But, though the Red Sea we have passed,
If you to Canaan bring's at last,
In six years' space you have done more
Than all the parliaments before;
You have quite done the work.'
The King, the Cavalier, and Pope,
You have o'erthrown, and next we hope
You will confound the Turk.
By you we have deliverance
From the design of Spain and France,
Ormond, Montrose, the Danes;
You, aided by our brethren Scots,
Defeated have malignant plots,
And brought your sword to Cain's.
What wholesome laws you have ordained
Whereby our property's maintained
'Gainst those would us undo!
So that our fortunes and our lives--
Nay, what is dearer, our own wives→→
Áre wholly kept by you.
Oh what a flourishing Church and State
Have we enjoyed e'er since you sate!
What a glorious King (God save him!)
Have you not made his Majesty,—
Had he the grace but to comply,
And do as you would have him!
Your Directory how to pray
By the Spirit shows the perfect way;
In zeal you have abolished
The Dagon of the Common Prayer,
And next we see you will take care
That churches be demolished.
A multitude, in every trade,
Of painful preachers you have made,
Learned by revelation;
Cambridge and Oxford made poor preachers,
Each shop affordeth better teachers,-
Oh blessed reformation!
Your godly wisdom hath found out
The true religion, without doubt;
For sure among so many
(We have five hundred at the least)
Is not the gospel much increased?
All must be pure, if any.
Could you have done more piously
Than sell church-lands the King to buy,
And stop the city's plaints?
Paying the Scots' church-militant,
That the new gospel helped to plant;
God knows they are poor saints!
Because the Apostles' Creed is lame,
The Assembly doth a better frame,
Which saves us all with ease;
Provided still we have the grace
To believe the House in the first place,
Our works be what they please.
'Tis strange your power and holiness
Can't the Irish devils dispossess,
His end is very stout:
But, though you do so often pray,
And every month keep fasting-day,
You cannot cast them out.
WITH face and fashion to be known
For one of sure election;
With eyes all white, and many a groan;
With neck aside to draw in tone;
With harp in's nose, or he is none :
See a new teacher of the town,
Oh the town, oh the town's new teacher !
With pate cut shorter than the brow;
With little ruff starched, you know how;
With cloak 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.
With cozening 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 find out words, when stuff's to seek :
See a new teacher, &c.
With shop-board breeding and intrusion ;
With some outlandish institution;
With Ursine's catechism to muse on;
With system's method for confusion;
With grounds strong laid of mere illusion:
See a new teacher, &c.
With rites indifferent all damned,
And made unlawful if commanded,
Good works of Popery down banded,
And moral 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-license cost a crown,
When Bishop new had put him down ;
With tricks called repetition,
And doctrine, newly brought to town,
Of teaching men to hang and drown:
See a new teacher, &c.
With flesh-provision to keep Lent;
With shelves of sweetmeats often spent,
Which new maid bought, old lady sent,-
Though, to be saved, a poor present,
Yet legacies assure to event:
See a new teacher, &c.
With troops expecting him at the door,
That would hear sermons, and no more,—
With noting-tools, and sighs great store,
With Bibles great, to turn them o'er,
While he wrests places by the score:
See a new teacher, &c.
With running text, the named forsaken ;
With for and but, both by sense shaken,
Cheap doctrines forced, wild uses taken,
Both sometimes one by mark mistaken;
With anything to any shapen:
See a new teacher, &c.
With new-wrought caps, against the canon,
For taking cold, though sure he ha' none;
A sermon's end where he began one
A new hour long, when's glass had ran one;
New use, new points, new notes to stand on :
See a new teacher, &c.
[Author of Flamma sine Fumo, published in 1662].
BLACK PATCHES-VANITAS VANITATUM.
LADIES turn conjurers, and can impart
The hidden mystery of the black art;
Black artificial patches do betray
They more affect the works of night than day.
The creature strives the Creator to disgrace,
By patching that which is a perfect face.
A little stain upon the purest dye
Is both offensive to the heart and eye :
Defile not then with spots that face of snow,
Where the wise God His workmanship doth show.
The light of nature and the light of grace
Is the complexion for a lady's face.
[Born in Dublin, of an English family, in 1615; died in 1668. The author of the descriptive poem of Cooper's Hill was in his own day admired also as a playwright, in virtue of his tragedy, The Sophy. He was noted moreover as a gambler, and he rendered some important services in conducting correspondence for Charles I. The monarch for whom his journey to Poland was made (see the ensuing poem) was Charles II., towards 1650. "According to some accounts, Denham first discovered the merits of Milton's Paradise Lost; and went about with the book new from the press in his hands, showing it to everybody, and exclaiming, 'This beats us all, and the ancients too!'"]
ON MY LORD CROFT'S AND MY JOURNEY INTO POLAND, FROM WHENCE WE BROUGHT £10,000 FOR HIS MAJESTY, BY THE DECIMATION OF HIS SCOTTISH SUBJECTS THERE.
Gentle bell, for the soul
Of the pure ones in Pole
Which are damned in our scroll!
Who having felt a touch
Of Cockram's greedy clutch-
(Which though it was not much,
Yet their stubbornness was such
That, when we did arrive,
'Gainst the stream we did strive)-
They would neither lead nor drive;
An ear to a friend,
Nor an answer would send
To our letter so well penned;
Nor assist our affairs
With their moneys nor their wares,
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