AS an Antidote against Cavilling Cavilliering exception, ready to finde a knot in a streight rush, or as Mice and Rats in walls, and Apes and Monkies in pure lawnes, to make or rend holes where they finde none; lest I mistake in the number of these railing Rabshakehs: I must confesse, I am a doubting Sceptick, and an unresolved Didimist, whether onely one furious fantasticke make his three fooles bolts which he throwes (as sometimes Thir­sites against Ʋlisses, Semei against David, Rabshakeh against Hezekias, Scopius against King James, and Endemon or Cacodemon, against our worthiest Peers and Church lights) in the very face of the Parlia­mentary Patritians of our state, and against the Militia in his malitia flying bird alone, as an individuum vagum, or a Woodcock in a mist of ignorance; or rather like one Goliah defying the host of Israel, it being something probable that here we finde the tongue and tooth but of one Cerberus with three heads, or of one monstrous Chimera in three shapes; like one eccho (composed like this wordy work of wind and aire) oft resonating and redoubling three or four sounds, as one babbling Battus and verbalist, three or foure words to as small purpose, as the sounding of an empty Hogshead: Or that there be three Rakehells twisting and twining this their rope Rhe­toricke to choke or strangle our best Patriots, with their three pa­per cords, as the Turkish mutes oft the best of Bashawes with their halters, at the meer lust for Law of their tyrannizing Ottomans: but the matter is but like a matter of Moon-shine in the water, whether one Moon-calfe here bleat in three libels, one Asse brey, one Wolfe howle, and one Owle houte against the shining Sun of Magistracy and Ministery, high Court and Campe; or there bee three Curs all barking, or three Mastive dogs, like Butchers dogs with bloody mouthes, biting and snarling at emulated Suprema­cie; as like one another in their stigmatizing stile, as John a Nokes in the same case and cause to John a Stiles; or as a Snake to Snake, Ser­pent to Serpent, Viper to Viper, all stinging the breasts that have bred them, and fed them.

All three (if three) led like Ahabs false Prophets in their vain pro­gnosticks by one deluding spirit, al birds of one black & bloody fea­ther, all frogs croaking one tone out of the infernall pit; all broken bels better for hanging, ringing of the same peale in their large and loose appeales (like Libertines) from all Parliamentary Lawes; all like Armenian Dragons spitting fire, with tongues set on fire by [Page 2] hell, more flamivorous then the Northerne Hecla, the Sicilian Aeina, or that Vesuvus which choaked the good Patriot Pliny; all like Simeon and Levi brethren in iniquity, never a barrell better Herring, all fellows well met at foot-ball, even to make foot-balls (if curst cowes like Jezabel one against Elias, and the Arrians against Athana­sius had not short hornes) even of our wisest and worthiest heads, even such spurned Bulls as cruell Scilla made of the head of Ma­tius, Mark Anthony of the head of Tully that eloquent speaker, and un­grateful Ptolomy and Scep [...]nius the head of their best deserving friend undaunted Pompey; but if they plead that they know not one another: Sure if similitude be the cause of love, and the adomant of friend­ship, they may be acquainted without a couple of Capons, as soon as the Devill with the Collier, they are so like, that they cannot but say (when they meet at Dawes crosse, or in Knaves alley, or in Tospot alley, like kinde Poetasters or pot tasters) ego novi sinonem & sinon novit me; its merry when knaves meet, to keep Hillary Tearme, Cica­da, Cicadae, Chara, one Grashopper and Creckit cleats to another mulus mulum scabit, one scab'd mule knaps another, & graculus assidit graculo, one jaw jangles with another; we sing all one song, though cleane out of tune, as that ungratefull scabgooke; the Cuccow in June, after she have torne (like our Church and State Vipers) the kinde bird who bred her and fed her: yea I say more, though these three junior Rabshekah's, should be as snarling heretofore one against another as hounds in a kennell, or in couples, yet as they are united Nimrods in hunting to the very death, if they could, the most honourable and noble blood which runs in the veynes of both Houses, with bloody pens and tongues (till they get Cains sword, and Herods axe, for all innocuous Johns, Naboths and Abels) me thinks eo nomine, even this tye of fraternity in villany, should re­concile them, as much as ever Herod and Pilate against Christ. Ephra­im and Manasses against Judah, Jesuits, Priests, and Fryers, against true Protestants, Antinomians, Socinians, Familists, Arminians, and other Heretickes, all against the orthodox and true believers, how ever different all amongst themselves, like the heads of the serpent Amphis [...]ena, one fighting against another (as indeed Bees a­gree together in one hive, Pismires in one mossie hill; yea sevis inter se convenit ursis, Beares in one cave; Foxes in woods, yea in Townes, in sheeps cloathing; in Cities in fox fur gownes, yet all against in­nocent Lambes) as Devills agree together in one hell, and their a­gents, and Jesuitized, Achitophilized, Hammanized, Papized, [Page 3] Athized working tooles on earth, as Tobiah the Ammonite, and Sanballat the Horonite, and Geshem the Arabian against our Ezraes and Nebemiahs & the Elders of Israel, to hinder the re-edifying of our Jerusalem, the Reformation of Religion, and the repairing, & pur­ging of our Temples, Neb. 2. 19. & 6. 2. as the Scribes and Pharisees, and Saduces, and Herodians, still against Christ and his Disciples, his true Ministers and his Messengers, as the Syrians, the Ammonites, and the Moabites, against every zealous Jehosaphat, 2 Chr 20. 2. as the Elders of the people, the Priests, and my Lord Pashur whilom a­gainst Jeremy, to imprison his body, to smite him with the tongue, and not to hearken to his words, Jer. 18. 18. (more then Schisma­tickes, Episcopists, and deafe adders now, to such true Seers, and Prophets, as God hath sent and set amongst us) all that beare evill unto Sion, and that hate to be reformed, Ps. 50. now being tyed and combined together like Sampsons foxes, with firebrands in their tailes and in their tongues too, to fire our Church and State in new raised combustions, as we may see the nature of every other Fox and Malignant wolfe in the Church even in these now, who by their lewd Libells, and poysonous Pamphlets, have cast aspersions both upon our Senators and Synod, as foule as false, to bring them in contempt with the fluctuate and credulous mutable multitude, who will believe their eares in a manner before their eyes, and take up ought like a ball at rebound, and snugge in any scandall, chiefly against great men and good men their superiours, though they knew the Devill were the author of it, or his hell hatched Semina­ries, like these lying Mercuries: with whom to grapple a little closer.

First, I wonder they blush not, as they would, if they had not impudent harlots browes of brasse, and foreheads of iron, to stum­ble so foule at the threshold (as Crassus did when he went his fatall expedition against the Parthians, and Caesar to the Senate where he was stabd, even in the Title wherewith they christned the spurious brats of their braines with the name of Mercury, which Mercury if we believe Poets or Historians, was as very a Thiefe, as [...]yron, or Ca­ [...]us, or our English Luke Hutton and Mannering, or any of our Rob­carriers in these late wars (though now of the Hastings, deserving a Newcastle) with all he was a cheater, and a lyer, a couzener, and an imposter, like the Turkish Mahomet, the Spanish Gusman, Laza­rillo de Tormes, and our most nimble Troynovant City Sinons, be­sides he was euripus homo a wavering wimble, a fluctuate fellow, an unconstant weathercocke, suited as a temporizer for all persons [Page 4] and places, as the plannet Mercury is said to be good with the good, and bad with the bad, like our Mercurialized newters, Disciples with Disciples, and Traytors with Pharisees, as once Judas; soft wax fit for any impression, and white paper fit for any print, as Camelions for any colour but white (being every thing but honest.) Fourthly, as Hermes was one of the names of Mercury, joyned with Aphrodite, signifying the Sea foame, one of the Epithites of Venus, there was produced a kinde of masculine feminine monster, called Hermo­phrodite (like some Harres and Hienaes) neither male, nor female, but both, as these our Mercuries are: as we say of archized Buffons and Tarltonists, neither knaves, nor fooles, but both; as a mule is neither an Horse nor an Asse, but both; a Cynecepholist neither Ape nor Dog, but both; a Meer-maid neither fish nor flesh, but both; mulier formosa superne desine as in piscem: thus like some Popes in their own usurped names, these Chaiphasses or Catiffes, have prophesied trulier of themselves then they wist; Naball is a name, and folly is in it; and Mercury is their name, and lying, and leizing, and colouging, and rouging, and dissembling is in it, as in that grand Impostor the Aegyptian Moses, and Bencosba the son of lying in Josephus, and in these Pseudo Princes recorded in the same Josephus, lib. 17. cap. 14. antiq. and in Melancton Chronicle lib. 4: p. 358. and in Tacitus lib. 18. pag. 587. and in Munsters Cosmography pag. 171. who tooke upon them the names of great Potentates, though they were but Peasants, Se conveniunt rebus nomina sepe suis, as which Resetters, Thieves have sym­pathies, so to their names answer our Mercuries.

