That is, the king's and church's lands
Were sequester'd int' other hands:
For only then, and not before,
Your eyes were open'd to restore;
And, when the work was carrying on,
Who cross'd it but yourselves alone?
As by a world of hints appears,
All plain, and extant, as your ears.

"But first, o' th' first: The Isle of Wight
Will rise up, if you should deny 't,
Where Henderson, and th' other masses,
Were sent to cap texts, and put cases:
To pass for deep and learned scholars,
Although but paltry Ob and Sollers:
As if th' unseasonable fools

Had been a coursing in the schools,
Until they 'ad prov'd the Devil author

O' th' Covenant, and the Cause his daughter:
For, when they charg'd him with the guilt
Of all the blood that had been spilt,
They did not mean he wrought th' effusion
In person, like sir Pride, or Hughson;
But only those who first begun
The quarrel were by him set on;

And who could those be but the saints,
Those reformation termagants?
But ere this pass'd, the wise debate
Spent so much time it grew too late;
For Oliver had gotten ground,
T'enclose him with his warriors round;
Had brought his providence about,
And turn'd th' untimely sophists out.
"Nor had the Uxbridge business less
Of nonsense in 't, or sottishness;
When from a scoundrel holder-forth,
The scum as well as son o' th' earth,
Your mighty senators took law,
At his command were forc'd t' withdraw,
And sacrifice the peace o' th' nation
To doctrine, use, and application.
So when the Scots, your constant cronies,
Th' espousers of your cause and monies,
Who had so often, in your aid,
So many ways been soundly paid,
Came in at last for better ends,

To prove themselves your trusty friends,
You basely left them, and the church
They train'd you up to, in the lurch,
And suffer'd your own tribe of Christians
To fall before, as true Philistines.
This shows what utensils y' have been,
To bring the king's concernments in;
Which is so far from being true,
That none but he can bring in you;
And if he take you into trust,
Will find you most exactly just,
Such as will punctually repay
With double interest, and betray.
"Not that I think those pantomimes,
Who vary action with the times,
Are less ingenious in their art,
Than those who dully act one part;
Or those who turn from side to side,
More guilty than the wind and tide.
All countries are a wise man's home,
And so are governments to some,
Who change them for the same intrigues
That statesmen use in breaking leagues;
While others in old faiths and troths
Look odd, as out-of-fashion'd clothes,

And nastier in an old opinion,
Than those who never shift their linen.
"For true and faithful's sure to lose,
Which way soever the game goes;
And, whether parties lose or win,
Is always nick'd, or else hedg'd in:
While power usurp'd, like stol'n delight,
Is more bewitching than the right;
And, when the times begin to alter,
None rise so high as from the halter.
"And so may we, if we 'ave but sense
To use the necessary means,
And not your usual stratagems
On one another-lights aud dreams:
To stand on terms as positive,

As if we did not take, but give;

Set up the covenant on crutches,

'Gainst those who have us in their clutches,
And dream of pulling churches down,
Before we 're sure to prop our own;
Your constant method of proceeding,
Without the carnal means of heeding,
Who, 'twixt your inward sense and outward,
Are worse, than if y' had none, accoutred.
"I grant all courses are in vain,
Unless we can get in again;
The only way that 's left us now,
But all the difficulty 's how.

'Tis true we 'ave money, th' only power
That all mankind falls down before;
Money, that, like the swords of kings,
Is the last reason of all things;
And therefore need not doubt our play
Has all advantages that way,

As long as men have, faith to sell,
And meet with those that can pay well;.
Whose half-starv'd pride, and avarice,
One church and state will not suffice,
T'expose to sale, besides the wages,
Of storing plagues to after ages.
Nor is our money less our own
Than 'twas before we laid it down;
For 'twill return, and turn t' account,
If we are brought in play upon 't,
Or but, by casting knaves, get in,
What power can hinder us to win?
We know the arts we us'd before,
In peace and war, and something more,
And by th' unfortunate events
Can mend our next experiments;
For when we 're taken into trust,
How easy are the wisest choust,
Who see but th' outsides of our feats,
And not their secret springs and weights,
And, while they 're busy at their ease,
Can carry what designs we please?
How easy is 't to serve for agents
To prosecute our old engagements?
To keep the good old cause on foot,
And present power from taking root;
Inflame them both with false alarms
Of plots, and parties taking arms;
To keep the nation's wounds too wide
From healing up of side to side;
Profess the passionat'st concerns
For both their interests by turns,
The only way t' improve our own,
By dealing faithfully with none;
(As bowls run true, by being made
On purpose false, and to be sway'd)

