JOHN CLEVELAND (1613-1658)

J. Cleaveland Revived: Poems, Orations, Epistles, And other of his Genuine Incomparable Pieces, never before publisht. . . . London, . . . 1659. 8vo.

This is one of the many satirical sketches of the puritan, a subject as a rule better suited to prose.

Cleveland must have enjoyed using his vigorous pen against a type he had good reason for disliking. It seemed preferable to represent the Cavalier poet' by a piece in his natural medium, rather than to give any of his prose characters, such as A London Diurnal or A Country Committeeman, for though these are also written with force, they have suffered somewhat from the fate that overtakes most work written as propaganda. The 'Puritan' is saved by its form, which acted here as a useful restraint.

The Puritan

WITH face and fashion to be known,
For one of sure election,

With eyes

all white, and many a grone,
With neck aside to draw in tone,
With harp in's nose, or he is none.
See a new Teacher of the town,
O the town, O the towns new Teacher.

With pate cut shorter than the brow,
With little ruff starch'd you know how,
With cloake like Paul, no cape I trow,
With Surplice none; but lately now,
With hands to thump, no knees to bow.
See a new Teacher, &c.

THE PURITAN

With coz'ning cough, and hollow cheek,
To get new gatherings every week,
With paltry change of and to eke,

With some small Hebrew, and no Greek,
To finde out words when stuffe's to seek.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With shop-board breeding, and intrusion,
With some Outlandish Institution,
With Ursines Catechism to muse on,
With Systems method for confusion,
With grounds strong laid of meer illusion.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With Rites indifferent all damned,
And made unlawfull, if commanded,
Good works of Popery down banded,
And Morall Laws from him estranged,
Except the Sabbath still unchanged.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With speech unthought, quick revelation,
With boldness in predestination,
With threats of absolute damnation,
Yet yea and nay hath some salvation,
For his own Tribe, not every Nation.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With after licence cost a crown,
When Bishop new had put him down,
With tricks call'd repetition,

And doctrine newly brought to town,
Of teaching men to hang and drown,
See a new Teacher, &c.

269

With flesh-provision to keep Lent,
With shelves of sweet-meats often spent,
Which new Maid bought, old Lady sent;
Though to be sav'd a poor present;
Yet legacies assure the event.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With troops expecting him at th' door,
That would hear Sermons, and no more;
With noting tools, and sighs great store,
With Bibles great to turn them o're,
While he wrests places by the score.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With running text, the nam'd forsaken,
With For and But, both by sense shaken,
Cheap doctrines forc'd, wilde Uses taken,
Both sometimes one by mark mistaken,
With any thing to any shapen.
See a new Teacher, &c.

With new wrought caps, against the Canon,
For taking cold, though sure he have none;
A Sermons end, where he began one,
A new hour long, when's glass had run one,
New Use, new Points, new Notes to stand on.
See a new Teacher, &c.

ANONYMOUS

The Character of a Phanatique. London,.. 1660. fol. single leaf.

This vigorous and well-written sketch is an exception to the general rule that the controversial character is unliterary. In La Bruyère's fashion we might well supply for it to-day one name or another. Will the time

ever come when it will not be true?

A Phanatique

A Phanatique is the Mushrom of distemper, a false Conception gotten by the Air upon the sick womb of a confused phancy, a meer changeling, who devours greedily all doctrines, but receives nourishment from none; the dishonour of his reputed father, the plague and ruine of his miserable mother; he is a reasonable creature uncapable of the right use of reason. He is a certain thing that would puzzle Plato or Aristotle to define, and indeed no man knowes well what he is, but himself least of all. You may better expresse him in the Negative than the Affirmative; for he is neither Pagan, Turk, Jew, nor true Christian. But to come as close to him as we can, he is a confused lump of earth not refined, still retaining the habit of that Chaos from whence he first proceeded, and is like a beggars bag fill'd with scraps of all sorts of food, or like a Botchers cushion made up of the various kinds of Shreds and patches, which he hath filched from several garments. He is of a sceptical humour, and you may sooner pick all

Religions out of him than one: and is somewhat a kin to all professions different from his own, but varies most from the Orthodox Protestant. So that a right phanatique is a phantastick fellow, pleasing himself with new fangles, and continually gaping after Novelties, and the discovery of New lights. He forsakes the true fire, and runs over bogs and moorish places to light his torch at an ignis fatuus, and (ten to one but) he sinks in the pursuit of it, and is never able to return again. He is fit for neither Heaven, Earth, nor yet Hell, because he is against all order and government, which is not only exercised in Heaven and Earth, but practised by the Devils themselves. He pretends much to a good conscience, yet thinks it lawful to murder all that dissent from him in opinion, although he changes from himself more often than the Moon. If you talk with him to-day you are never the nearer to know him to morrow, for you shall finde him perfectly metamorphosed. He rayls much against the Pope of Rome, and the Whore of Babylon, when none so much resemble the beast as himself, whose mark he bears in his fore-head, but wants the Looking-glass of reason to discern it. He writes all men in the black book of Reprobation, but his own fraternity, and concludes all his Fore-fathers damned. He thinks himself wiser than all others, although he be a verier fool than a meer Naturalist. He will prate two hours together, and after all you may sooner resolve a Delphian Oracle, than unfold his meaning, only he is dexterous in blaspheming those two great Ordinances of God, Magistracy and Ministry. He is naturally an arrand Coward, yet his