I Had thought, that you, like the generous Mastive, would have passed by, and taken no notice of the snaps and snarles of such Curs as I am; for so you are pleased to tearm me, in the [...]9. page of your empty Pamphlet, intituled, Londons Liberty in chains discovered, where your Ignorance saith, that you look to be vilified, and reproached, as you have been formerly, by such barking Curs as are S. Shipard, who during the time of your close confinement, nibled at your heels; but though it was your pleasure, venerable Sir, to bestow an Epithite upon me, only worthy to be annexed to your own name, to wit BARKING CƲR, in so saying, although perhaps you know it not, Obscurus est tuus serm [...]; although I, and the world know, Dicis non aliud, quám merum men­dacium; yet herein, you perhaps bestowed on me not so evil a tearm as you imagined; for you resemble me to those harmless currs that bark, yet bite not: wherefore for so saying I am something engaged to you; but for your own part, you are a man (I had almost said Cur) that not only bark, but bite too; and, by that means, you have proved the PROVERB of no validity, which saith, Canes qui multum latrant raro mordent, that is, Dogs that bark much seldome bite: You have bitten many men, Mechanick men, great men, yea, Peers of the Land, you have bitten the Noble Earl of Manchester, Colonel King, and o­thers: and you know that Dogs teeth are something venemous, and if drawing salves be not suddenly applyed, the parties wound, so bitten, wil wrancle and fester. You also know, that a Dogs tongue hath the vertue to heal also, with licking the wound, which useful property, al­though for ought I know you may so much degenerate from your kind as to want, yet I rather incline to conceive the evil of your mind wil not suffer your tongue to do that good, for which it was given you: For most men know that you have wounded and bitten many, but no man can remember that you ever endeavored to heal any, or to make them amends for your injuries: But to return from whence I digrest.

Although, as I said before, it pleased you to shew from what gentle [Page 4]stock you came by your gentle tearm, Curr, yet why have you curtail'd and excorciated my name, saying S. Shipard, when my name is Si­mon Shepard; I cannot perswade myself you should be so meanly let­tered, as not to have some insight in the Art of spelling, although you have ere now been found faulty in that kind by Mr Prynne, and others: I rather think you did it on purpose reserving the meaning thereof to your self, for what reasons I care not: but Sir by this means I am fully satisfied concerning a point which Ptolomei averreth, to wit, that from the benevolent or malevolent positure of the Sun and Moon, at each o­thers ascending sign, at time of birth, is discerned the love and hatred twixt any two, and this by your means, without seeing of Lillie: But Sir forasmuch as hereafter you may again have occasion to use my name, and that you may no more mistake, in setting down i for e, I shal here insert both your name and my own, for those that shal read this Letter to judge, I perswading my self it will go through many hands ere it arrive at yours, you and I wil imagine a multitude of spe­ctators, while we throw the DODOCHEDRON DIE, while we take to pieces, and ransack our names, and beleeve it Sir the ANA­GRAM of a NAME is worthy of observation, it often being as useful to certifie, as the calculating of a Nativity; I shal presume first to begin with yours, and afterwards shal insert my own.

Now Sir in recompence of your favorable mitigation, in tearming me only a barking Curr, whereas if it had pleased you to have been ri­gorous, you might have rancked mee with your self and Overton, and have said biting Cur, therefore Deign to accept of an Accrostick on your own name: each letter thereof placed is as capital forme as where you were stiled DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. Pray read.

Thus much Sir for your sollace and delight. Now Sir I shal insert my own name, with an Anagram, which if it shal distaste, pardon my ignorance of the rellish of your pallate.