Lastly, as Mercury an Outlandish drug, is as ranke poyson as ei­ther Ratsbaine or Henbaine, or Cicuta, or Bulls-blood that poy­soned Themistocles, or any other poysons not worth naming, by which the Athenians poysoned Socrates and Phocion, Queene Elinor, faire Rosamond, the Roman Calphurinus his sleeping wives, and Pope Alexander and his Bastard Borgias themselves, instead of some Cardi­nalls: so there is as much tongue-venome and poyson dropt from the pens of these our lying libelling Mercuries, as there were diseases in the opened [...]anidraes box, or armed Greekes in the Trojan horse to the intended ruination of all true Trojans, loyall Patricians in the Senate, and godly well-affected Ministers in the Synod: yea I adde more, As Mercury is a poysoned drug, though inclosed in a gawdy Apothecaries box, or given like Jaels butter to Sicera in a Lordly dish; or in the Sacramentall bread or wine, as the Monkes once so poysoned King John of England, and Henry the seventh, an [Page 5] Emperour of Germany; So these and such like mercurialized Scy­cophants, how did they flatter regallity, and sooth it up to an un­limited transcendency, in a Persian and Turkish trampling upon all Lawes humaine, divine, naturall, nationall, and municipall, being like Craterus rather friends to Alexanders fortunes as a King, then to his person like Ephestion; yet for all their dawbings, and sowing cushions under their elbowes, like their Court Chaplaines, they give them but poysoned pills in sugar: Joabs kisses, Judasses, Haile Master, and Ravillacks Jesuitized cringes, with a rotten heart, and oft a truculent hand; they doe but pave their way, as Damocles to Dionisius to injustice, cruelty, and usurpation, yea to their owne acted Tragedies, as with oyle and butter; they doe but hang them (as once Darius had prepared) with golden halters, stab them as with Heliogabulus his golden knives, sting them as the Serpent Ta­rantula lurking in green grasse till they die laughing, claw them as Tygers to mollifie them to themselves, & to put the spur of oppres­sion to all others; as Patritius in his second Booke of a Kingdome, tit. 1. pag. 82. and he that writes the Politicall Courtier, pag. 82. re­solve their owne questions? What made Nero so well educated by Seneca, so cruell? Caesar such an usurping Rebell against his owne Country? Rehoboam so sterne and austere? Tygranes the King of Pontus so tyrannicall, ere the Romans curbed him: in one word, their verdict is to every query, adulatio, adulatio, flattery, flattery? Mercurialized flattery (which though at first, like sweet poysons, it be pleasing to the pallat, yet at last, as Solomon speakes of wine and women, Prov. 9. 17. 18. & cap. 23. 32. it stings like a Serpent and bites like an Adder, which caused Sigismund the Emperour, as Me­lancton hath it in his Chronicles ( lib. 5. pag. 630.) to hit a flatterer a good boxe on the eare, with this memento, Cur me mordes, why dost thou bite me, and caused Zerpes saith Strigellus in his Chronicles part. 2. pag. 119. to desire Demaratus a wise Counsellour ever to speake to him, rather vera, things that might profit him, then jucunda, delight­some things to please him: This caused also Attila the King of the Huns, to cast some scycophantizing Poems of the Calabrian Poet Marulus into the fire, in which he had too hyperbolically extolled him: Antigonus for the same cause, saith Tholosanus in his Common­wealth, lib. 6. cap. 12. pag. 339. distasting and detesting the flaughing Poems of Hermoditus, because he would have made him (as they some Gnatonists, Alexander) the sonne of Jupiter, and si quid mea carmina possunt: if I might be held wise or worthy enough to cen­sure, [Page 6] our Mendatious and malignant Mercuries mixt with saturnall spirits, which cast aspersions on our state Ephorists and Patriots as blacke as their inck, or that which the fish Scilopendra vomits out to blunder oft, and to trouble cleane waters; and these Court holy waters more poysonous then those of the Stygian lake, which they sprinkle upon a Princely Monarchy, to doe after the Persian Law, quod libet, licet, every thing, or any thing, without being questioned, Pope like, with cur ita facis, why doth it so? or without such rela­tion to counsell and counsellours (as the best temperamentum ad Pon­dus, in the body Politicke) as the hot Hart (an emblem of regality) hath reference to the bellows of the lungs to blow upon it, and to coole it: I say, I would have all such Mercurialized guilded paper poysons, meerly consumed by Tobacco pipes, like Tobacco, to smoke, or like the flattering Courtier Thurinus by smoake, as meerly consecrated to Vulcan; or in the best use, if reprieved: I would have them imployed by some Chandelours to stop Mustard-pots; or by Monsier A-jaix, as Harringtons Satyrs have metamorphized him.

Withall I further expostulate with my mercenary Mercury, or Mounsier Mendax, why he, or any of his fraternity, was so long from the 10, 11, and 12, to the 17, 18, 19 of April in weaving a poor spiders web or Arachnees clew out of their owne invenomed bow­ells, to catch poore credulous plebeian flesh fleas; or rather in hat­ching of a wind egge or two, which by the incubation of some Toads, as poysonous as themselves, may bring forth Cockatrices; egregiam certe laudem & spolia ampla tulisti, every one of you have stoutly lyed and vied for the whet-stone: and after some pumping of your hide-bound genius, with Juno Lucina fer opem, perturiunt montes, nascitur riduculus mus, you have brought forth a mouse to get into the Trunkes of Alephants, or rather a blacke Rat to gnaw all Parliamentary papers and edicts; yet I prophesie, that if you bee once catcht out of your lurking holes, and Cacus dens, where you securely croake (as all Schismaticall frogs) in corners, we have state storkes would catch you by the crags, and Lionized Cats, would clapper-claw you till you squeaked; and perhaps you may at last finde by wofull experience, that you may sigh or sing Ovids Elegiackes, with ingenio perii; your owne wits may be your owne woes, as Cambises and Saul were slaine with their own swords; as Adonijah spoke words, and a Lieutenant of the Tower write lines, like Vrias his letters, to their owne deaths; so your owne pennes (with propriis configimur pennis) with which you pricke and pierce [Page 7] our Senatours, as with the sharpened quills of Porcupines, may pierce your selves; as its noted that Cassius and Brutus, killed them­selves with those very swords which they drew against Caesar; it may be you may know what it is to pulLions by the beard; you may buy repentance as dear by your abused wickedwits spurted (as mad dogs their slavers, as inraged Boares their froth, and horses their foams) in the very faces of disgraced Grandees; as Antiphon bought his bold jeast broken upon Dionisius which cost him his head; or as Anaxarchus bought his sarcismes cast upon Anacreon, which afterwards brayed him in a mortar; as Pantaleon was cast into a darke cave, and fed with the bread of affliction to his dying day for his base aspersions cast upon Arsinoe the wife of Lisimachus. No lesse tragicall were the Iromes which some of the Nobles of Arragon spurted on Ranimirus their King, recalled out of a Monastery, which cost no lesse then e­leven of them their lives, with this caveat, ignor at vulpecula, cum quo ludat, the Fox knowes not with whom he playes when he is too bold with the Lion, as the tongue tragedies of these and many moe, you may see writ in their owne blood (as yours may be in time) if you have either will to read them, or skill to understand them, largely historified by Collenutius in his first booke of the History of Naples p. 20. by Hagaceus in his Bohemian Chronicle, part. 2. pag. 171. by Strigellius upon Justin. pag. 169. by Woffius in his memorables Tom. 1. pag. 359. chiefly by Erasmus in his Apothegmes in his sixt booke, fol. 478, 479. sc. 548, 549, and in his 7 booke fol. 633. to all whom their owne licentious and scurrilous wits, unguided like Belliro­phus horses, without the Minervaes bridle of wisdome, were as fatall and tragicall, as the horse of Sejanus was to Cassius and Tolobella, and to every one of his Masters, and the Tholous gold to every one that possessed and plundered it, in whose broken glasses you may see so far your owne faces; that as generous spirits (like Alexander in par­doning King Porus, and in killing audacious Clitus and too bold Calisthenes) are alwayes more exasperated with words then with swords, and will rather pardon Targets against them then tongues; so you may at last come to buy your impetuous scurrility in your scandalum magnatum in the highest degree, as dear as Semei his reviling of David, 2 Sam. 16. as Ra [...]shekah his railings against Ezekias, 2 Kin. 19. as Michol her mockings of her royall husband, 2 Sam. 6. as Ismael and Hagar their prophane scoffes against Isaac▪ Gen. 21. yea as copious as I have heard his invectives against a Platonicall Rex pacificus, re­venged by an English Heroes; or as those brats of Bethlehem [Page 8] brought their hereditary scurrilous taunts against that Round­head, sound-head Elisha, torne (as their tongues had torne him) by She-bears in a just retaliated vengeance, 2 King. 2. such Curs as you bawling so long against Lions, and such Crowes as you, chatte­ring so long against incensed Eagles, that they may lacerate and teare you as Hercules did Ops, since patientia lae sa furor, the most noble and masculine patience abused turnes into rage, as sweet wine into sowre vinegar; even a patient Abner too far provoked beyond his temper may smite with his sharpe speare a scurrilous Hazael, whose loose tongue runs swifter then his heeles, 2 Sam. 2. 23. and for your parts, were you knowne, I am perswaded as you speake and write what you will, you should suffer what you would not, nemesis a Tergo, a just revenge, dogs and haunts your unjust railing, like Brutus his ghost, you have a Cerberus that barkes within you, called consci­ence, if it be not seared and cauterized, that multa miser timeo, quia seri multa proterve.

