So guilty sinners, in a state,
Can by their crimes prognosticate,
And in their consciences feel pain
Some days before a shower of rain:
He, therefore, wisely cast about

All ways he could, t' insure his throat,
And hither came, t' observe and smoke
What courses other riskers took,
And to the utmost do his best
To save himself, and hang the rest.

To match this saint there was another,

As busy and perverse a brother,

An haberdasher of small wares
In politics and state affairs;

More Jew than rabbi Achithophel,
And better gifted to rebel;

For when he 'ad taught his tribe to 'spouse
The cause, aloft upon one house,
He scorn'd to set his own in order,
But try'd another, and went further:
So suddenly addicted still
To 's only principle, his will,
That, whatsoe'er it chanc'd to prove,
Nor force of argument could move,
Nor law, nor cavalcade of Ho'born,
Could render half a grain less stubborn;
For he at any time would hang,
For th' opportunity t' harangue;
And rather on a gibbet dangle,
Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle;
In which his parts were so accomplisht,
That, right or wrong, he ne'er was nonplust;
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease,
And, with its everlasting clack,
Set all men's ears upon the rack.
No sooner could a hint appear,
But up he started to picqueer,

And made the stoutest yield to mercy,
When he engag'd in controversy:
Not by the force of carnal reason,
But indefatigable teasing ;

With vollies of eternal babble,
And clamour, more unanswerable.
For though his topics, frail and weak,
Could ne'er amount above a freak,
He still maintain'd them, like his faults,
Against the desperat'st assaults,
And back'd their feeble want of sense
With greater heat and confidence;
As bones of Hectors, when they differ,

The more they 're cudgell'd, grow the stiffer.
Yet, when his profit moderated,

The fury of his heat abated;
For nothing but his interest
Could lay his devil of contest:

It was his choice, or chance, or curse,
T'espouse the cause for better or worse,
And with his worldly goods and wit,
And soul and body, worshipp'd it:
But when he found the sullen trapes
Possess'd with th' Devil, worms, and claps,
The Trojan mare, in foal with Greeks,
Not half so full of jadish tricks,
Though squeamish in her outward woman,
As loose and rampant as Dol Common,
He still resolv'd, to mend the matter,
T' adhere and cleave the obstinater;
And still, the skittisher and looser
Her freaks appear'd, to sit the closer:
VOL VIII.

For fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are harden'd by th' allay;
And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff,
As when 'tis in a wrong belief.
These two, with others, being met,
And close in consultation set,
After a discontented pause,
And not without sufficient cause,
The orator we nam'd of late,
Less troubled with the pangs of state,
Than with his own impatience
To give himself first audience,
After he had a while look'd wise,

At last broke silence, and the ice.

Quoth he, "There 's nothing makes me doubt Our last outgoings brought about, More than to see the characters

Of real jealousies and fears,

Not feign'd, as once, but sadly horrid,
Scor'd upon every member's forehead;
Who, 'cause the clouds are drawn together,
And threaten sudden change of weather,
Feel pangs and aches of state-turns,
And revolutions in their corns;
And, since our workings-out are crost,
Throw up the cause before 'tis lost.
Was it to run away we meant
When, taking of the covenant,
The lamest cripples of the brothers
Took oaths to run before all others,
But, in their own sense, only swore
To strive to run away before,

And now would prove, that words and oath
Engage us to renounce them both?

"Tis true the cause is in the lurch,
Between a right and mongrel-church,
The presbyter and independent,

That stickle which shall make an end on 't;

As 'twas made out to us the last
Expedient, (I mean Margaret's fast)
When Providence had been suborn'd
What answer was to be return'd:
Else why should tumults fright us now,
We have so many times gone through,
And understand as well to tame,

As, when they serve our turns, t' inflame?
Have prov'd how inconsiderable
Are all engagements of the rabble;
Whose frenzies must be reconcil'd
With drums and rattles, like a child,
But never prov'd so prosperous,
As when they were led on by us;
For all our scouring of religion
Began with tumults and sedition;
When hurricanes of fierce commotion
Became strong motives to devotion;
(As carnal seamen, in a storm,
Turn pious converts, and reform)
When rusty weapons, with chalk'd edges,
Maintain'd our feeble privileges,
And brown-bills, levy'd in the city,
Made bills to pass the grand committee;
When Zeal, with aged clubs and gleaves,
Gave chase to rochets and white sleeves,
And made the church, and state, and laws,
Submit t' old iron, and the cause.
And as we thriv'd by tumults then,
So might we better now again,
If we knew how, as then we did,
To use them rightly in our need:

