ANOTHER BALLAD: Called the Libertines Lampoone: OR, The Curvets of Conscience.
To the Tune of,
Thomas Venner, Or 60.
AS I examin'd my Conscience,
All by my self;
My head was full of Nonsence:
After seven times turning,
Worse then a burning,
I found she was a Way ward Elf.
Ceremonious Oaths, and humane Laws offend her,
She's constant as a Weather-cock, and as a Milstone tender;
E'ne such another Protestant,
as the old Witch of Ender.
Halloo my Conscience whither wilt thou go.
Treason she says is Religion,
Sacriledge Zeal;
A Crow she calls a Pidgeon:
She tells you further,
Plundering and Murther,
Do Service to the Common-weal.
Justice she esteemeth to be a very slow thing,
Power Ecclesiastick, she reckons as a low thing,
And for an Act of Parliament she counts it next to nothing;
Halloo my Conscience, &c.
A
Nonconformist to please her,
Lately declar'd:
She's more a Prince then
Caesar;
Say what she will say,
These fellows still say,
She must and ought to be heard.
Though Mallice
can corrupt her, and Avaric
[...]
can taint her,
Pride
can blow her up, and Hypocrisi
can paint her,
And when Truth
cryes her down Sedition can Saint her.
Halloo my Conscience, &c.
Changes she can Ring a hundred
More then are good,
Else it might be wondred,
In the mutations,
Of these three Nations
How upon her Legs she hath stood.
For under the old Rumpers
she was enfore'd to truckle,
Cromwel
and his Janisaries
made her glad to buckle,
And when the King came in, she got the trick to smuckle,
Halloo my Conscience, &c.
When
Smec and the
Independant
Began to Clash:
She could foresee the end on't;
And as soon as the day
First brake at
Breda,
She kept her self out of the lash.
Although of the Surplice she never had a Rag on,
Of all her nimble tricks, this she hath cause to brag on,
She pitcht upon her Feet when Bell
fought with the Dragon
Halloo my, &c.
Quite from bending and bowing,
She is declin'd:
To Theeing, and to Thouing,
Sects and perswasions
All Modes and Fashions,
Of every sort and kind.
She was a Brownist
lately, an Anabaptist
newly,
And then she fell to plainly, Verily and Truly:
But errors have no end, and factions want a Thule.
Halloo my, &c.
Such is her intricate winding
No Man can trace,
She loaths to hear of binding:
She's free and willing,
Although it be by killing
To run the Fanatick Race.
He that can restrain her, may fix the stars that wander,
Cure the sits of Jealousie,
or gag the Mouth of Slander:
Sail without a Rudder,
and rectifie Meander.
Halloo my, &c.
Drunk with the Doctrine of Tub
[...]men
See how she reels,
From Men of Law to Club-men,
This way and that way,
No man knows what way,
Unsteadfast as
Phaetons Wheels:
In Faith
none more fervent, in Charity
none colder,
As fiery as Bucephalus,
and then blind Byard
bolder:
She's too untame for Earth,
and none but Hell
can hold her.
I, I, 'tis thither, thither, she may go.
LONDON, Printed for E. K. and Edward Thomas, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Adam