Now Sir although your splenitick humor shal perswade you, the next time you mention my name, to cal me biting Curr, yet, I hope, you wil write my name more properly then before, and say Shepard, and [Page 6]not Shipard: Moreover Sir, I shal entreat you to take not see that though my weapon hath been hitherto a pen, and not a pike, yet the wise have reported, that a Scholler may sooner become a Soldier, than a Soldier a Scholler: and although I hope you have Repented of your Rigorous Proceedings during the time you were a Commander imployed to vindicate a Righteous Cause, yet I wonder how your mind assisted you to twit the Royal Party (bloody and barbarous I confesse) and yet your own conscience not to whisper you in the ear, and tell you, how cruel you your self were during the time you had a Commission: I shal instance one tale to you, related to me by a faithful honest man, whose neer friend, ‘one Mr William Hagar, surprized by your soldiers, as be was walking in a garden; the place I need not name; I suppose you wel remember it, and rifting him to his bare skin, drove him before them ten miles, til he came in your presence, who were so void of hu­manity, that instead of comforting a Distressed Christian, you espying a Ring on his finger upbraided your soldiers that they took it not off, who replying, they could not get it off, it having bin so long worn by the party that the flesh had overgrown it; your counsel to them was this, why then cut off his finger and all; ah! where then was your Christian Piety, to wil so bloody an act.’ Sir, I know wel you have shewed your self a man sufficiently valiant, and have been an instrument of advancing the Publick good, therfore you are the more to be admired, that you should so horribly revolt and become an enemy to them who have esteemed nothing too dear, to purchase lawful immunities, and to promote the Gospel of Christ; & here I cannot but wonder at one passage inserted in your last book, intituled, Londons Liberty in chains discovered, where so much you tryumph at the Recantation of one White, a Warder of the Tower, setting forth in Print, that you chose for umpires to take up the matter those Knights Sir Iohn Strangewayes, Sir Lewis Divet, &c. prisoners in the Tower, that sometime bare Arms against this present Parliament, and did their utmost endeavors to impede the settling of that Reformation for which you fought; by reading which passage the shallowest capacity may conceive, that you look more then one way and hide two faces under one hood; is there any followship betwixt God and Mammon, betwixt Light and Darknesse? Can you be a sincere desirer of the Commons Liberties, and yet hold correspondency, and comply with those that would have enslaved them? May not GOD say to you, as once to that lukewarm Congregation, Revel. 3. verse 13. Novi te neque frigidum, [...]eque fervidum; utinam esses; itaque quoniam topidus es, evomam te ex [...]e meo. I need not English this to you, for I [Page 7]may suppose you understand Latin, else you would never have inserted a whole Page of it in your last Book, called, Londons Liberty in chains discovered, and yet it may be you are as ignorant as you were some few moneths since, when you solemnly protested, in one of your Books, that the Latin tongue was unknown unto you; and this I am moved to think because that order you then cited was framed to your hand, and you needed but to coppy it out; I much wonder that your wisdome foresaw not the Aspersions that the divulging of such a passage might draw upon you; but it is just with God, that those men, which trust so much to their own Abilities (as, I am confident, you do) should, being left to themselves, discover that of themselves, which if another should re­late, they would be greatly inraged. For my own part, I wish your re­lease from trouble, with your infranchisement, and I sympathize of an­others afflictions, having my self drank of those bitter waters. But this let the world know with mee, Maris Coelique temperiem turbines tempestate [...]que, commendant; habet has vices conditie Mortalium vt ad­versa secundis, & adversis secunda nascantur, occulta [...] utrorumque se­mina Deus, & plerumque bonorum, & malorum causa sub diversa specie latent; Storms and tempests contribute to the clearnesse of the Heavens, and the smoothnesse of the Sea; the condition of Mortals hath this property, that Adversities grow out of Prosperities, and Prosperi­ties from Adversities; God hideth from us both the seeds of the one and the other, and oftentimes the causes of blessings and evils are co­vered under one and the same appearance.

And now Sir I hope for the future there wil be no more occasion of trouble betwixt you and me, and I shal hope you wil no more vilifie me in Print, which if you shal, my frailty is such, that I shal not so far regulate my passion, as to sit stil and not Answer you. I have hopes this Letter may be a means to quench that fier your Anagram says you burn in; and not augment it, which if it shal, I find but what I expect, and what I have lately read, in one of the best of our modern Poets Master Withers, a man worthy of all honor, yet too much addicted to your own Fancies, wherefore perhaps you wil the more willingly hear him. Who saith.

