A RECOMMENDATION TO Mercurius Morbicus. TOGETHER WITH A fair Character upon his worth.

To the Reader.
Unto the arrant'st Knave that lives by bread,
I send this greeting; (you may please to read)
His name is Mordicus (a non-sense Talker)
Which being interpreted, is Harry Walker;
Th'old Lyar Generall, and who but he
Walks now in Print, lyes by Authority:
For n'other cause, but lest the Rogue should vapour,
I spend upon him thus much ink and paper;
He stinks already both in verse and prose,
And therefore when you name him, stop your nose.
I may to many now seem to deface him,
But when I physick take, O then, I'le grace him.

Printed in the Yeer 1647.

To Mercurius Morbicus.

BOe to a Goose, Morbicus, Melancholicus is yet alive to give your lyes the lye an Italian mile down your throat. What sirrah, do you think to lye by Sun-light, and yet passe like an Owle in dark­nesse, not so much as to be seen, or notice taken of you? had you reduc'd your snakes unto one meal, or confin'd your malice within the rare discoveries of your hebdomedall journey-work, your weekly impu­dent Intelligence, it had been taken as an infirmity, a crime more tolerable; but to spit venome in volume, to belch poysonous aires in continued gusts, and that under the scrubbed, scabbed name of a gouty-headed Morbicus; so to bestink the City and Kingdom, that none can think upon you without a vomit; or name you without a stool or two: I am resolved in the be­half of my Friend Melancholicus, whom thou hast abused, and whose worth thou hast violated beyond the Laws of truth, modesty, or humanity (whose pen is too worthy to pitch upon such an unciviliz'd sub­ject, an ulcerous. rotten-nam'd Rascal as you are) to kick you either into more honesty or civility.

And first of all I must tell the world, that this ma­licious Zoylus, but to leave his nature and to give him his own self godfathers worshipfull firname, Morbi­cus, or Knight Hospitaller, in his small-beer jests be­gins with a Proclamation (whereof this City-news-Cryers head hath been stuft as full as a fardle, ever [Page 2]since he was pen-feather'd in the Pillory, and had his fortune read in his fore-head in Cheapside) and wher­in he is pleased to give Melancholicus the title of a phrenzie Priest (that was when the diseased Doctor Iremonger cast his water last) and that he hath a di­stemper'd brain, gotten non-sense by roat, &c. All which is as apparent truth, as that H. Walker is an ho­nest man. But stay, Morbicus? sirrah, who gave you that Utopian name? I am sure, neither Calepine, Cooper, Thomas, Rider, nor any of our Anglo-Latines was ever guilty of any such false coyne; but it appears to be your own, the pure stamp of your own witty Genius, (except you'd pickt some Mountebanks pocket of it) and now the Evangelicall Iremonger and illumina­ted Pillorian, may plead antiquity with the primitive Fathers; the Albigenses, and Waldenses, were but younger brethren to him being of Apostolicall de­scent, either from S. Thomas, or St. Bartholomew, grand Patriarks to the Lazaries of old Troynovant.

Then the Fool comes in with a Character in yel­low laced blew coat verse; but so sweetly compos'd, as harp and harrow in a Consort: able to make the Reader be-cack himself in prose. Then he mounts the stage, (enter Jeronimo) and faces his speech with a bald patch of beastly Greek as false as himself, and none knows the meaning of (except Morbicus;) and so proceeds into abominable raptures of knavery, lyes, and non-sense, truly I abhor to name 'em, though his brazen face never blusht to print 'em. And for an Epi­logue, he presents you with a peece of curtail'd Intel­ligence lickt over again, as his fashion is, to re-publish his well belshing lyes with new titles.

In his next, (which is his Go triumphe) he fathers strange names upon Melancholicus, miscalling him in his zealous knavery, by the name of Hacket, and Hacklet, and then tels him, he is a knave, for having two names; what then is H. Walker, and Luke Harruney? and yet the Rogue puts them upon him; for Melan­cholicus is no kin to 'em I wonder that he put not one of his own borrowed names upon him, that would have made him a knave indeed: but who can expect better stuffe (be it spoke with reverence to his plush cloak) from such a nasty compound of incorrupted villanie? who hath no lesse then two and fifty lyes in his last peece, dated Sept. 20. to Sept. 27. as if he would have no body lye but himself, and had engrosst knavery by Letters Pattents. I had thought to have cast his water at this time, and given the Reader a per­fect Relation of the constitution of this Hospitall of Diseases; and from the effects, (out of charity) dis­course the Cause and Cure of him, but of that ano­ther time; In the mean space I pray peruse his Cha­racter.

Mercurius Morbicus his Character: What he was, what he is, and what he shall be.

