is one of the greatest disparagements to blur and blemish a good Reputation, on the other side, the Ridiculous and Mallicious Scandalls which you are pleas'd to bluster against. Virtue, doth illustrate the brightnesse of it, and make it shine more Gloriously perspicuous, (for mine own part I had Rather Brittanicus, and all his friends were hang'd then that either he or they should be at the charges to bestow a good Report on me, for every honest man would take me to be a Brownist or Anuabaptist, a Rascall, a Rebell and a Traytor.

The profound learning, the sincerity of the Protestant Religion, the Loyalty to his Soveraigne, the extraordinary pains of his Studdying, the manner, Method, and Elegancy of his frequent Preaching, his Charity, Affability and carriage of his Exemplary life and conversation; all these vertues, being the unquestionable practise of this most Reverend Bishop, cannot escape the snapping and snarling of Brittanicus, whereby the danger of a Knaves good Report is most plainly manifested.

Brittanicus, you doe Amplify, and seem to stellify the Rebellious Lord Denbigh, and some others, with the Attainted and Outlawed Say and Seale, and if there were no other proofs of their Delinquency, your justification were sufficient Testimony. Deare-ring (you bragge is come to you, I pray you make much of him, he is an excellent jewell to hang in the Eare of a Gallowes, at which time a Turn'd shirt of Holland may serve him for a Winding sheet (if the Crowes be not couzned.) You say you look for Hopton next, (you may look for him, but I think you dare neither look or see him where he is, if you look for him in Imitation of Deereing, you may look your Eyes out, and if you and your Maisters and Members had the grace to be good Subjects till Hopton turne Rebell, the miseries [Page] of this Kingdom would quickly have a happy period; in the mean space look to Hopton, for Hopton looks for you.

You extoll the Lord Gray of Warke and your Speaker (nine yards London measure above Ursa minor,) Prophecying that they with the Common-Counsell-men shall fill Chronicles; in this you are believ'd, for there are many men Cronicled for disloyalty to their Princes, and setting of Kingdoms in combustious contention, and why not they. And then you (victoriously) doe jeere our victories, you say we took certain prisoners, one was a Trooper with five shllings 3d in his pocket, three men in scarlet breeches, and one dragoon in an old plush doublet, in this you keep your promise with your chapmen, in letting them have some Newes for their money, and no doubt but some of them have so much wit as to believe you.

But you prize your Generalls blood at an inestimable valew, that every drop af it is a Ruby or an Emerauld, It is wonder that his exceeding Excellency doth not beat thee for thy grosse flattery, for he knowes himselfe to be scarcely worth a Peble, and his Loyalty to his King were overvalued at the rate of a Saint Martins Pearle.

You taxe us that all our letters are falsities, and we know that though they be written with all grounds of reall truths, yet you have the art to falsify them, either by new transcribing, misinterpreted and prejudicate constructions, or forged counterfeit Letters of your own devising and writing, which Letters have been often interpreted by your selves, sometimes at Sea, out of a Catch or an Oysterboate, by your victorious and unmatchable, Admirable Admirall, and others have been secretly conveyed to your Generalls and Commanders, who have easily taken the poore papers, and sent them to London, by speedy order they have been Printed, (as full of your own Lyes, as your malice and the Divell could thrust into so small Roomes) then they have been dispersed as dangerous plots and conspiracies, plotted by Papists, Royalists, and Cavaliers; and publique thanksgivings commanded to be given in all Churches for Greate and extraordinary deliverances from fabulous dangers of your own devising.

Prinne you are pleased to entitle, your Protomartyr, in the Worst times, and a Champion in the Best, Prinne hath heard of me lately in a larger tract, in my Answer to his Traiterous Pamphlet of the Power of Parliaments; and Vindication of the new Counterfeit [Page] Great-Seale, Pennrye and Prinne are somewhat neare in an Annagram, they are nearer in their Treasons, and no doubt they will be nearest, when Prinne suffers as Pennry did at Tyburne (for lesse Treason) in Queen Elizabeths time.

The truth is, you doe make bold with the names of some, who have been so bold to beat you squarely, and made you run away Roundly, for which causes I will tollerate you to be angry, and revenge your Maisters cause and your own with railing and playing the foole, that's another full poynt.

It is your profitable and safest way to keep your distance in staying at London or Westminister, & abuse his Majesty, and as many as doe Love Serve and Honour Him at Oxford, But your Lyes are not limited only hither, for their universality flees all over Great Britaine, by the false name of newes: and because the Gentleman is so exquisite and exact in taxing names in stead of newes, the name of Mercurius Britanicus, (as I am Certified) is James Hudson, which in an Annagram is the Sphinx, which the Oedipus of my Pericranion makes a true signification, of, for it opens the Riddle of the Matter, the Marrow, and the very intrincicall secrets of your name and Pamphlets. As thus, ‘IAMES HVDSON, annagram, O, HIS MAD NVES,’

Thus your very name includes the nature of your weekly Relations, the mad nues of Iames Hudson, hath made abundance of fooles, and knaves as mad as himselfe, he is mad in writing, and they are out of their Wits, with countenancing, buying, Reading, and believing his madnesse, which doth blow the Coles that Inflames this Mad Rebellion. But himselfe and his damnable Lyes and Labours, are more Really described in another Annagram, of Mercurius Brittanicus, with his own name mixt with it; As thus. ‘MERCVRIVS BRITTANICVS, IAMES HVDSONNE, Annagramma, BVRN MI NONSENSE, WHI, IT IS ACVRST DREAMS.’ You see Sir, that your own name, with your accurst Pamphlets Title, doth most plainly demonstrate the lewdnesse, badnesse, and madnesse of your pestiferous Newes, and the reason is, you acknowledge it worthy to be Burnt, as being your Nonsence, the Question Why it should be Burnt is, because it is Acurst Dreams.

[Page] Thus you see that Taylor the Waterman (whose name you abused and Scoft amongst his betters) hath fidled a little with your name for this once.

I could play with some of your Maisters Memberships such as have gotten too good estates in being bad servants to His Majesty, As,

Henry Vane Senior, annagram, Ruines anye Honer,

Henry Vane Iunior, annagram, I Honer vaine Ruyn,

Or,

William Fines, annagram, I am Sinful Evil.

I could fool with the quondam Grooms name, and tell him, there was a time when he was Rich and very poor at once, till by his Majesties Grace, he was Rich in Honour and estate, and now by his Ingratitude, he is turn'd poor again, scarce worth a Clout or Ragge of Holland.

Then you tell us that Denmarke and France are puzled by the Sweadish designe; indeed it behooves all the Kings of the Earth, to take it into serious consideration how dangerous it is for Monarchie, to be Assaulted by a Rebellious Anarchie. And (Arrogantly) you spend your Iudgement, that nothing can help but Spain, and the pawne of Ireland, yes Sir, there is one that you know not, (or scarcely ever think on) that both can and will help, without the help of man or forreign Nations, or pawn of a Kingdom. If you would but take God in your mind, you would quickly guesse who it is that will help, but your cause is so bad, that you are faine to buy and begge help of your Brethren, (some Rebellious Scots) for the payment of whom, you have pawn'd more then Kingdoms, for you have morgaged your soules to the Divell, by your execrable perjury, Oathes, Vowes, Protestations and Covenants.

You heare that Holland is about to set forth some Declaration at this time, if it be of his own writing, I shall doe him the Honour to Laugh at it. You call Warwick, your unmatchable Admirall, a brave man by Sea and Land, It is true that he is unmatchable in this Rebellion, and his markes of a Brave man, is his wicked constancy in an accurst cause. Sir Tho. Fairfax, and Sir William Brereton are to high (you say) for any title that you can give them, they are not so high as they deserve, by tenne steps at least.

Then you tell us, that you had forgot one peice of Newes, you may doe well, to let us have some small peice for our mony, for you have told us of no newes yet, But what is your piece of Newes, some good stuffe no doubt, like the rest before; But stand a side and be uncover'd, [Page] this newes is an humble wish, that (for the Edification of the Ignorant people) their two thinne Howses of Lower uppermost, and Vpper lowermost (which he calls the Estates) would be pleased, beneath and above, to annex to their commands, for the Reading them in all Churches, for the Citty knowes enough already, and the Country to little, And is it not fit that seeing all Order, Decency, and Doctrine of Christianity is (irreligiously) and Blasphemously thrust out of the Churches with you, that in the Room thereof, the Railings and Revilings of this Weekly Rabshekah may be brought in, which may in future ages make Mercurius Brittanicus, as famous for his Madnewes and Accurst Nonsence Dreams, as Mahomet is for his Alcaron.

Then you say, that the Parliament were in the worst condition, if it could not command all other Courts in punishing Delinquents, but if your Thing at Westminster, were a Parliament, they would have punished you for Traiterous Libells, against the sacred Majesties of the King and Queene, the Royall posterity, the Reverend Clergy, the faithfull Nobility and Gentry, the true hearted Commonalty, and finally, against the Peace of all His Majesties Kingdoms, these are such delinquencies, that they deserve lesse then to be dream'd a Parliament, that gives them encouragement and Rewards, these are no Acts, or Symptoms of a Parliament.

Lastly your words are, That you doe not take Armes against the King, but against those about Him, Cod is about Him, and I hope ever will be, and environ him with his all saving protection, the blessed successe he hath had in being still preserved from dangers, might make you believe that God is about him, if you mean his trusty servants that are about him, that's no newes, it is their Honour to be hated for their Maisters sake. And if he will needs involve himselfe into their Ruine (then belike you mean utterly to ruine them and the King together) you can but only pray and sigh for the misfortune of the King, with a publique Thansgiving, Doing still our duty to the King. We thank you for your manners, I know none you have.

Thus Mounster Mercurius Brittanicus, I have trac'd, track'd and truely answerd all your madnesse for one week, which is as much as if I had confuted all that you have done, can, or will doe, but if you meddle with me again. I shall make so bold, to bung up your Chaps with a Gravesend Toast.

FINIS.

Information about this book

Title statement

Most curious Mercurius Brittanicus, alias Sathanicus, answer'd, cuff'd, cudgell'd, and clapper-claude ...

Taylor, John, 1580-1653.

Edition statement

1640

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2003-01 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A64185

ID [STC]

Wing T483B

ID [STC]

ESTC R37877

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

17150625

ID [OCLC]

ocm 17150625

ID [VID]

105901

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Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A64185)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 105901)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1160:11)

Source

— Most curious Mercurius Brittanicus, alias Sathanicus, answer'd, cuff'd, cudgell'd, and clapper-claude ..., Taylor, John, 1580-1653..

Extent

8 p.

s.n.,. [London? :: between 1640 and 1644]. (Author refers to himself by name (John Taylor) in first sentence of text.) (Caption title.) (Imprint suggested by Wing.) (Reproduction of original in the Huntington Library.)

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