I pray Sir read these Verses o're again and mark whether the Poet hath not rightly Characterized you, and set forth the nature the world hath found to be in you, in as ample a manner as if he had wrote it of your own Person. I much admire Sir that trouble and contention so much pleaseth your mind; you keep the field continually, and are still brandishing your weapon, I mean the two-edged sword, your tongue, against some party, or parties; if you should continue in your critticall course, you wil be esteemed the only Momus and Zoilus of the Age, and the Poets wil forget those two others so notoriously known, and instead of them celebrate your name, which wil be for your infinite dishonor. But Sir now I shal come up more close unto you, and desire of you, if you shal so please, to shew some particular Relations, or some infallible Arguments that may prove I have dealt Currishly with you, or charge it on my own conscience, if you can, to the uttermost, if in my Famers fam'd (the ground of your malice) I have calumniated you the least, but what is sufficiently evident to all men; I extracted most of it out of your own Books, I mean the passages you boastingly relate of your superbious carriage to those you ought to honor and reve­rence, I mean the House of Peers; and I confess I was mightily trou­bled to see a man do that which was contrary to GODS expresse Com­mand, and then to make his so doing known to the world in Print, as glorying in it, which was the true cause that moved me to Answer to those your Vindicators, the one the Author of The Iust Man in Bonds, the other naming his Pamphlet (A Pearl in a Dunghil); this was it that moved me to reply, to wit, that I might let those men see, they stood for his cause, whose actions rather merited an open Recantation, then a publick Vindication; and also that your self might know how much you swerved from the ways of godliness, and from the obedience God commandeth you to yeeld to your superiors.

And I must tel you Sir, although perhaps you see it not, no man de­siring to know his own imperfections, you have occasioned to the Commonwealth much vexation, and to the Church of God much trou­ble: For in a Book, said to be written by you, intituled, An Answer to nine Arguments, you rayl against the Church, Ministers, Worship, Go­vernment, saying, They are Antichristian, and Diabolical; and in your [Page 9]Book intituled Englands Birthright, you rail against the whole State, and exclaim against the political form of Government; so that you have shewed your self an open enemy both to Church and State, what hath moved you to be so, I cannot say, whether it were the overflow­ings of your refractory mind, or whether spiritual pride moved you to write and divulge that which might make you to be famous, and known to be a man walking contrary to all men; or whether sediti­ous ends perswaded you in hope to be made the head of some Faction and so to become great by unlawful and irregular courses, while you thought that to you and your complices the giddy multitude would flock in heaps, and have said, Virifratres, quid agimus, whereunto it is likely you would have returned and Answer far unlikely to that of St. Peter, perhaps thus, such and such men are unworthy to govern, pluck them down, such, and such are the dear children of God, let them be ad­vanced, but what ever your ends were, I am sure they have produced dire effects. And now Sir, I beseech you let me a little dispute with you, and now, God willing, I shal prove evidently unto you, that the course you, and your adherers have hitherto taken, hath been both se­ditious and rediculous; and I appear to the Censure of the most carping and critical whatsoever, whether I do not sufficiently prove it.

IN all causes, belonging either to Church or Commonwealth, wee are to have regard what mind the complaining part do bear, whe­ther of Amendment or of Innovation, your common Objection is why must not men speak of Abuses? Yes, but with a desire to cure the part afflicted, not to destroy the whole; another great fault is your manner of complaining, not only because it is for the most part in bitter and reproachful tearms, but also, because it is unto the common people in­competent and insufficient Judges, both to determine any thing amisse, for want of skil, and also to amend, which discovereth your intent, rather to be destructive then corrective: Again those very exceptions which you take are frivolous and impertinent, some things indeed you have accused as impious, which if they may appear to be such, God forbid they should be maintained, nor ought it to be sufficient for you to say we wil take away this, because a better may be devised: For wee oftentimes conceive amisse when we compare those things that are in devise with those that are in practice, for the imperfections of the one are hid til by time and tryal they are discovered, the others are already manifest and open to all: Therefore Mr Lilburne be perswaded by him whom, I beleeve, you ranek amongst your enemies, and that for the [Page 10]good both of your soul and body, to abandon the spirit of disaffection, and consider that our Savior saith It is impossible but that there should be offences, but wo be to those by whom they are given: Consider also, that except you and I, and all men else resolve to agree together as much as in us lies, in all peace and unity, we shal never enjoy happiness or tran­quility; for by these our dissentions, we do but, as it were with foolish Priam, pul down our wals to let in our enemies; to this purpose Mr. George Wither excellently wel saith, which his Verses, because they are worthy to be written and to be taken to heart by all the Commons of this Kingdome, I shal here insert them.