In the meane space, quod defertur non aufertur, adest Rammisia nemesis, Thy tongue deviseth mischiefe like a sharpe raizour, working deceitfully; Thou lovest evill more then good, and lying rather then to speake rightcousnesse; Thou lovest all deceiving words, Oh thou deceitfull tongue, God shall likewise for ever destroy thee, he shall take thee away and plucke thee out of thy dwelling house, and out of the land of the living; the righteous also shall see and feare, and laugh at thee, Psal. 52, 53. 4, 5, 6. The verdict is past, the decree thou seest is gone out like the decrees of the Medes and Persians from the up­per house of Heaven, how ere thou sleight, villifie and nullifie this lower house on earth, where God is terrible in the assembly of his Saints, both in the Senate and the Synod: but thou saiest, quid [Page 9] haec ad rom bum, what is this to slie Mercury, thou scofest them as bruta fulmina, squibs and fire-workes, lightning and thunder, without bolts, and sleights the decrees of God, as much as of our terrestriall Gods, yea, as over shooes, over boots, adding thirst to drunkennesse, the Cain-like defence of the sinne to the offence, thou with a brazen brow pleads recte fecisti; like Saul, that thou hast said and done all well, I Sam. 15. though mors in olla, death be in the inke pot, & in penna Gehenna, hell be in the pen (as in the sanguinnolent letters once of Ahab and Jezabel against Naboth, 1 King. 21. 6. of the Scribes and Pharisees against the primative Saints, Acts 9. 2, 3. of that accursed Court Commet Hamman, against the Jewes, Hester 6. and (as some say, aut mentiuntur poëtae) out of the English Court Frenchified into Ireland, dyed red with the blood of a C. and so thousand Prote­stants) yet Matchiavillian Mercury like Solomons Harlot wipes his mouth, and saith, he hath not sinned; he presents like some Church­wardens once omnia bene all is wel on his part, he finds an ignoramus in himself of any delinquency against the Parliament, he is not loose i'th fast, he will stand stifly to his tackling, and like Tom tell troth, justifie what he hath said, as a plaine Macedonian, calling a spaid, a spaid; he is not bird-mouthed, he will say more; but to stop his mouth with this bone to gnaw on, or choake-peare, and to cope up this Beare with this muzzle: how is it then, that like the Persians and our wilde vilde Irish, he throwes his poysoned darts and runnes away? how is it that after crowing before the victory, this Craven flyes the pit (as the French coward once in a duell from the Irish Coursey) ere ever stroke be given? how is it that he playes least in sight, walkes by owl-light, and keeps hearts in Tenebris? how is it that like a wag-taile, a Scarabaean flea, or a Gentleman in debt, he skips here and there, as a squirrill in a tree, we know not how to seize on him; nay as though he had Gyges his ring, walking invi­sibly? how is it that we cannot finde him? how is it that he dare not father his bastard-lyes, of which his corrupt heart was the mo­ther, his tongue the midwife, and the wicked world (now fostering all villany) the nurse; sure truth seeks no corners: And if Mercury reply that I am an Anomist as well as he, and so retort upon me medice cura teipsum, to cure my selfe in what I thinke him diseased; I tell him impar congressus; there is not the like case nor cause: for first, its probable I am knowne, or may be ex consequenti, as Hercules his proportion by his foot, and the Lion by his paw, so far as I can scarce be concealed, if I would live, lurke, and sleep in a warme skin. Secondly, why should I reveale my selfe to an Antagonist? I [Page 10] know not against whose imaginary person to fight, I should but beat the air, sow the wind, and reap the whirlewind: but let Mr. Mercury be Mercury sublimating, or- Mercurius sublimus, hold up his head like a man; sub dio, sub jove f [...]igus, let him not as the woodcocke from the fouler, or the Asse from the Woolfe, hide his head in a bush; or as the Panther hides his horrid head from the lesser beasts till he de­voure them, shewing them onely his speckled, and spotted body, and then I will so shew my selfe in displayed colours, that we will runne at Tilt, till I hope to unhorse him, though perhaps I shall never un-Asse him, making himselfe here a wicked witty foole in Print, a meer As in presenti, that to please his Malignant masters, he may have As in futuro, so many yellow dusted studs, as may trap him, like Apulejus his golden Asse, being as yet but meere Eu [...]nanus his Asse, faining to roare in a Lions skin, or a sympathizing foale of Balaams Asse boldly kicking both at Prophets and Patritians, to kick both out of Ecclesiasticall and secular seats.

But I have curried this Asse enough with my toothed pen in ge­nerall satirizings, onely to make him as humble as that Asse who onely of irrationalls carried Christ (as Saint Christopher and his Virgin mother of rationalls) being for the present as proud in his imaginary carrying of Regality on his backe to Westminster, as that Asse was in the Poet, which carried the goddesse Isis; or that Mule in the French Stevens Apology, who being borrowed of a Lady, to carry a Pope, would never suffer any to bestride her after, but the Pope, as though she had been a Beucephalus, and her carriage an Alexander.

But let us heare the Mercurialized Asse (in his owne conceit, tanquam Asinus ad Liram, or Asinus ad Tribunall) brey in his owne dia­lect, as farre from the wit of a true Mercury indeed, Nuncius deorum▪ who charmed Argus, or of Mercurius Trismegistus, who was the Le­gifer of the Aegrohans, as Thirsites is farre from the wit of an Vlisses, or wisdome of Nestor, or Bavius and Mevius from the sweet numbers▪ of Virgil and Ovid; but listen how he begins, as the Irish, with an▪

O hone, like a Bittern and dying Hena.

With a groane, O, he cryes, Sicke, sicke, sicke.

Alas! whats the matter? some Gallienist or Paracelsian soone to▪ cast his water, or some Jupiter menecrates to save himselfe, we lose a most pretious don quipot, whose wits sparkle like salt in the fire, and make such pastime-passing measure, as there needs no other foole nor fidler where he comes: But whats his sicknesse, sure he hath▪ [Page 11] tooke no surfet, like his Idolized Prelates of slit noses and cropt eares, whose heads have beene ever since wrapt with rent rotchets; nor is he pain'd with the stone in his Pharoized heart, for that as white powder and sulfuration kills without noise; but its probable by his hot mouth and his furd tongue that had need be scaped by some Skinner, it is so foule, that his blood is wonderously distem­pered in the burning feavor of some raging lust: I see by his colour he is troubled with a very bad liver, and I smell by the vapours of his stinking breath, blasting even pure white paper, much more Pa­tutians, that he hath very rotten lungs; and without question he is much troubled with the spleene, that Epidemicall disease spreads further then any plague amongst all his fellows, from all parts of the land, running as frenzie and Popery in a blood, as an hereditary disease amongst them; or it may be this Bacchanalean, is top or tap heavy, he hath wanted sleepe so long, that he begins to rave or talke idly, he had need have some poppy, opium, or dormitory drug, or Hellibore to restore him to his right wits.