M

Tumults, by which the mutinous
Betray themselves instead of us;
The hollow-hearted, disaffected,
And close malignant are detected;
Who lay their lives and fortunes down,
For pledges to secure our own;
And freely sacrifice their ears
T' appease our jealousies and fears:
And yet for all these providences
W' are offer'd, if we had our senses,
We idly sit, like stupid blockheads,
Our hands committed to our pockets,
And nothing but our tongues at large,
To get the wretches a discharge:
Like men condemn'd to thunderbolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts;
Or fools besotted with their crimes,
That know not how to shift betimes,
That neither have the hearts to stay,
Nor wit enough to run away;
Who, if we could resolve on either,
Might stand or fall at least together;
No mean nor trivial solaces
To partners in extreme distress;
Who use to lessen their despairs
By parting them int' equal shares;
As if, the more they were to bear,
They felt the weight the easier;
And every one the gentler hung,
The more he took his turn among.
But 'tis not come to that, as yet,
If we had courage left, or wit,
Who, when our fate can be no worse,
Are fitted for the bravest course,
Have time to rally, and prepare
Our last and best defence, Despair:
Despair, by which the gallant'st feats
Have been achiev'd in greatest straits,
And horrid'st dangers safely wav'd,
By being courageously outbrav'd;
As wounds by wider wounds are heal'd,
And poisons by themselves expell'd:
And so they might be now again,
If we were, what we should be, men;
And not so dully desperate,

To side against ourselves with Fate:
As criminals, condemn'd to suffer,

Are blinded first, and then turn'd over.
This comes of breaking covenants,
And setting up exauns of saints,
That fine, like aldermen, for grace,
To be excus'd the efficace:

For spiritual men are too transcendent,
That mount their banks for independent,
To hang, like Mahomet, in the air,
Or St. Ignatius, at his prayer,
By pure geometry, and hate
Dependence upon church or state:
Disdain the pedantry o' th' letter,
And, since obedience is better
(The Scripture says) than sacrifice,
Presume the less on 't will suffice;
And scorn to have the moderat'st stints
Prescrib'd their peremptory hints,
Or any opinion, true or false,
Declar'd as such, in doctrinals;
But left at large to make their best on,
Without being call'd t' account or question:
Interpret all the spleen reveals,

As Whittington explain'd the bells;

And bid themselves turn back again
Lord mayors of New Jerusalem;
But look so big and overgrown,
They scorn their edifiers to own,

Who taught them all their sprinkling lessons
Their tones, and sanctify'd expressions;
Bestow'd their gifts upon a saint,
Like charity, on those that want;
And learn'd th' apocryphal bigots

T' inspire themselves with short-band notes
For which they scorn and hate them worse,
Than dogs and cats do sow-gelders:
For who first bred them up to pray,
And teach the house of commons' way?
Where had they all their gifted phrases
But from our Calamies and Cases?
Without whose sprinkling and sowing,
Who e'er had heard of Nye or Owen ?
Their dispensations had been stifled,
But for our Adoniram Byfield;
And, had they not begun the war,
They 'ad ne'er been sainted as they are:
For saints in peace degenerate,
And dwindle down to reprobate;
Their zeal corrupts, like standing water,
In th' intervals of war and slaughter;
Abates the sharpness of its edge,
Without the power of sacrilege:

And though they 've tricks to cast their sins,
As easy as serpents do their skins,
That in a while grow out again,

In peace they turn mere carnal men,
And, from the most refin'd of saints,
As naturally grow miscreants,
As barnacles turn soland geese
In th' islands of th' Orcades.
Their dispensation 's but a ticket
For their conforming to the wicked,
With whom the greatest difference
Lies more in words and show, than sense:
For as the pope, that keeps the gate
Of Heaven, wears three crowns of state,

So he that keeps the gate of Hell,
Proud Cerberus, wears three heads as well;
And, if the world has any troth,
Some have been canoniz'd in both.

But that which does them greatest harm,
Their spiritual gizzards are too warm,
Which puts the overheated sots

In fever still, like other goats;

For though the whore bends heretics
With flames of fire, like crooked sticks,
Our schismatics so vastly differ,

Th' hotter they 're they grow the stiffer ;
Still setting off their spiritual goods
With fierce and pertinacious feuds ;
For Zeal's a dreadful termagant,
That teaches saints to tear and rant;
And independents to profess
The doctrine of dependences;
Turns meek, and secret, sneaking ones,
To Rawheads fierce and Bloody bones:
And, not content with endless quarrels
Against the wicked and their morals,
The Gibellines, for want of Guelfs,
Divert their rage upon themselves.
For, now the war is not between
The brethren and the men of sin,
But saint and saint, to spill the blood
Of one another's brotherhood,