He was
Begot in obscenity, and brought forth in iniquity, a monstrous birth ominous to others, fatall to himself, sproughting into yeers, was settled in an occupation, an Iremonger by his trade; wanting nothing but the fear of God to make him an honest man; so that when old Time began to shew new tricks, this pragmatist, [Page 6]being thrust forward, by selfe-ends, Envy, and Osten­tation, began to claw the old men by the shoulders, crept into his books, (as fast his customers crept out of his) and would venter, (being naturally impudent) to shew some tumbling tricks unto the world, to play Presto begone, with the Laws, to juggle with Religion, which he made a cover-knave for his Ambition, which plumpt him to that growth, that no place but Moses Chayre must serve him to play his feats in; where the inspired Rabbi began by his invisible revelations, to unmystery the Scriptures, and according to the illumi­nation, to make Truth falshood, and falshood Truth, untill Law and Truth sat Judges upon him, and forc'd him to recant his divinity in a pillory; who there im­prov'd so much his former impudence, that ever since he was able to manage his actions with incomparable, audacity, and out-face the world with his forgeries for authentick verities; so that now

He is
Doubly broke, both in hi [...] custome, and his consci­ence: but to hold up his head from finking, he hath one bladder full blown with the breath of seeming sanctimony, and another with sycophantick insinua­tion; hanging by one hand on the countenance of the Parliament, by the other on the shoulders of the Fa­ction; these keep him above ground, and have made him so notorious, that now he dares to write bad Eng­lish (abhorring all other languages as Hereticall) and is become the onely Homer in prose, weekely to historize great Britans Iliads: his ambition being in the Intellective part, he vents all his wit in print, and hath emptied his head, (that Magazine of infernall [Page 7]rogurie, and dissimulation) into the presses, not onely of what he had, but what upon his crackt credit he could bor­row without leave, his estate is too narrow for his minde, and therefore he hath wrought himself roome in others af­faires, and now struts as stiffe as an Elephant in his new Office; hoping thereby to purge his nonsence, by the perusing and authorizing others labours; corragious Pens must vaile Bon­net to this Don Quixot; not a Muse must gad abroad except by Petition to this brazen calfe for liberty; nor a truth peepe out with his head, for fear of being bitten off by this Cani­ball; whilst the varnisht Logger-head blesseth himselfe in his politick plot, and Garragantua conquest over the poor pam­phlets, walks like a knave in print, speaks himself by autho­rity, & charms down learning with blushlesse lyes: no News stirring, but what passes by his doore; and be it true or false, good or bad, all's one to him, he puts it off, though at the second, or third hand, for pure Orthodox; from home he now begins to tell of forraigne discoveries, by the next we expect wonders from Terra incognita in a nut-shell. In a word he shewes well to all, but seldome sayes well of any, but him­self, and yet himself is still himself, and that's the worst thing that he hath, his works and he comes all out of one shop, be­gins like a candle with a blaze, and goes out with a stink, he is any thing of what is nought, nothing of what he should be, if any thing is good, worse when an Angel, then when a devil, a right Spanish souldier, or an Italian theater; a blad­der filled with severall windes, the best infectious, a fooles wonder, and the wise mans foole, and

Shall be
Enough miserable by being himself; as he hath been uncha­ritable in his censures, impudent in his forgeries; so he shall be unquiet in his fears, his own terrour, and his souls rack and tormentor; as soon as the winde comes about, and the wheel turns, he shall account it happines to enjoy one houres liberty to bewail his own basenesse and villany, and then—

moveat Cornicula risum,
Furtivis nudata coloribus.

[Page 8]And then shall all his cunning tricks result upon his loath some stomack, his hypocriticall delusions buffet him on the cheeks, his unlimited lyes flie by flocks in his face, and all his knavery return into it's first principle, himself; and every fool will point the finger at him, and say, There goes Id. Walker the dissembling knave; and when he dyes, every wit­ty Pen will rejoyce at the fall of such an Enemy, and ring out his passing knell in scoffing rymes: if he make (as it is very like) his end at the Gallows, then sayes one:

Here hangs Walker in a string
That Judas-like did hate his King:
Faithlesse, fruitlesse he was ever,
Except in lyes, but loyall never.
From hence h'as taken wing to be
Old Belzebubs chief Mercury.

If he dyes in his bed, then sayes another:

Walker the Iremonger, a goodly rich prize,
Death sent to the Devil for telling of lyes:
Where now without check, he may let his pen run,
In legends of wonders, and what here was done
In Parliament, Army, and our times here so sad,
I'assure you better Scribe, the Devil nere had.

Then sayes another:

Here lyes the Iremonger, who'le deny it?
Whose busie brains did make him live unquiet:
'Tis but his body rests; his soul not so,
That's gone to preach unto the Saints belowe.
FINIS.

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