Oh, but he is sicker then he was, call in neighbours, hold up his head, he begins to perbreake his minde in a dog-sicke drunken vo­mit, a besome and a bowle presently, or a Scavinger, up with it man, if it be but a gallon it will ease thy stomach; I doubt he will disgorge his very gal, there comes matter from him as black as ink, as poysonous as Sodomes lake, which infects the fish thrown in it, and the birds which flye over it. The onely way to cure him throughly now, that he casts naturally, and as physically as any hawke (since he still raves) is to phlebotomize him in his vaine veynes, and to make an incision into his scull (perhaps there may flye out [...]dotte­rils, widgyns, and woodcockes, and to take out his braines and well washt with holy water, and stopt like a calves head with salt and sage, so stitch it up againe with some sollid counsel, hee may come to be as sound both in body and braine, as the eight wise men, or a gull of Gotham, capable to be vicar of all fooles, chiefly if he be dieted daily with Rew, and Thrisis and True love, and Hearts­ease, and All heale, alias patience, and rub'd over a while with un­guentum baccalinum, or Crab-tree oyle in Bedlam, or Bridewell, hee may yet live many a faire day, to come to the office of Mr. of Re­vels or Rebels, or Lord of mis-rule: but he is not onely sick him­selfe, as I gather by his groaning O: and by the symptomes of his diseases, dropt even from his polluted penne, but as though this Mountebanke quacksalver, or some of his fellow Empericks, pitied [Page 12] them, or could prescribe their cure, he tels us that the Saints are sicke, and he disturbs their distempers with more distemper in himselfe (as Diogenes once trampled Platoes pride with his dirty feet in greater pride) that the Saints are sicke I marvell not, yea sicke to the very heart, mourning like Doves in the desert, and Pe­licans in the wildernesse, yea washing their very couches with tears, and their beds with weeping, for their owne sinnes, and the sinnes and sufferings of the times, as did David, Hezekias, Lot, Jeremy, Ezra, Nehemiah, and other holy mourners in Sion, in their dayes, Psal. 6. Psal. 38. Psal. 51. 2 King. 20. Esay 38. 2 Pet. 2. Nehem. 1. Ezra 10. Jer. 9. 1. as indeed they have now more cause then ever to be soule-sicke, and to weepe streames of blood for the slaine of the people both corpo­really and spiritually; to see still the distempers of these unjoynted cuperate, bleeding, if not last breathing, Antipodized times, in which the whole head is sicke in the body Politicall, and the heart heavy; yea from the crowne of the head, to the sole of the foot, no­thing but wounds, blaines and putrifactions, Esa 1. 6. and likely to mend (like winter waies, soure Ale in summer, roten apples, and old gangreen ulcers) still worse and worse, chiefly when the State Phy­sitians are obstructed in their cures by such rash and rude Empericks as himselfe, who all infected as with the Kings evill, from Dan to Beershebah, would so cure Church and State, by reducing againe Papized, Diotrephian, domineering Episcopacie, without any mo­dification, as by prosecuting in statu quo prius, Altar bowing, and turning all Religion like▪ bottle Ale into frothy Ceremonies, drawing in so, perverted Popery by Hispaniolized and Frenchified stratagems, as by head and shoulders (as Talus beasts into his den) by bringing upon us downright Popery, to the probable more then Parisian Calabrian, Merindolian, and Queen Maries Masse massa­cring of our bodies, to the losse of Religion, the life of our soules, by a conflagration, and a Phaetonian confusion of all; he and his Parliamentary antagonists, would so bring us peace with losse of grace: as the sonnes of Brutus brought peace to themselves and Rome, in sweating to bring in the bannished Taraquins; or as the Duke de Alva, that Storke amongst Belgicke frogs, brought peace to the Netherlands, in labouring with Cardinall Greenvill to plant (with Bishops) the Spanish Inquisition; or as the Macedonian Phillip, proffered peace to the Athenians upon the delivery of their City Atlas, (the Speaker in their Parliament) Demosthenes; which was as he told them, parallel to the Wolves, who would sweare [Page 13] peace and truce with the Shepherds, upon condition they would hang up all their dogs, the keepers of them, and of their flockes. Alas poor Quacksalvers, you knew much the true cause of our war, or cause or cure for grace and peace, as if you should cure an ulce­rous rankling wound with oyles of mace or vitruo, without cut­ting out the poysoned bullet: you are so drunke with wine and wrath, or prejudicate opinion, as Crowes with vomiting nuts, that you discerne of things that differ, as blinde men of colours, yea be­twixt transcendent regality, and legality (keeping it Sea-like with­in its bounds and limits) as Midas with his Asses eares, betwixt Pans harsh and untuned pipe, and Apolloes harmonious lute. This mentall madnesse, and intoxication of French Philters makes Mer­cury smile (to give you his Rhymes without reason) to see our Se­natours cursed plots should want successe, and leave them sots; in which to give him a Rowland for his Oliver, and to pen prick this windy bladder, or watery bubble, lest he swell too big, even till he burst like the fabled frog.

[Page 15]But I leave descanting in Verse, to plaine prose, like plain dea­ling, (Poets being the best of writers, except Orators in prose, by Sir Henry Savils censure;) only I take notice of his jeare, risi successuposse carere dolos, that their plots, as he blasphemes their politicall pro­ceedings should want successe; so had they beene successefull hee had hugg'd them, as doli boni, & pia fraudes, very legall plots in his owne phraise: blinde buzzard, that measures the regularity or ir­regularity of an action by the successe: so no doubt this Simplician had applauded the powder Treason, had it succeeded as much as Pope sextus the assassinating of the French King, or Mariana the Pa­risian massacre, or Cardan his Nero, and Cateline, or some the Sicilian evening song, in butchering the French, and Yorkes betraying of Devontree; Sinon of Troy, Zopirus of Babylon, Pope Clemens and the French Kings ruinating of the Templers, (as some Carnalists now justifie, the barbarous cruelties, and Canniballized inhumanities of the Irish wolves, lately devouring our English Protestants) be­cause of their good successe: O Pasquill Mad-caps, and giddy­headed Ganders, to measure actions fame-worthy in their owne nature, to be blame-worthy because of bad successe; blame the prea­ching of the word then, because it is to some the savor of death, as it was to Herod, Judas, Pharaoh, the unbeleeving Jewes and Gen­tiles; blame the Sunne, because it hardens the clay, causeth weeds and tares to grow as well as fruits and corne, and makes dunghils to stinke; blame good seed, because falling into stony and thorny ground, it brings forth no fruit; blame a skilfull Physitian, and his best physicke, because it alwayes workes not wished effects in some impatient patients, which effects must come from God, as we may see in the cases of Hezekias and Asa, 2 Chr. 16. 2 King. 20. for non est in medico semper relevetur ut aeger, bad causes oft producing good effects, as ex malis moribus bonae leges, good lawes proceeding from bad manners; as pearles, its said, are got in the heads of some Serpents, yea Antidotes against poysons, even from poysonous snakes and newtes: And the Redemption of the world, by divine providence helpt forward by Judas his treachery, and the Jews cruel­ty, Acts 4. 27, 28. as the Lord gets glory in Justice or Mercy, in pu­nishing or pardoning, even from the sinnes of men, Rom. 5. 20. so on the contrary, good causes oft produce bad effects: as zealous prea­ching, like a good mother, produced bad daughters, in the undeser­ved imprisoning of Paul, Silas, Jeremy, the beheading of John Bap­tist, the burning of Hierome of Prague, John Husse, Savinoriola, our Lati­mer, it costing him his hearts blood, as he oft prophesied it would. [Page 16] Oh the madnesse not only of this many headed beast the multitude, but of all other Brutized Carnalists, Moralists, Newters, papized, and ill-affected of all sorts, who bellow against the Parliament, and gore them in the sides, and tosse them as mad Bulls of Basan, on the hornes of their powers, because their devoures and indea­vours as yet want wished and expected successe; having eyes as quick as Linceus, or the Serpent Epidaurus to look at their reall or imagina­ry failings perhaps as men (they being neither Gods nor Angels, but men, subject to errors like Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, & the rest, the best) and like Cocatrices and Basilisks, poysoning what they spy in their Heteroclite successes: but being blind as moles in descerning what God hath done by them already (eaten bread being forgot­ten) in securing the Kingdome from forreigne invasion, in remo­ving or obstructing Achitophellized counsellours and counsells from the King, in preventing that massacre which was plotted for England, as well as Ireland, by Cardinall Barbarino Cimeus, the Popes Nuntio, and other sanguinnolent agents here, discovered in Mr. Pryns Romes Master-piece, by securing every mans propriety from a sic vo­lo, sic jubeo, Dominus opus habet, chiefly from an overflowing and innundation of Popery, as it broke in upon us in many opened sluces unstopped, but dayly made wider, as any may see that is not purblinde, or shuts not his eyes against the Sunne.