For if we should be true to either,
'Twould turn us out of both together;
And therefore have no other means
To stand upon our own defence,
But keeping up our ancient party
In vigour, confident and hearty :
To reconcile our late dissenters,

Our brethren, though by other venters;
Unite them, and their different maggots,
As long and short sticks are in faggots,
And make them join again as close,
As when they first began t' espouse;
Erect them into separate

New Jewish tribes in church and state;
To join in marriage and commerce,
And only among themselves converse,
And all, that are not of their mind,
Make enemies to all mankind :
Take all religions in, and stickle
From conclave down to conventicle;
Agreeing still, or disagreeing,
According to the light in being;
Sometimes for liberty of conscience,
And spiritual misrule, in one sense;
But in another quite contrary,
As dispensations chance to vary;
And stand for, as the times will bear it,
All contradictions of the spirit:
Protect their emissaries, empower'd
To preach sedition and the word;

And, when they 're hamper'd by the laws,
Release the labourers for the cause,
And turn the persecution back

On those that made the first attack,
To keep them equally in awe
From breaking or maintaining law:
And, when they have their fits too soon,
Before the full-tides of the Moon,
Put off their zeal t' a fitter season,
For sowing faction in and treason;

And keep them hooded, and their churches,
Like hawks, from baiting on their perches,
That, when the blessed time shall come
Of quitting Babylon and Rome,
They may be ready to restore
Their own fifth monarchy once more.
"Meanwhile be better arm'd to fence
Against revolts of Providence,

By watching narrowly, and snapping
All blind sides of it, as they happen:
For, if success could make us saints,
Our ruin turn'd us miscreants;
A scandal that would fall too hard
Upon a few, and unprepar'd.

"These are the courses we must run,
Spite of our hearts, or be undone,
And not to stand ou terms and freaks,
Before we have secur'd our necks;
But do our work as out of sight,
As stars by day, and suns by night;
All licence of the people own,
In opposition to the crown;
And for the crown as fiercely side,
The head and boy to divide:
The end of all we first design'd,
And all that yet remains behind.
Be sure to spare no public rapine,
On all emergencies that happen;
For 'tis as easy to supplant
Authority, as men in want;

As some of us, in trusts, have made
The one hand with the other trade;
Gain'd vastly by their joint endeavour,
The right a thief, the left receiver;
And what the one, by tricks, forestall'd,
The other, by as sly, retail'd.
For gain has wonderful effects,
T'improve the factory of sects;
The rule of faith in all professions,
And great Diana of th' Ephesians;
Whence turning of religion 's made
The means to turn and wind a trade:
And though some change it for the worse,
They put themselves into a course,
And draw in store of customers,

To thrive the better in commerce:
For all religions flock together,

Like tame and wild fowl of a feather;
To nab the itches of their sects,

As jades do one another's necks.
Hence 'tis, hypocrisy as well

Will serve t' improve a church, as zeal;
As persecution, or promotion,

Do equally advance devotion.

"Let business, like ill watches, go Sometime too fast, sometime too slow; For things in order are put out

So easy, ease itself will do 't:

But, when the feat 's design'd and meant,
What miracle can bar th' event?
For 'tis more easy to betray,
Than ruin any other way.

"All possible occasions start,

The weightiest matters to divert ;
Obstruct, perplex, distract, entangle,
And lay perpetual trains to wrangle;
But in affairs of less import,
That neither do us good nor hurt,
And they receive as little by,
Out-fawn as much, and out-comply,
And seem as scrupulously just,
To bait our hooks for greater trust.
But still be careful to cry down
All public actions, though our own;
The least miscarriage aggravate,
And charge it all upon the state:
Express the horrid'st detestation,
And pity the distracted nation;
Tell stories scandalous and false,
I' th' proper language of cabals,
Where all a subtle statesman says,
Is half in words, and half in face;
(As Spaniards talk in dialogues

Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs)
Intrust it under solemn vows

Of mum, and silence, and the rose,
To be retail'd again in whispers,
For th' easy credulous to disperse."