Where neither side can lay pretence
To liberty of conscience,

Or zealous suffering for the cause,
To gain one groat's-worth of applause;
For, though endur'd with resolution,
"Twill ne'er amount to persecution.
Shall precious saints, and secret ones,
Break one another's outward bones,
And eat the flesh of brethren,
Instead of kings and mighty men?
When fiends agree among themselves,
Shall they be found the greater elves?
When Bell's at union with the Dragon,
And Baal-Peor friends with Dagon;
When savage bears agree with bears,
Shall secret ones lug saints by th' ears,
And not atone their fatal wrath,
When common danger threatens both?
Shall mastiffs, by the collars pull'd,
Engag'd with bulls, let go their hold?

And saints, whose necks are pawn'd at stake,
No notice of the danger take?

But though no power of Heaven or Hell
Can pacify fanatic zeal,

Who would not guess there might be hopes,
The fear of gallowses and ropes,
Before their eyes, might reconcile
Their animosities a while,

At least until they 'ad a clear stage,

And equal freedom to engage,
Without the danger of surprise
By both our common enemies?

"This none but we alone could doubt, Who understand their workings-out,

And know them, both in soul and conscience,
Given up t' as reprobate a nonsense
As spiritual outlaws, whom the power
Of miracle can ne'er restore.
We, whom at first they set-up under,
In revelation only' of plunder,
Who since have had so many trials
Of their incroaching self-denials,
That rook'd upon us with design
To out-reform and undermine;
Took all our interests and commands
Perfidiously out of our hands;
Involv'd us in the guilt of blood,
Without the motive-gains allow'd,
And made us serve as ministerial,
Like younger sons of father Belial:
And yet, for all th' inhuman wrong
They 'ad done us and the cause so long,
We never fail'd to carry on
The work still, as we had begun;
But true and faithfully obey'd,

And neither preach'd them hurt, nor pray'd;
Nor troubled them to crop our ears,
Nor hang us, like the cavaliers;
Nor put them to the charge of gaols,
To find us pillories and carts' tails,
Or hangman's wages, which the state
Was forc'd (before them) to be at;
That cut, like tallies to the stumps,
Our ears for keeping true accompts,
And burnt our vessels, like a new
Seal'd peck, or bushel, for being true;
But hand in hand, like faithful brothers,
Held for the cause against all others,
Disdaining equally to yield
One syllable of what we held.

And, though we differ'd now and then
'Bout outward things, and outward men,
Our inward men, and constant frame
Of spin, still were near the same;
And till they first began to cant,
And sprinkle down the covenant,
We ne'er had call in any place,
Nor dream'd of teaching down free grace;
But join'd our gifts perpetually
Against the common enemy,
Although 'twas our and their opinion,
Each other's church was but a Rimmon;
And yet for all this gospel-union,

And outward show of church-communion,
They 'd ne'er admit us to our shares,
Of ruling church or state affairs,
Nor give us leave t' absolve, or sentence
T' our own conditions of repentance;
But shar'd our dividend o' the crown
We had so painfully preach'd down,
And forc'd us, though against the grain,
T have calls to teach it up again;
For 'twas but justice to restore
The wrongs we had receiv'd before;
And, when 'twas held forth in our way,
We 'ad been ungrateful not to pay;
Who, for the right we 've done the nation,
Have earn'd our temporal salvation,
And put our vessels in a way,

Once more, to come again in play:

For if the turning of us out

Has brought this providence about,
And that our only suffering

Is able to bring in the king,

What would our actions not have done,
Had we been suffer'd to go on?
And therefore may pretend t' a share,
At least, in carrying on th' affair:
But whether that be so or not,
We 've done enough to have it thought,
And that's as good as if we 'ad done 't,
And easier pass'd upon account:
For if it be but half deny'd,
'Tis half as good as justify'd.
The world is naturally averse
To all the truth it sees or hears,
But swallows nonsense, and a lie,
With greediness and gluttony;
And though it have the pique, and long,
"Tis still for something in the wrong;
As women long, when they 're with child,
For things extravagant and wild;
For meats ridiculous and fulsome,
But seldom any thing that 's wholesome;
And, like the world, men's jobbernoles
Turn round upon their ears, the poles,
And what they're confidently told,
By no sense else can be control'd.

"And this, perhaps, may prove the means Once more to hedge-in Providence.

For, as relapses make diseases

More desperate than their first accesses,

If we but get again in power,
Our work is easier than before,
And we more ready and expert
I' th' mystery, to do our part:
We, who did rather undertake
The first war to create than make;
And, when of nothing 'twas begun,
Rais'd funds, as strange, to carry 't on;

Trepann'd the state, and fac'd it down,
With plots and projects of our own;
And if we did such feats at first,
What can we, now we 're better verst?
Who have a freer latitude,
Than sinners give themselves, allow'd;
And therefore likeliest to bring in,
On fairest terms, our discipline;
To which, it was reveal'd long since,
We were ordain'd by Providence,

When three saints' 3 ears, our predecessors,
The cause's primitive confessors,
Being crucify'd, the nation stood
In just so many years of blood,
That, multiply'd by six, exprest
The perfect number of the beast,
And prov'd that we must be the men
To bring this work about again;
And those who laid the first foundation,
Complete the thorough reformation:
For who have gifts to carry on
So great a work, but we alone?
What churches have such able pastors,
And precious, powerful, preaching masters?
Possess'd with absolute dominions
O'er brethren's purses and opinions?
And trusted with the double keys
Of Heaven and their warehouses;
Who, when the cause is in distress,

Can furnish out what sums they please,
That brooding lie in banker's hands,
To be dispos'd at their commands,
And daily increase and multiply
With doctrine, use, and usury;
Can fetch-in parties (as, in war,
All other heads of cattle are)
From th' enemy of all religions,
As well as high and low conditions,
And share them, from blue ribbands, down
To all blue aprons in the town;
From ladies hurried in calleches,
With cornets at their footmens' breeches,
To bawds as fat as Mother Nab,
All guts and belly, like a crab.
Our party's great, and better ty'd
With oaths, and trade, than any side;
Has one considerable improvement
To double fortify the covenant;
I mean our covenant to purchase
Delinquents' titles, and the church's,
That pass in sale, from hand to hand,
Among ourselves, for current land,
And rise or fall, like Indian actions,
According to the rate of factions;
Our best reserve for reformation,
When new outgoings give occasion;
That keeps the loins of brethren girt,
The covenant (their creed) t' assert;
And, when they 've pack'd a parliament,
Will once more try th' expedient:
Who can already muster friends
To serve for members to our ends,
That represent no part o' th' nation,
But Fisher's Folly congregation;
Are only tools to our intrigues,
And sit like geese to hatch our eggs;

3 Burton, Prynne, and Bastwicke, three notorious ringleaders of the factions, just at the beginning of the late horrid rebellion.

Who, by their precedents of wit,
T' outfast, outloiter, and outsit,
Can order matters underhand,
To put all business to a stand;
Lay public bills aside for private,
And make them one another drive out;
Divert the great and necessary,
With trifles to contest and vary;

And make the nation represent,

And serve for us in parliament;
Cut out more work than can be done
In Plato's year, but finish none,
Unless it be the bulls of Lenthal 4,
That always pass'd for fundamental;
Can set up grandee against grandce,
To squander time away, and bandy;
Make lords and commoners lay sieges
To one another's privileges;
And, rather than compound the quarrel,
Engage, to th' inevitable peril
Of both their ruins, th' only scope
And consolation of our hope;

Who, though we do not play the game,
Assist as much by giving aim;
Can introduce our ancient arts,
For heads of factions, t' act their parts;
Know what a leading voice is worth,
A seconding, a third, or fourth;
How much a casting voice comes to,
That turns up trump of Aye or No;
And, by adjusting all at th' end,
Share every one his dividend :
An art that so much study cost,
And now 's in danger to be lost,
Unless our ancient virtuosis,
That found it out, get into th' houses.
These are the courses that we took
To carry things by hook or crook 5,
And practis'd down from forty-four,
Until they turn'd us out of door:
Besides the herds of boutefeus
We set on work without the house,
When every knight and citizen
Kept legislative journeymen,
To bring them in intelligence,
From all points, of the rabble's sense,
And fill the lobbies of both houses
With politic important buzzes;
Set up committees of cabals,
To pack designs without the walls;
Examine, and draw up all news,
And fit it to our present use:

4 Mr. Lenthal was speaker to that house of com mons which begun the rebellion, murdered the king, becoming then but the rump, or fag-end of a house, and was turned out by Oliver Cromwell; restored after Richard was outed, and at last dissolved themselves at general Monk's command: and as his name was set to the ordinances of this house, these ordinances are here called the bulls of Lenthal, in allusion to the pope's bulls, which are humorously described by the author of A Tale of a Tub.

5 Judge Crook and Hutton were the two judges who dissented from their ten brethren in the case of ship-money, when it was argued in the exchequer; which occasioned the wags to say, that the king carried it by Hook, but not by Crook.