And what though as is pretended, and as this Ismalitish Mercury scoffes, that the Parliament hath an Army of Sectaries, though the Husbandmen perhaps were too supine, whilst these tares were sown by Jesuits unsuspected, undetected, camelionized into pretended Tradesmen▪ and Souldiers, Enthusiastically inspired, as Lay plebeian preachers; yet these Sectaries are not so strongly radicated as Po­pery, nor so sanguinnolent, and State-firing, nor so difficult to bee suppressed, being but like their primitive predecessors in all ages, nubiculae cito transenutes, cloud which will soon be blown over, felt we but once the Favonian winds and gales of a gracious-peace, besides these Sects are not to bee ascribed to the Parliament more then Goodwins sands to Steutertons steeple, they being but as ill humours to be purged out, or as Kibes, Carbuncles, Botches, glassie eyes, and wooden legs in the body; no part of the body Politicall or Ec­clesiasticall; and suppose they be too glutinous and viscous, as yet to be purged, yea that the sons of Zerviah be as yet too strong for those of the house of David, Zach. 12. 10. yea suppose to speake mystically that Themistocles his young boy should by degrees and gradations, [Page 17] sway too much in Athens; yet our Parliamenteires are to be pitied as passives, not scoffed as actives, if in any thing exposing them to the stars or spits of construction, they be as some in a Coach carried or hurried, not in their owne naturall, but in a more coactive mo­tion, as in some cases (as I have found experimentally in my selfe and others) and as many can give the probatum est, a man as David once, yea a conglobed society may be in such streights, 2 Sam. 24. 14 sailing as it were betwixt the Scylla of some inconveniencies, & the Caribdis of some mischiefes, that doe what he can with the improve­ment of all his best powers and parts, he shall split upon one or o­ther with some shipwracke, will he, nill he; like to him in the Fable, who held a wolfe by the eares, who if he held him longer would be sure to bite him, yet if he let him goe, he would worry; and is it not with State Physitians thinke we, as with corporeall? the patient may be in such a posture by contrary diseases, some from hot, some from cold causes, that their best skill and will knowes not so to cure one, but they must to their griefe, and non­plussing of Physicke increase the other, the salve being oft as ill or worse then the sore; and the medicine more pretious then the dis­ease, dangerous.

But to trace this tripping Mercury further in his impudiating humor, he danceth without a piper, and cuts his crosse capers & Le­valtoes, as though he had a Welch harp, or Scotch bag piper tuned in such Martiall streyns as his heart could wish; our present frets be­ing his mentall musicke, he playes as a Porpoyce and a Dolphin, in our supposed stormes, and makes himselfe merry (with that which makes every gracious heart sorry) with the City murmuring, the Apprentices mutining, the Scots voting the Parliament Covenant­crackers, false, fraudulent, every one cursing them, ready to cut their throats, the West and Wales, and all against them; and this is his sandy and unglewed argument that therefore their cause is nought: he might as well have concluded as much against Elias when Ahab, Jezabel, the Priests of Baall, all Israel bowing to Baal, he thought himselfe Bird alone, not one to stand for him, 1 King. 9. 14 and against Jeremy when the Fedifragous King, the fluctuate people, the perfideous Elders, the Prelaticall Pashur, and all were against him, except one Blackamore, and he saw nothing but pikes, perils, imprisonments, death and danger; all being so adulterous and treacherous against him, that he wisht for a wildernesse to lurke from them, Jer. 9. 2. cap. 20. 2. & 9. 10. and against Moses and Aaron, [Page 18] against whom the people so oft murmured, and were so sore incens­ed, that they tooke up stones to stone them, Exod. 15. 24. cap. 16. 2. 3. Num. 20 3. cap. 21 5. Numb. 16. 41, 42. but chiefly against David, a­gainst whom as the triall of his faith, fortitude, patience and de­pendance on God, ere God settled him in his promised Kingdom, that he might first crowne his sufferings (as he did Jobs patience, and Pauls perseverance, 2 Tim. 4. 7, 8. and make him exemplary to all imployed by God in great workes, for his glory, and the good of a people) hee set not onely Saul against him to hunt him as a Partridge, but the Zephins, Achitophel, Doeg and his owne wife Mi­choll to mocke him, and Shemei to revile him, yea the very people to stone him, being oft in such straights, (greater then our Parlia­ment ever yet) that hee thought there was but a step betwixt him and death, 1 Sam. 20. 3. chap. 23. 16. chap. 24. 14. chap. 30. 6. Yea, might not this fellow have concluded as much against some of the German Henries, and Fredericks: fighting the Lords battailes, when one Antichristian Pope after another had excommunicated them, and armed their own Subjects against them: yet some of them for all this marvelously, and miraculously delivered, as were oft the Hugonites in France, Huniades in Hungare, Luther in Saxon, Queen Elizabeth here in England, the late Polsgrave (called the King of Bo­bemia) and millions more in History, whom God preserved and re­served to better times, and to better ends and purposes, after he had pulled them as brands out of the fire, and brought them Daniel-like out of the very jaws of Lyons, and as his three couragious servants out of the very flaming furnace, where they were tried as pure gold, ere the Lord effected by them those great workes of reforma­tion, or preservation of a people, for which he fitted them by ma­ny fiery trialls, and sure if the Parliament stand for God, as he hath promised to stand for them, and to deliver them as all his true Members, Ministers and Magistrates, out of all their troubles, and to honour them which honour him, Josh, 1. 5. Heb. 12. 6. Psal. 34. 18, 19. 1▪ Sam. 2. 30. Act. 18. 10. Esay 43. 1, 2, 3. Though all the cre­ated principalities and powers in earth and hell were against them, they must prosper and flourish: if their work be of men, I must con­fesse the decree is against them, it will come to naught, Act. 5. 38▪ the branches that are not in Christ wither, Joh. 15. 6. But if their work be of God it cannot be overthrown, Act. 5; 39. who fight against it fight against God, as glasse tilting against brasse, to their breaking, as waves surging and blustering against a rock, dashing themselves [Page 19] to froath and foame; omnes priminter divinitus, he that consults with many Instances given by Melancton in his Postills, part, 3. p. 553. and Strigellius on the Psalmes, pag 66. in Psal. 8. shall see Gods hand fearfully on those who have had heads, hearts, or hands against his Church: as also other Instances given by the same Author, in Psal. 41. pag. 334. in Hezekias, Constantine, Obediah, Abdemelech, the wi­dow of Sarepta, John Frederick the Duke of Saxony; and I may adde our English late Deborah, our Elizabeth, with many moe, friends of the Church, in hac vita gloriose ornati, ever gloriously honoured and patronized in this life, which I prescribe as a cordiall and cooler to our Senators, against the hot tongue poyson of this Mercurialized sonne of Beliall, who being more perfect in his lying, then in his Latin-tongue, tells us of the brave exploits of two turn-coats in Wales, Poyer and Powell in three times defeating the forces sent against them, though I have it from the mouth of a credible Colonell, that being but one 100. or 2000. sent against them, have driven them into their Cony-burrowes, their Castles (stronger then Tyrones old Forts of bogs, woods and mountaines) but I see in most lying and flying newes, most speake not as the truth is, but as they would tune it, as they are affected and infect­ed; but leaving this as triviall, that in which his serpentina quedam sanies, his serpentine spirit shews it self the most is; that as Sathans working tooles desirous to cast his Ataes ball, and Phaetonian flames betwixt the Scots and Parliament. This Bedlam blatters that they have voted them Covenant-crackers, false, and fraudulent in all their undertakings. A sharpe fang'd Cur, indeed he bites deepe in taxation, if the clapper of his tongue were not loose hung in his probation; venting but meerly like the eccho, an airy sound, for it were better his tongue were cheese, and all the Cats in the Towne were nibling it, ere this were any truer then Aesops fables, or Lucians Dialogues.