‘Thus far he, and we undoubtedly shal find his words as Oracles, if the subjects of this Kingdome agree not together, and live in love and unity, ruine and destruction wil inevitably follow; he that spake all truth hath pronounced, that a kingdome divided against it self cannot stand; and shal we be so foolish as to delude our selves with vain hopes, that his words shal not be fulfilled; if not one jot or tittle which Gods Prophets have said shal fal to the ground, as God hath said they shal not;’ surely what God himself hath said shal be made good; O! that God would therefore put it into the hearts of all men to relinquish al Sedations and Factious Proceedings and that each man might emulate his Neighbor only striving who should become most vertuous

NOw Sir you having strugled long both against King, Lords, and Commons, and now at length are appealed from the Lords house to the Commons Barr, before whom you cannot want of a Just and Legal Trial, that glorious Court, which both is and shal be for ever fa­mous for unexampled vertue, mercy, Justice, and all those vertues ne­cessarie to flourish in so glorious a Senate, wil determine no doubt as shal be according to your deservings: yet now your spirits are elevated and you sing aloud, potior voto, yet it is not the dutie of a good Christi­an so much to insult over those he hath vanquisht; for in your Book, intituled, An anotomy of the Tyranny of the House of Lords, you have a very triumphant title, and a man may guesse by the very contents of it that your spirits are now elevated to a more ample height then when you received that Order Die Martis 23. Iunij 1646. you dedicate your Book to the Honorable Committee appoiuted to consider of the pri­vilidges of the Commons thus.

May it please this Hoonrable Committee in obedience to your Command and Order the sixth of Novemb. last, I here humbly pre­sent you with the Narration under my hand, which by word of mouth I made unto you upon Fryday last of my particular suffer­ings since my Commitment by the Lords.

[Page 12] This your glorious title I envy not, but shal desire the Honorable Committe may find that which so many men have doubted not to re­side in you, to wit, Religion and Fidelity; so that men may repent them of the former ill conceits they had of your and sing your praises for the furture; yet I cannot but wonder at the recapitulation you make in your said book, intituled, An Anotomy of the Lords Tyranny, so often recited in your former Books, to wit, of your stubborn and un­civil carriage to the House of Peers; I must tel you that in so doing your glory is your shame, for your standing up for the rights and privi­ledges of the people, I honor and esteem you, but for your superbious and unwarrantable carriage to your superiors, I contemn and despise you; the subjects of this Kingdome have been a long time enslaved, and like foolish prisoners, played with their fetters; it hath pleased God now to open a way to their infranchisement, O! let it be done in a fair and regular manner; let us not be so unmannerly to ca [...]ve to our selves, since there are those appointed who are both able and willing to to distribute unto us, and let us not, while we go about to enjoy the immunities of Magna Charta, break and infringe Gods Commande­ments. And now Sir, for all your great skil in the Law, I must tell you that you are very grosly mistaken in one point, which you recite page the 10. of your Anotomy of the Lords Tyranny.

Where you say; To speak truly, the Parliament are not, nor ought not, to medle with causes betwixt party and party, that are decidable at the common law, they being the supream Iudicature of the Kingdom, and the last refuge to appeal to, in case of injustice elsewhere, and so may pro­perly be called Iudge of Iudges, rather then Iudge of particular causes and parties. I pray Sir, let me demand of you one thing, what renow­neth a King more, although to speak truly, he is appointed by God only, to look after the good of the people in general, to appoint over them prudent and faithful Governors, and to see them execute Justice and Judgement; yet, I say, what hath renowned them more, then to bee so tenderly zealous over the welfare of their subjects, as to deign to fill up the seat of Justice with their Persons, and to hear the particular com­plaints of each peculiar subject, and indeed Equity commandeth it should be their constant imployment, but that the possibility thereof is taken away, by reason if it were so, they must with Moses, sit each day from morning til night, and yet the people depart unheard; so is it with that great Counsel the Parlament of England, it is for their e­verlasting Fame and Honor to decide pettie causes, whereby they shaw their pious care of the Commons happiness; now this some­times [Page 13]they leave undone, not because it doth not belong to them to hear private causes, but because they are not able to decide affairs of State, and private affairs between man and man also; therefore is your Ar­gument waved that it belongeth not to the Parliament to hear private causes. Again I wonder you should cast such an Aspersion on the Lords as you do in the 14. page of you Book, intituled, An anotamy of the Lords Tyranny; you say, The Lords have been the principal instruments to engage this Kindome in a bloody Warr, That they set us a fighting to unhorse and dismount our old Riders and Tyrants, that so they might get up and ride themselves.

Where in saying so, O how much do you mistake your selfe, it is evident to the whole kingdome, that the Lords have been the Com­posers and not the fomenters of the common troubles, had they sided with the Malignant and Royall partee, I fear it had not been with us as now it is; but it fareth with you as with the Poet Homer, who never writ well of any, whose actions were never so meriting that disturbed his Country, so you delight to say the worst you can, and to Maligne any be they never so innocent that have taken part any way against you, which is in you a very great over-sight.

Again, I esteem you very incorrigible, that you should desire as in the Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny, pag. 19. That you hope the Ho­nourable House when they have judged your cause, will not onely cause the Lords to restore the charges you have been at, during the time of your Imprisonment, but will also grant you ample repairations for your hard and unjust sufferings:

Your sufferings your selfe occasioned by your sturdy and imperious carriage to the Lords, who you not onely resisted but reviled, and is it any reason that when a man shall wilfully set fire on his house and goods, his neighbours should be constrained to make him reparation, I trow not: so is it in your case, your own obstinacy perhaps hath im­poverished your state, and therefore the Lords must make up the breach, and restore unto you the monies your folly hath caused you to expend; for which there is no reason or the least colour: but you seem to urge some reasons in page the 20. why it should be so, where you say,

That the Kings constant custome was, to provide lodging, dyer, and to pay the Fees of all those he committed to the Tower; but the Lords for no cause at all, having committed you thither, put you to pay all the vast extravagances and Fees.

[Page 14] Alas sir, the reason thereof might be this, The Lords know what a numerous multitude of Sectaries were your Idola­ters, and they in not providing for your entertainment in the Tower, would put them to the test, and thereby would give you occasion to find your friends indeed, from your friends in shew, and all this was for your information in that point, and you have found during your imprisonment in the Tower, very much accommodation from those of your society; have neither wanted, as is credibly reported, for either good cheer or wine; a certain Symptome of their affection to­wards you, and now it being fairely hoped by you, as per­haps it may certainly happen, that you shall be delivered out of bonds: O that God would put it into your heart, to do as you once protested to the Lieutenant of the Tower, upon condition he would admit you the Society of your wife and friends, to wit, that you would not write a line in the way of controversie, which would be for your exceeding great availe, but I fear it will be with you, as with those superstitious sea­men, who being in an hideous and threatning storme in dan­ger to loose their lives with their fraught, make solemn pro­testation to some Saint, that if they will appease the fury of the tempest, and allot them safe harbour, they will offer up to their shrine large gifts which notwithstanding when the waves are silent and they arive on shore they forget to do so; it is to be feared that you when you are again at liberty, and injoy those immunities you did ere your confinement, will be the same man still, and steer a course as irregular as ever before, but I hope the Lord will guide your heart better, and quiet your troublesome spirit, and unite your heart to his Church and people, that now at length we may have peace and union among our selves, and not suffer us while we Tithe Mint and Cummin, to leave undone the more necessary du­ties, not suffer us, while we are busied to finde fault, and to [Page 15]urge needless disputations, to forget those duties necessary for the saving of our souls, that we may no longer be a scorn to our neighbouring Nations, who clap their hands and re­joyce to behold our divisions and distractions, hoping there­by to make themselves Lords over us; but he that ruleth the heavens and the earth I hope will so Order the Councels and consultations of our happy Parliament, that by them as his Instruments, he will settle his true worship in this King­dome and cause the Natives thereof to injoy peace truth and happinesse.