Agree upon the plot o' the farce,
And every one his part rehearse;
Make Q's of answers, to waylay
What th' other party 's like to say;
What repartees, and smart reflections,
Shall be return'd to all objections;
And who shall break the master-jest,
And what, and how, upon the rest:
Help pamphlets out, with safe editions,
Of proper slanders and seditions,
And treason for a token send,
By letter, to a country friend;
Disperse lampoons, the only wit
That men, like burglary, commit,
With falser than a padder's face,
That all its owner does betrays,
Who therefore dares not trust it, when
He's in his calling to be seen;
Disperse the dung on barren earth,
To bring new weeds of discord forth;
Be sure to keep up congregations,
In spite of laws and proclamations:
For charlatans can do no good,
Until they 're mounted in a crowd;
And when they 're punish'd, all the hurt
Is but to fare the better for 't;
As long as confessors are sure
Of double pay for all th' endure,
And what they earn in persecution,
Are paid t'a groat in contribution:
Whence some tub-holders-forth have made
In powdering-tubs their richest trade;
And, while they kept their shops in prison,
Have found their prices strangely risen;
Disdain to own the least regret
For all the Christian blood we 've let ;
Twill save our credit, and maintain
Our title to do so again;

That needs not cost one dram of sense,
But pertinacious impudence.
Our constancy to our principles,
In time, will wear out all things else;
Like marble statues, rubb'd in pieces
With gallantry of pilgrims' kisses;
While those who turn and wind their oaths
Have swell'd and sunk, like other froths;
Prevail'd a while, but 'twas not long
Before from world to world they swung,
As they had turn'd from side to side;
And, as the changelings liv'd, they dy'd."
This said, th' impatient statesmonger
Could now contain himself no longer,
Who had not spar'd to show his piques
Against th' haranguer's politics,
With smart remarks of leering faces,
And annotations of grimaces.
After he 'ad administer'd a dose
Of snuff mundungus to his nose,
And powder'd th' inside of his skull,
Instead of the outward jobbernol,
He shook it with a scornful look
On th' adversary, and thus he spoke:
"In dressing a calf's head, although
The tongue and brains together go,
Both keep so great a distance here,
'Tis strange if ever they come near;
For who did ever play his gambols
With such insufferable rambles,
To make the bringing in the king,
And keeping of him out, one thing?

Which none could do, but those that swore
T'as point-blank nonsense heretofore;
That to defend was to invade,

And to assassinate, to aid: 1
Unless, because you drove him out,
(And that was never made a doubt)
No power is able to restore

And bring him in, but on your score:
A spiritual doctrine, that conduces
Most properly to all your uses.
'Tis true, a scorpion's oil is said
To cure the wounds the vermin made;
And weapons dress'd with salves restore
And heal the hurts they gave before:
But whether presbyterians have
So much good-nature as the salve,
Or virtue in them as the vermin,
Those who have try'd them can determine.
Indeed 'tis pity you should miss
Th' arrears of all your services,
And, for th' eternal obligation
Y' laid upon th' ungrateful nation,
Be us'd so unconscionably hard,
As not to find a just reward

For letting Rapine loose, and Murther,
To rage just so far, but no further,
And, setting all the land on fire,

To burn t' a scantling, but no higher;

For venturing to assassinate

And cut the throats of Church and State,

And not be allow'd the fittest men

To take the charge of both again:
Especially that have the grace
Of self-denying gifted face;

Who, when your projects have miscarry'd,
Can lay them, with undaunted forehead,
On those you painfully trepann'd,
And sprinkled in at second-hand,
As we have been, to share the guilt
Of Christian blood, devoutly spilt;
For so our ignorance was flamm'd,

To damn ourselves, t' avoid being damn'd;
Till, finding your old foe, the hangman,
Was like to lurch you at backgammon,
And win your necks upon the set,

As well as ours, who did but bet,
(For he had drawn your ears before,
And nick'd them on the self-same score)
We threw the box and dice away,
Before y' had lost us at foul play,
And brought you down to rook, and lie,
And fancy only, on the by;
Redeem'd your forfeit jobbernoles,
From perching upon lofty poles,
And rescued all your outward traitors
From hanging up, like aligators;
For which igeniously ye 've shew'd
Your presbyterian gratitude;
Would freely have paid us home in kind,
And not have been one rope behind.
Those were your motives to divide,
And scruple, on the other side;
To turn your zealous frauds, and force,
To fits of conscience and remorse;
To be convinc'd they were in vain,
And face about for new again :
For truth no more unveil'd your eyes,
Than maggots are convinc'd to flies;
And therefore all your lights and calls
Are but apocryphal and false,