I hope our Parliament hath more care of credit with man, and confidence with God, then to breake that Covenant which is wit­nessed and sealed by oath before the great God of heaven, which even medea in euripides, calls Juramentorum custos, the great Lord Kee­per of oaths inviolable, most severely alwayes punishing their in­fringers; as any that will but consult Historians, chiefly Honicer his Theater of examples, our D. Beard in his Theater of Gods judge­ments, and Paul of Hitzin in his Ethicks, lib. 2. cap. 18, 20. shall see the fearfull justice of Earth and Heaven, falling upon Zedekias break­ing▪ [Page 20] his sworne fealty with Nabuchadnezzar, upon the Carthagini­ans, so oft in fringing their oaths with the Romans. One Hatto the Bishop of Mentz at last eaten with Rats, by perjury betraying Albert the Marquesse of Bamburg, to Lodovick the third Emperour chiefly, on Paches the Athenian Captaine, killing himselfe after he had by a false oath murthered Hippias, and won his besieged City. One Laudislaus King of Hungary and Poland, who the yeare 1614. by the counsell of Cardinall Julian breaking his sworne truce with Amu­rath the Turke, brought him into Europe severely to revenge it, with the losse of his life and Crowne; as also of the great Macedo­nian Phillip, who by the judgement of Pausanias perished so mise­rably with all his blood, because according to the proverb and practice of Lisander, he thought Peers and Princes were to be decei­ved with oaths, as children with bables and toyes; but I hope I need prescribe no salve, where as yet I finde no sore.

In his next morrice dance, this hobby-horse neighes out prophane mirth, in the revolt of the Lord Inchequin from the Parliament, of whom I will onely interpose thus much:

First, that to give him his due, he hath done acts worthy of a brave Gentleman, a pretented Protestant, and a Martialist, because to the Irish, so long as he was himself tuned in a right key, as Tanibut sometimes was to the French, and Huniades, and Richard the first to the Turks, Terror malae gentis, a terror to his wicked natives; but finis coronat opus, what is it to begin well, as did Pauls Galathians, Judas the Disciple, Demas Pauls follower, Julian the Apostate, Nero in his quinquennium: the mutable Occebolius, and some Pernized weather­cocks in our dayes, and to end ill: to make shipwracke in the ha­ven, to give, like the Cow, a good meale of milke, and to throw it downe with her heeles; to weave and unweave a Penelopes web, since the end crownes every worke; and constancy next to consci­ence is the grace of every great man, who would gaine and retaine the repute of a good man.

Secondly, his revolt is more distastefull to such judicious ones as have observed his postures as he was active or passive, in that hee was not (as vox populi, which is not ever vox veri, hath reported him) in any great wants or exigents in defects of monies, ever held the very nerves and sinewes of War, since he received as much as any in the Kingdome, large summes from the Parliament, besides his considerable contributions from the greatest part of the Pro­vince of Munster; for I know the want of men, munition and mo­nies, [Page 21] hath oft much distracted and distressed many Heroyick spirits, and put them upon strange exigents and inconveniencies, when their silver musicke was too long in tuning, and made them all frets.

Thirdly, I distaste it the most, that he is joyned to the Rebells; but though I cannot say, as Noah of his sonne, nec de [...]o melius putavi, that I never hoped better of him; for indeed, his flowry spring pro­miseth yet a better harvest then Popery: yet thus much I say, as I thought once of the great Ormond when he protected so many Re­bells, to the no small prejudice of the Protestants, and suffered some in Castles to flye out as Wood-cocks in a mist, some officers who had them in a pinfold, being blinded with white and yellow dust: So I have thought of Inchequin in some politicall respects, that at last tandem aliquando, Joseph could not, would not forget his brethren, more then Queene Hester could forget her people and kindred, Hest. 8. 6. Nor more then a Catholicke Queene can for­get her Catholickes, not lying for nothing in the bosome of a Pro­testant Prince. Yet notwithstanding I perswade my selfe he is so resolute a Protestant, that Totman will not so far turne French, as that he will revolt to Papisme; the grounds of my perswasion is this:

1. Because his vessell was seasoned with the truth in his child­hood, therefore its hopefull to savour of the tincture, quo semel est imbutare.

Secondly, his conversion from Popery was not coactive, as whipt to it when he was a ward, as by a violent motion, non trabendo sed du­cendo, but by a worke of illumination upon him in hearing of Ser­mons, therefore more probable to be more sincere and permanent, it being very observable, that those that are haled and drawne to any Religion by force or feare, are like Cytteron strings too high stretcht, to stand long in tune without breaking (as Sigebert in his Chronicles tells us of some Jewes inforced to be baptized in Leo Isaurus the third his time, presently washt it off againe, and returned like judaizing dogs to their owne vomit, the like did some Jewes in Ratisbone in Henry the 4▪ time, anno dom. 1086. as P. Diaconus re­lates in his Roman History, lib. 11. and Tholosanus in his Common­wealth, lib. 12. cap. 4▪ pag. 722. records the like, Pageants of some Jews in Spaine, anno dom. 694. and Cranzius in his History, lib. 5. cap. 14. of some Vandals, who after the death of their Protestant Prince Gotschalcus, revolted as sowes to their wallowing, presently to Pa­ganisme, [Page 22] but ex meliori luto finxit precordia Titan, it was not so with Inchequin.

Yet thus much I prognosticate further, That as I hear, hee is strongly Episcopized, this without question was a great prologue to his Regalizing, as it is indeed judiciously observed, both by Melancton in his Postils, part I pag. 77. And Strigellius in his Chroni­cles, part. I. pag. 233. that as Princes doe accommodate Religion to the splendour of their Courts (as it was glorious to see my Lord Bishop like a Pope in pompe, or a Cardinall with his traine: so amongst most Courtiers and Nobles, there be some that even in their Religion, serviunt principium cupiditatibus, doe too much comply with the humours and inclinations of Princes, pinning their Reli­gion on the sleeves of Monarchs, to carry which way they will, as true or false, to heaven or to hell; as Pencer observes in his Chrono­logicall Lectures, anno 1570. how far both Peers and people sympa­thized with Jeroboam in his Golden Calves.

Lastly, I partly prophesie (though like Calchas or Cassandra per­haps I be scarcely believed) that this confederacy of Inchequin, a Protestant, with the bloody Canniballized Popish Rebells, will bee no more successefull, then the federacy or confederacy of Jehosaphat with wicked Ahab, which we know the issue it had, 2 Chro. 18. 31. and how sharply God reproved it, 2 Chron. 19▪ 2. even with a threatned wrath: for I believe Bucholcherus in his Chronicles, pag. 358. That Covenants made with the wicked, are both invisa Deo, hatefull to God, & pernitiosa hominibus, dangerous to men: And he that hath bookes to read, and braines to understand, shall see this, not onely affirmed but confirmed in many instances both of Christians and Pagans, by Melancions Chronology, lib. 1. pag. 6. by Strigellius in his Chronicles, part. 1. pag. 56. and his Common places, part. 3. pag. 414. as also by Chitreus on Genesis pag. 282. and in his Chronicles of Sax­ony, lib. 14. pag▪ 423. and by our Moderne Historians, our most judi­cious▪ Guiccaronie in his Politicks, part. 2. pag. 29. & pag. 100. and Co­minaeus in his passages lib. 2. pag. 52. betwixt the French Lewis and Charles, whither in this rapsody, for brevity, I refer my Reader, as also to Manl [...]us his Common places, p. 407. Strigenitius his third Ser­mon of the calling of Jeremy, pag. 18. and to Pencers Historicall Le­ctures, anno 1569. Decemb. 3. & 1570. Iuly 29. where any shall see Covenants made with Hereticks, Idolaters, men of strange Nati­ons, Natures, Religions, to be as prosperous usually as for hens to hold leagues with hawkes, Israelites to joyne in affinities and com­pacts [Page 31] with Canaanites; as Doves with Eagles, and Sheepe with Wolves.

But once more to retrive my Sprung Woodcock, and to pounce him to some purpose; as the Poet said, sepe Jocum sepeque bilem vestri movere tumultus. I know not whether I shall more pitty Mounsier Mer­cury as a witty foole, or be angry with him as a profest enemy, as Paul said of Elimas the sorcerer, Acts 13. of all goodnesse and grace; or as Peter of Simon Magus, in the very gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity, Acts 8. First in tearming the Rebells of Ireland Catho­licks (he meanes good Catholick subjects as ever man hanged up­on his hedge) and with these Catholicks forsooth, and the Lord Taffe, a profest polypragmaticall Papist, a great stickler in the last massacre in Ireland, and still a firebrand and incendiary in both Climes, he tripudiates that Inchequin is to joyne against an Army of Sectaries: very good stuffe, Christ must be untrue, his verdict must not stand, Sathans kingdome must be divided by Mercuries divinity, his servants and agents for his hellish Hierarchy, must like the bre­thren of Cadmus oppose one another, and as the Medianites thrust their swords in the sides one of another, Sectaries against Sectaries, Irish against English. 2. Or it may be he meanes the Papists in Ireland must (as they fought for the King before, under that colour) be im­ployed once more for the purging of the Temple from Indepen­dency and Presbytery, for the re-establishing and re-planting of Episcopacy, for setting the petty Popes af Lambeth, London, Lincolne, and other parts, once more on Cock-horse to ride to Dunstable, or to the Devill, over the necks, and backs of all zealous, powerfull, and painfull preachers.