Thus far the statesman--When a shout,
Heard at a distance, put him out;
And straight another, all aghast,
Rush'd in with equal fear and haste,
Who star'd about, as pale as death,
And, for a while, as out of breath,
Till, having gather'd up his wits,
He thus began his tale by fits:

"That beastly rabble-that came down From all the garrets--in the town,

And stalls, and shop-boards-in vast swarms, With new-chalk'd bills, and rusty arms,

To cry the cause-up, heretofore,
And bawl the bishops-out of door,
Are now drawn up-in greater shoals,
To roast-and broil us on the coals,
And all the grandees-of our members
Are carbonading-on the embers;
Knights, citizens, and burgesses-
Held forth by rumps-of pigs and geese.
That serve for characters-and badges
To represent their personages;
Each bonfire is a funeral pile,

In which they roast, and scorch, and broil,
And every representative

Have vow'd to roast-and broil alive.

"And 'tis a miracle we are not Already sacrific'd incarnate;

For while we wrangle here, and jar,
We 're grillied all at Temple-bar;
Some, on the sign-post of an alehouse,
Hang in effigie, on the gallows,
Made up of rags to personate
Respective officers of state;

That, henceforth, they may stand reputed,
Proscrib'd in law, and executed,
And, while the work is carrying on,
Be ready listed under Dun,

That worthy patriot, once the bellows
And tinder-box of all his fellows;
The activ'st member of the five,
As well as the most primitive;
Who, for his faithful service then,
Is chosen for a fifth again 7:

(For since the state has made a quint
Of generals, he 's liste: in 't)
This worthy as the world will say,
Is paid in specie his own way;
For, moulded to the life, in clouts

They 've pick'd from dunghills hereabouts,
He 's mounted on a hazel bavin,

A cropp'd malignant baker gave them;
And to the largest bonfire riding,

They 've roasted Cook already and Pride in;
On whom, in equipage and state,
His scarecrow fellow-members wait,
And march in order, two and two,
As at thanksgivings th' us'd to do,
Fach in a tatter'd talisman,
Like vermin in effigie slain.

"But (what's more dreadful than the rest) Those rumps are but the tail o' th' beast, Set up by popish engineers,

As by the crackers plainly appears;
For none, but Jesuits, have a mission
To preach the faith with ammunition,
And propagate the church with powder;
Their founder was a blown-up soldier.
These spiritual pioneers o' th' whore's,
That have the charge of all her stores,
Since first they fail'd in their designs,
To take-in Heaven by springing mines,
And with unanswerable barrels
Of gunpowder dispute their quarrels,

Now take a course more practicable,
By laying trains to fire the rabble,
And blow us up, in th' open streets,
Disguis'd in rumps, like sambenites,
More like to ruin and confound,
Than all their doctrines under ground.
"Nor have they chosen rumps amiss,
For symbols of state-mysteries,

Though some suppose 'twas but to shew
How much they scorn'd the saints, the few,
Who, 'cause they 're wasted to the stumps,
Are represented best by rumps.
But Jesuits have deeper reaches

In all their politic far-fetches,

And from the Coptic priest Kircherus,
Found out this mystic way to jeer us:
For as th' Egyptians us'd by bees

T' express their antique Ptolomies,
And by their stings, the swords they wore,
Held forth authority and power;
Because these subtle animals

Bear all their interests in their tails,
And when they 're once impair'd in that,
Are banish'd their well-order'd state;
They thought all governments were best
By hieroglyphic rumps exprest,

"For as, in bodies natural,
The rump's the fundament of all;
So, in a commonwealth or realm,
The government is call'd the helm,
With which, like vessels under sail,
They 're turn'd and winded by the tail;
The tail, which birds and fishes steer
Their courses with through sea and air,
To whom the rudder of the rump is
The same thing with the stern and compass.
This shows how perfectly the rump
And commonwealth in Nature jump:
For as a fly, that goes to bed,
Rests with his tail above his head;

So, in this mongrel state of ours,

The rabble are the supreme powers,
That hors'd us on their backs, to show us
A jadish trick at last, and throw us.
"The learned rabbins of the Jews
Write, there's a bone, which they call luez,
I' th' rump of man, of such a virtue,
No force in Nature can do hurt to;
And therefore, at the last great day,
All th' other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed
All sorts of vegetals proceed;
From whence the learned sons of Art
Os sacrum justly style that part:
Then what can better represent,
Than this rump-bone, the parliament,
That, after several rude ejections,
And as prodigious resurrections,
With new reversions of nine lives,
Starts up, and, like a cat, revives?
But now, alas! they 're all expir'd,
And th' house, as well as members, fir'd:
Consum'd in kennels by the rout,
With which they other fires put out ;
Condemn'd t' ungoverning distress,
And paltry, private wretchedness;

8 Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, hath written largely on the Egyptian mystical learning. Kirkerus, in the two first editions.

Worse than the Devil to privation,
Beyond all hopes of restoration;
And parted, like the body and soul,
From all dominion and controul.

"We, who could lately, with a look,
Enact, establish, or revoke;
Whose arbitrary nods gave law,
And frowns kept multitudes in awe;
Before the bluster of whose huff,
All hats, as in a storm, flew off;
Ador'd and bow'd to by the great,
Down to the footman and valet;
Had more bent knees than chapel-mats,
And prayers, than the crowns of hats;
Shall now be scorn'd as wretchedly,
For ruin 's just as low as high;
Which might be suffer'd, were it all
The horrour that attends our fall:
For some of us have scores more large
Than heads and quarters can discharge;
And others, who, by restless scraping,
With public frauds, and private rapine,
Have mighty heaps of wealth amass'd,
Would gladly lay down all at last;
And, to be but undone, entail
Their vessels on perpetual jail,

And bless the Devil to let them farms
Of forfeit soul, on no worse terms."

This said, a near and louder shout
Put all th' assembly to the rout;
Who now began to outrun their fear,
As horses do, from those they bear;
But crowded on with so much haste,
Until they 'ad block'd the passage fast,
And barricadoed it with haunches
Of outward men, and bulks and paunches,
That with their shoulders strove to squeeze,
And rather save a crippled piece

Of all their crush'd and broken members,
Then have them grillied on the embers;
Still pressing on with heavy packs
Of one another on their backs,
The vanguard could no longer bear
The charges of the forlorn rear,

But, borne down headlong by the rout,
Were trampled sorely under foot;
Yet nothing prov'd so formidable
As th' horrid cookery of the rabble;
And fear, that keeps all feeling out,
As lesser pains are by the gout,
Reliev'd them with a fresh supply
Of rallied force, enough to fly,
And beat a Tuscan running-horse,
Whose jockey-rider is all spurs.

PART III. CANTO III.

THE ARGUMENT.

The knight and squire's prodigious flight
To quit th' enchanted bower by night.
He plods to turn his amorous suit
T'a plea in law, and prosecute:
Repairs to counsel, to advise
'Bout managing the enterprize;
But first resolves to try by letter,

And one more fair address, to get her.

WHO would believe what strange bugbears Mankind creates itself, of fears,

That spring, like fern, that insect weed,
Equivocally, without seed,

And have no possible foundation,
But merely in th' imagination?

And yet can do more dreadful feats
Than hags, with all their imps and teats;
Make more bewitch and haunt themselves,
Than all their nurseries of elves.

For Fear does things so like a witch,
'Tis hard to unriddle which is which;
Sets up communities of senses,
To chop and change intelligences;
As Rosicrucian virtuosis

Can see with cars, and hear with noses;
And, when they neither see nor hear,
Have more than both supplied by fear,
That makes them in the dark see visions,
And hag themselves with apparitions,
And, when their eyes discover least,
Discern the subtlest objects best;
Do things not contrary alone

To th' course of Nature, but its own;
The courage of the bravest daunt,
And turn poltroons as valiant:
For men as resolute appear

With too much, as too little fear;

And, when they 're out of hopes of flying,
Will run away from Death by dying;
Or turn again to stand it out,
And those they fled, like lions, rout.

This Hudibras had prov'd too true,
Who, by the Furies left perdue,
And haunted with detachments, sent
From marshal Legion's regiment,
Was by a fiend, as counterfeit,
Reliev'd and rescued with a cheat;
When nothing but himself, and fear,
Was both the imps and conjurer;
As, by the rules o' th' virtuosi,
It follows in due form of poesie.

Disguis'd in all the masks of night,
We left our champion on his flight,
At blindman's buff, to grope his way,
In equal fear of night and day;
Who took his dark and desperate course,
He knew no better than his horse;
And, by an unknown Devil led,
(He knew as little whither) fled:
He never was in greater need,
Nor less capacity of speed;
Disabled, both in man and beast,
To fly and run away, his best;
To keep the enemy, and fear,
From equal falling on his rear.

And though with kicks and bangs he ply'd
The further and the nearer side,

(As seamen ride with all their force,
And tug as if they row'd the horse,
And, when the hackney sails most swift,
Believe they lag, or run adrift);
So, though he posted e'er so fast,
His fear was greater than his baste:
For fear, though fleeter than the wind,
Believes 't's always left behind.
But when the Moon began t' appear,
And shift t' another scene his fear,
He found his new officious shade,
That came so timely to his aid,
And fore'd him from the foe t' escape,
Had turn'd itself to Ralpho's shape,