Sickenesses & sleep, are as pauses and parentheses, in the line of life, but Death the full point; the period, and Ne plus ultra, of the longest. The grisly Atropos that cuts in sunder the strongest cord of life, it is that unavoidable debt levied upon all mankind, by force of that Statute enacted by God in Paradise: and recorded by Saint Paul, That all must dye. As when one told Anaxagoras, the Athenians have condemn'd thee to dye, He answered, and Nature then. It is that black night, which over-takes, and over-spreads the brightest day of life. The grim Sergeant sent from the Almighty with an Habeas Corpus, to arrest every one for that unavoidable debt, due to Nature, ever since our first Parent broke and turn'd Bankerupt. The grave is his Prison wherein he keeps them, till the Resurrection, the time of their Gaol-delivery from it. But to the godly, it is a friendly-fo, which by robbing them of a mortall life, makes them capable of immortality; and by splitting the vessell of their bodies, upon the rock of death, engulphs their souls into Eternity: setting her free from the prison of the body, and endenizing her into Heaven. It is their Exodus out of the Egypt of the World, preparing them to enter into their promised Land of the heavenly Canaan: or new Hierusalem. At this Port must we all arrive: whatsoever our Voyage be. This is the totall summe of all mankinde. It is the bitter cup our father Adam begun, and wee must all pledge it: the Inheritance which he purchased, as his wages of sin, and is entayl'd to all his posterity. A Deluge which broke in by Adams breach of Gods Commandement that sooner or later will over-flow all mankind. By his rebelling against God, al are become subject to deaths command. What the Epigram sayth wittily on the Grammarian is true of every man, that being able to decline all other Nownes in every Case, could decline Death in no Case. All must fall down at deaths feet, as well the Prince as the Pesant He cannot be resisted, nor will he be flatterd. No Orator so eloquent, that could perswade Death to spare him, nor Monarch so mighty that could resist him. Hezekiah, indeed was repriev'd, by God himselfe, for fifteen yeares, but he came to it at last. When this wind blowes, and when this rain descends, it irresistably blowes down, and washeth away the clay tenements of our bodies. He is an Archer that shooteth, somtimes beyond us hitting our superiours, somtimes short of us, striking our inferiors, somtimes at our right hand, depriving us of our freinds, somtimes at our left hand, taking away our foes: and then at last hits the marke it selfe, and we must tread the same path, that all have, who are gon before us, and all must that shall come after. ANONYMOUS A fresh Whip For all Scandalous Lyers. Or, A true description of the two eminent Pamphliteers, or Squib-tellers of this Kingdome. With a plaine and true Relation of their Tricks and Devices wherewith they use to couzen and cheate the Common-wealth. London printed. 1647. 4to. This lively sketch takes us at once into the riotous 'Fleet-Street' of 1647. The Royalist author begins by referring to the diurnals with a scorn that is not unjustifiable; for these periodicals, belonging almost entirely to the Roundheads, which crowded into brief existence at the outbreak of the Civil War to give accounts of the proceedings of the Parliament, were in the main illiterate and scurrilous. He then gives a vigorous account of the most notorious figure among these boggling journalists. 'Harry Walker' [why Thomas' here?] the ironmonger turned journalist, though dishonest and ignorant, was yet possessed of a queer efficiency that made its mark. A character of him as Mercurious Morbicus (1647) foretells the gallows for him and provides the epitaph: Faithless, fruitlesse he was ever, Except in lyes, but loyall never. From hence h'as taken wing to be, Cleveland's characters of A London Diurnal' and 'Diurnall-Writer' are well-known and in their own time they caused a stir, but the anonymous writer's work in A fresh Whip' is closer to the character-form and is of more general interest to-day. Two eminent Pamphliteers I MUST beginne with the Diurnall-Writer first, as indeed order it selfe doth enjoyne me, by the con stant course of the dayes in the week; and whose large volumne is issued out every Munday morning. I may not unfitly tearme him to be the chiefe Dirt-raker, or Scafinger of the City; for what ever any other book lets fall, he will be sure, by his troting horse, and ambling Booke-selers have it convey'd to his wharfe of rubbish, and then he will as a many petty fogging scriveners do (I may not exempt himselfe out of the profession) put out here and there to alter the sence of the Relation; and then he shelters it under the title of a new and perfect Diurnall. This merchant when he hath loaden his Sheet (or Dung-Cart) with his stale informations, and mis-informations; then ye shall have him strut up and down with his gingling spurs, as if he had a paire of Aarons Bells at his heeles, or that hee had done the state mighty good service. He was once a Stationer, till he crept into the little hole at Westminster-Hall, where indeed he began his trade of inditing or framing; and so rose at last to the stile of the Diurnall-Writer. I must confesse at his first beginning to write, he was very industrious, and would labour for the best intelligence, as his large volumnes do testifie, but when he found the sweetnesse of it, and how easily he could come by his Intelligence, he fell to his sports and pastimes, for you should hardly ever finde him at home all the weeke, till Saturdaymorning, and then you should be sure to find him abed, panting and puffing as if he had over-rid himselfe, with riding too and agen from the Army, when God-wot hee hath not been out of the Lynes of Communication; (but a little too much within the Lynes of M.M.). And so by this means making TWO EMINENT PAMPHLITEERS 247 the poor workmen stand still for their labour, and that which he should do on Saturday, he must do on Sunday. This merchant hath his two Printers to attend his worke, whereof one hath a man, that rather then it should be thought that he were not diligent enough for his Master, he will content himselfe with a peice of Thursdayes news for his Prayers, Fridayes Intelligence for the first Sermon, and Saturdayes for the afternoone Lecture, and if it do not hold them over-long, he will sit downe and sing a Psalme, or take a pipe of Tobacco, and think he hath done God good service. 'Tis a shame such a Conventicle (I can tearm it no otherwise) which tends to the dishonour of God, should be suffered. Now I must doe as many false Prognosticators mistake, or skip 3. dayes in the change of the Moone: I must come to Friday, stiled the Perfect Occurrence Writer. He whose face is made of Brasse, his body of Iron, and his teeth are as long as tenpenny-nayles. I think he is a youth not unknown to most in the City, since the great preferment he had to stand in the Pillory. He is a great merchant in this way of writing, and very excellent for framing a Title for an old, or new lye. This is he that when our men lay of one side of ShotoverHill against Oxford, he got the favour to discharge a peece of Ordnance against the City; when he had done, for London he came, with a greater report and execution then ever the piece did, that he had shot down one of the chiefest Colledges in the University, and that he could perceive the very Battlements to fall: and after this great victory of his, because he would be taken notice of, hee |