In conclusion for confusion, they must forsooth reforme Reli­gion, as Woolves heale and teare ulcerous and rotten sheep; as clay and mire scoure vessells brighter, as soot and inke wash foule fa­ces fairer; as Mercury heales green wounds, vinegar sore eyes, the sting of an Aspe takes away the ache in the flea-blowes; all these the more increasing maladies, miseries, paines, and perplexities, this reforming being as though Verres and Gusman were appointed Judges to scoure their Circuits of Rogues and Thieves, as Claudius & Clodius, to reform adulterers, Messalina and Pasiphad, Curtizans Bawds and Concubines, by inflicting corrective mulcts upon them for their incontinency, and to read them directive Lectures for chastity.

But to strike with the maine Hammer, reflect a little on Mercu­ries policie, as well as piety, and see what a wise and well-wishing [Page 24] worthy Patriot Mercury and his Mercurialized ones are to their Country, in that they would bring in under the conduct of Inche­quin, now an Army of knowne, reall, forreigne Rebells from ano­ther Country, where they are flesht in blood, to fight for their King forsooth, whom they love as I love their Pope, against his re­all friends, his meere imaginary foes, the Westminsterians, whom Mercury marks for Rebells; bringing them in forsooth, into Eng­land to side with his Regalists against Round-heads, with as much wisdome as the Carians to their cost brought in Cyrus to end their Civill wars; as the Thebans called in the Macedonian Phillip to help them against the Phocians; as Duke Boniface brought into Affrick, Genserick the King of the Vandalls against the Emperour Valens, as Leo the Grecian Emperour fetcht in the Turkes against the Bulga­rians; as Lascus called in Solyman the Ottoman into Hungary against Fardinand. Theodosius, the Gothes against the Franckes; Stillico the Dur­gundians, and Swedes against the Gothes, Heraclus the Arabians against the Persians, or the Spaniards in moderne times were brought into Scicily and Naples against the French; or as the last Caliph of Aegypt, called Sarracon, the last Sultan of Siria, into his Country against Al­mericus the successour of Baldwin King of Ierusalem, even with such successe as these, and many moe, which I could Historifie from Au­thours and experiments at this day, may we perhaps bring in for either divided party, either Irish, French, Spaniard, or Pope, or any forreigne Nation, as these recited felt to their cost, to fish in our troubled waters, to catch silver Eeles in our muds, our bloods, like Buzzards to swapper at, and teare both Frog and Mouse fighting, to sucke our bloods, spunge our goods, possesse our seats, and once got in amongst us, not to get out, more then pitch out of the bot­tome of a Can, scarce rensht out with silver streams, running as clear as Tyne or Tweed: as he that will be fully possest of the prejudice of other states, as the glasse of our fates in fetching in forreigne Na­tions to end our controversies, as the Wolfe to be umpire betwixt the Sheep and the Asse, let him read the verdicts of Polititians, and the Tragedies of these recited, with numerous moe. In Bucholche­rus his Chronology, pag. 389. In Melanctons Chronicle, lib. 4. pag. 301. 443, 444. In Strigellius his Chronicle part. 1. pag. 207. part. 2. pag. 60. In Crutreus his lesser Chronicle, Amor. 93, 94, 95. pag. 44. In Tholo­sanus his Common-wealth, lib. 11. cap. 3. pag. 656. In Bodius Common­wealth, lib. 5. c. 5. pag. 888. In Patritius his Common-wealth, lib. 9. [...]it. pag. 396. As also in heathenish Authors, chiefly Polibus, lib. 1. p. 15, 16. [Page 25] And Heroditus l. 6. p. 163. & l. 7. p. 207. which Authours I alleadge as on a sudden, in two dayes I recollected them, both to discover the folly of this frivolous Mercury, in spinning a web to catch Gran­dees, with meere rocke and spindle of a naturall wit, without any yarne of reading or judgement, as also to muzle or puzle him from barking any more against, either the Parliament or the Authours, I alleadge throughout this Rapsody, the Champions against his ca­vills and ungrounded calumny.

In the rest of his Sarrismes, this Don quipot fights as it were with Rams and poasts, and Wind-mills, for Giants, I meane with his owne meere airy and windy conceits, as the Cat playes with her owne tayle, chiefly he fights as with his owne shadow, when as a mad man he casts his brands at King Noll, whom his fellow Melan­cholicus, or his alter ego, his second selfe, plainly calls King Crumwell, a man that is not in rerum natura, not so much as in the orbe of the Moone, nor on the center of the Earth, within the sphere of our knowledge; for although many meaner men for gifts and place, then the Martiall Crumwell, even some Country Peasants, by simi­litude of physiognomies, have usurped the names of Kings, as one Wooldeman a Miller in Marchia, in Pencers Chronicles, lib. 5. pag. 60. and in Lauclavius his Turkish History, pag. 291. and a Pseudo sinerdis in Persia, who went long under the name of the sonne of Cyrus, in Justin. pag. 23. lib. 1. and in Heroditus lib. 3. 90. and one Phillip in Thes­salia, a meane Plebeian in the third Punicke war, related by Florus in his Epitome, lib. 49. 50. & 52. and a Peasant in Saxony, a false Fredericke, anno 1262. in Cuspiman pag. 440. also we know in Henry the seventh dayes, what broyles were kindled by Lambert and Per­kin, Warbecke, vulgar youths pretented to be of the blood Royall; yet that ever Crumwell, or his fame-worthy Generall, called or counted themselves Kings, or were so held or reputed by their Souldiers, shall be proved in Platoes great yeare, or in the Callends of the Greeks when all Priapized Priests, and Friars, and all the vestall Nuns of Venus, live chastely together; or when Jesuitized Papists, what ere they pretend shall love a Protestant Prince so wel, unlesse moulded downe-right their creature, as to spare him in the Basilicall veynes, more then the two French Henries, so long as they had ever at hand a junior Faux, Rivillack Parry, Lopus or Lupus, with a ponyard, a poyson, or a pistoll in his hand, as Treason in his heart.

In his next streines, which deserve necke streyning, as though he [Page 34] were an Incubus or Succubus, or one of the Colledge of Bird or Merlin, and Mother Shipton, or were some Witch, or Conjurer, or had some Mephistophiles or familiar spirit, as once Doctor Faustus, Cornelius, Agrippa, Simon Magus, and other Nicromancers; or at least were some judiciall Ass-stronomer, Ass Colens, Astra: consulting with the starres, or at best some Familist, and mushrump Enthusiast, as once John a Leidan, and Munster his Prophet; he takes upon him to prophesie, sepe malum hoc nobis predixit ab ilice cornix) as ominously and fatally, as the prognosticks of any ominous Scritchowle, croa­king Raven, or howling dog; yea with as much confidence as any blessing, white Witch, Gypsie or Fortune-teller of strange and heavy newes, that we both have it, and must have from France, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, every part of the Kingdome, and the ver­tuall Island to: more specially as though he should cry, the Fox gives you warning, and I give you warning to take heed of your Geese: this Iack Iugler, or Hocus, Pocus, shootes off a terrible warning-piece, like a Balaams curse, a Papall excommunication comming out, or a Brutum Fulmen, to take heed of the 28. of June, for 28. was like to prove a fatall number, to all Parliamentarians, such as these dies nefandi, these unlucky dayes which the Romans held as fatall, in which Caesar was stabb'd in the Senate, and in which they lost so much blood and honour in the battells at Canna and Thrasimen, but mira Cannat non credenda Poetae, your Alma­nack is held to be meerly like your selfe, a Mercurialized liar, and you are thought to study onely Errapater; for when did you pry into Gods Arke, or were admitted into Gods Cabinet-counsel? If Grandees hold you fitter to be of their Privy (as Sco [...]gan once to the French King) then of their Privy-counsell, and if you scoffe at Plebeians, for perking from plowes and shops into Moses his chaire; how dare you perke into Gods chaire, to reveale his secrets lockt in his owne decree: sure as there is a [...]easting Epitaph of one Fiddle, That the one and twentieth day of June, John Fiddle he went out of tune: so the eight and twenty day of Iune, thy Cuckowes note goes out of tune. Much I know the Platonists, and Pithagoreans, have ascribed to numbers, and to their dayes, yea yeares fatall, chiefly to their Climactericalls in their revolutions of sevens and nines, ominous in the falls of great Peeres and Princes; as much at large is said for numbers by Cornelius Agrippa, de occulta Philosophia, lib. 3. and many instances are given by Levinus L [...]mnius in his se­cond Booke of the secrets of Nature, cap. 32. pag. 381. and by Ranzo­vius [Page 35] in his Climactericall yeares, pag. 227, 228. & seq. Patritius also in his Common-wealth, lib. 5. tit. 7. pag. 234. interposeth much to this purpose; and for my poore part, I have read how fatall the twenty eighth yeare hath been to many great ones, Atropos then cutting short the thread of the lives of Phillip King of Spaine, father to Charles the fifth, of Lodovicke the sixt, Lamdgrave of Thuringo, of Os­wald an English King, sonne to Acha, sister to Edmund call'd the Saint; of Cardinall Hipolitus medices, at those yeares poysoned of C. Caligula, Caesar, sonne to Germanicus stabb'd with thirty wounds, of Iohn Medices, father to that great Cosmus Duke of Hetraria slaine with a Canon; as also of Persius the Satyricall Poet, Daniel Gricaeus, Hierom Vrsinus, and many moe, who in the prime and April of their yeares, at the age of twenty eight yeares, acting short parts on the worlds stage, were then strucke non-plus by death, most by a vio­lent rather then a naturall stroke. But for any great disasters that have fallne on the twenty eight day of June, I have not slept with the Lune: Nor am I verst so in the Skies, To vent with Mercury loud lyes.

But these are but the off-scums of the wit of this junior Rombus, this fritter of fraud, this seething pot of iniquity (as I could pay him home in his owne coyne, in retorting jeasts as sharpe as the teeth of a Pike, to nip this Gudgeon) at best these are but ludicra genii, vel ingenii, the spots of his wit, the playing but the Buffon, or the Monkey, to make himselfe and others sport, with his, Come a loft Jack an Apes with a whim wham: but in his rhyme-doggerills, which in them have no jot of rhyme nor reason, like snow in June, and Harvest out of season; in these his toothed Satyrs, on his Epi­taphs, or nipping-taphs, as the Countryman mis-called them, which the malitious momist makes on our Parliament men ere they be dead, (who perhaps may live to eat of the Goose which grazed on the grave of this Gander of Gotham) in these he shewes himselfe in his colours indeed, like the devill in his hornes, there he tosseth them on the pike of his pen, as a baited Royston Bull, the valerous Mastives; there he acts the parts not of a Davus onely to disturb all, but of a Demon a devil to destroy all, as homo homini demon, he verifies in his damned desires, that one man is a devill to ano­ther in boyling wrath, like wilde fire, and the coals of juniper, scarce quenched by dead ashes: for he so far like a snarling Fox shews his tongue and his teeth, when he is coopt in his chaine, that he cannot worry as he would, that if he could he would sevire in [Page 28] manes, tyrannize over their very deaths, as the Greeks which abused Hector; and the Papists (in acts fitter for Wolves and Hienaes then Christians) in digging up the dead bodies of Paulus Fagius, and of Peter Martyrs wife; for whereas in his other Satiricalls, ( his Satyrae satirae) he stings like a Serpent (as its said of a Serpent that eats a Serpent) in his detestable Epitaph, he proves a Dragon spitting wilde-fire; besides some rough passages betwixt Hierom and Ruffi­nus, Chrisostome, and Ephanus, Erasmus, and Julius Scaliger, Luther and Carolostadius, more indeed then well became grave Divines, and modest Christians. I have read invectives as sharp as raizours, and cutting swords of Salust, against Tully, Tully against Mark Anthony, Varres and Cateline, Estchines against Demosthenes, and of latter times of Cocleus and Bolsecus against Luther and Calvin, of Himmimus Ecardus, and most ridged Lutherans against Calvinists, more then against Papists; of Stapleton in his Promptuary, Faverdentius upon Jude, Kellison in his scurrilous Survey, and most Romish Rabshekahs against all Protestants, chiefly of Turner in his orations against Queene Elizabeth: but as if the spirits of all these in a Pithagorean trans­migration, with all the Satyricall spleen of Lucian against the lear­ned (called the Cerberus of the Muses) and of Tom Nash against the three Harvies, marching as though their guts with his Gunpowder tearmes, were infused into his eldest sonne of Sathan, as Polycarpus called Marcion, he so sympathizeth with Sathan in his false accu­sations; all these concurring as one (as the venom of all Serpents in one Basiliske) they could not expresse worse then he is in his damnable Epitaph upon the fictious deaths of the chiefe Ephorists of our state; for like an Atheist little heeding, nor believing the E­pithites and Titles, with which the Scriptures honour them, as of Rulers, Heads, and Elders of the people, 1 King. 4. 1, 2. Num. 11. 16, 17. Deut. 33. 10. Privy-counsellours to Kings, as sometimes to Ashuerus, Hester 1. 3. and to the Kings of Israel, Jer. 26. 10. and conjoyned with them in their Edicts, Ionas 3. 7. nor regarding the honourable names of Patritians given to such as they in Rome, of Ephorists in Lacedemon; of Senators in Venice, of great Dons in Spaine, of Peers in France; of pillars, ribs, sides, foundation, strength, of the Empire in Germany; by the Bull of Charles the fifth, Cap. 3. 12. 24, 26. all these honourable and authoritative Titles, be­ing spurned of such blatrant beasts as this malevolent Timonist, as dogs and hogs spurne pearles, he squeezeth his wits, pumpes his braines, digs as low as hell for gunpowdered calumnies, and bor­rowes [Page 29] moe galling, girding, stigmatizing opprobries to cast in their Faces, and on their places, then ever Tailours, Poets, Play­ers, Perriwig-makers, and Courtiers, borrowed fantasticalities, or Jewes and Jesuits new invented poysons; or as our new Shakers and Seekers, new invented Heresies and Sects of blacke Pluto him­selfe. Oh how he roares as in a Pumpe, though in other passages this hot Gamester play all his trickes at noddy, ever turning up knave oth' Clubs, yet here he trumpes no lesse then Treason, and playes all his prankes at Loadum, or Loadhome, loading our wisest, & worthiest Senatours, with the base and bloody imputations of am­bition, rebellion, pride, lust, murther, sacriledge; and what not? as give the devill an inch, and hee'le take an ell, over shooes, over bootes in villany; now that he is in his Rope-rhetoricke in a high way march (like railing Jesuits from Tiber to Tyburne, up Gallows gate, and downe Hemp-street) he cannot get out, he can no more be got out of his tract, then a Carriers horse in his way to Dunstable, or Dublin, or the devills Inne, where he intends to take up his lodging: hence he bites them further with his Theonine teeth, sharper then Foxes and Badgers, and more poysoned then the teeth of Vipers and Adders, and sets his brands and imistions upon them of grand Impostors, perjured Knaves, out-veying any, otherwise Newgate-bird, Pick-hatch, Shoarditch, or Turnball-street Cockatrice, or the most hot-mouthed Scold, and black-mouthed cursing Witch, in all the devills Territories; such blacke and base stinking stuffe he vomits, as would make the Devill himselfe, the blacke Dog of Hell, sicke to licke it up: for my part, it smells worse to me, or to any right nasuted man, then any Fox or Fowmart, yea then any carrion, or assafaetida, as any may read what the blawant beast roares out in his reasonlesse raging rhymes, in aspersions more false and foule then ever were cast upon Themistocles and Socrates in Athens, on Cato himselfe the marrow of Justice, and the two Scipioes and other Patriots in Rome oft questioned by calumniating emulating spirits even in the Senate (as well as ours now) yet ever came fairely or squarely off, and bore the Bucklers (as ours may doe) and then rumpantur ilia Codri.

But to conclude, I retort these his rascally raylings, with Epi­thites of honour, yea with this Epitaph of fame, if they should perish in their projects and prosecutions of the common good, in­curia & injuria temporum; by the ungratefull and ungracious times: yet this Encomium is fitter to be ingraven on their graves, then his Roguish Rhymes.

And so I leave thee, and all thy croaking frogs and ominous Owles and Ravens of thy base, blacke, and bloody feather, chiefly thy Comraide Mercury Bellicus and Melancholicus, since as striking two Wood-cocks with one bolt, in putting a hook in thy nose I al­so hook them, you hanging together in one subject, like burs, as you deserve to hang like bells; or reasty Bacon, much better for hang­ing: for I prophesie, if you hold on to vent your invenomed gals as you do, your libelling lines may cut short the lines of your loathed lives, dabit Deus his quoq▪ fluvem, and then you may sing or sigh your Lacrimae per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, tendemus in laqueum: