HOSANNA: OR, A Song of Thanksgiving, Sung by the CHILDREN of ZION; AND Set forth in three notable Speeches at Grocers-Hall, on the late solemn Day of Thanksgiving, Thursday June 7. 1649.  
The First was Spoken by Alderman Atkins.  
The Second by Alderman Isaac Pennington.  
The Third by Hugh Peter's (no Alderman, but) Clericus in cuerpo.  Risum teneatis Amici? 

Alderman ATKINS his Speech before Dinner to the Speaker, the General, Lieutenant General, and Lord President Bradshaw, at Grocers-Hall, Thursday June 7.  
Mr. Speaker,  
OH, this is a blessed day (M. Speaker and marvelous in our eyes, to see you become our Supreme Head and governor, now that we have cut off the King's head. And as (I take it) it is one main reason of this heavenly Thanksgiving to my Lord Lieutenant-General, and Mr. General's Excellency for their great pains in the business. Verily (Mr. Speaker) I cannot choose but weep for joy to think on't; and yet I cannot tell you for what, though I shall tell you by and by— In the mean time— prithee M. Steward, set aside a couple of Custards, and a Tart for my wife— In the mean time (I say) I see no reason but why I may cry as well as bawl. I say Sir, I can bawl as well as my Lord of Pembroke here, or any man else my mouth was made for bawling; and I think you all know it well enough in the House upon occasion; For you may remember, Mr. Speaker, how I bauled at the Apprentices, two years since, when the House of Commons had like to have gone to wrack like a Bawdy-house I am sure I was Mr. Speaker then; for you look'● as white as the driven Custard, and had neither tongue nor eyes, nor ears, nor nose, nor brains, nor any thing else, but were in the same pickle as when the King came to demand the five Members. I wonder he did not smell me out too for a traitor: For, I had my breeches full on't then, as I had half a year before in Finsbury, at the general Muster of the new Militia: At which time, I say, Sir, I was one of the City-Collonels, and came off cleanly (though I say it:) For, being wounded in the belly, I retreated home, and having asked counsel of a Surgeon, the Malignant Knave would not undertake me; and so the State might have lost a Servant for want of a plaster, but that my kitchenwench made a shift to cure me with a dishclout.  
But having scaped this scouring (M. Speaker) and lived to see this glorious day, now let us sing the song of old Simeon, and depart in peace: but first let's have our bellyfuls. O death, I defy thee, for here's a good dinner coming in. Twelve Bucks out of eltham-park, besides those of the City; not a Presbyterian bit (I promise you,) therefore sit down Gentlemen, and eat lustily, I promise you it's well seasoned. I'll pass my word for the Cooks; for I was one of the Committee that examined them, and put them 
* Every Cook was sworn.  every man to their Oaths, to forswear: Rats bane, Mercury and Monarchy. Besides here's my Lord President (for more security) hath brought a dozen Tasters along with him. I hope he will lend us some of them. And now Mr. Speaker, you are welcome; in the name of my Brethren Representative of the City, I bid you heartily welcome; you may eat, drink, and be merry; for, you have laid up goods for many years, and now you are laying up the King's Goods. More sacks to the Mill still. Sit down Mr. Speaker; you are a good old Speaker; you are the Representative of the Supreme Authority. It was the Pope's first, next it was the Kings, and now it is yours, thank the Army. H●w daintily things are come about, (Mr. Speaker) as well as you and I! For, as I take it, you and I, and many more here have been at all Thanksgivings these 7. years. We have waited upon his old Excellency Essex and the Admiral Warwick, and sung Psalms with the Assembly men here over and over: And now those blackbirds are all flown, and out of Tune: here's not a man of them but Thomas Goodwin, and he is every jot as honest a man as his namesake John; for neither of them cares much for saying Grace, Therefore sit down (Mr. Speaker) we have his new Excellency here now, and General Cromwell's honour, that cares as little as they. Indeed, you must sit down first, and my Lord Mayor next; for, the Army (I am sure) made us vote it so, and that the City-Sword should be yielded up to you to make a thanksgiving Trencher-Knife and so you were as good a man as the King, and a better than my Lord Mayor; and so you might have been still, had you not giv●n him his Sword again, for you lose your place in yielding up the sword: and leave the supreme Authority in my Lord Mayor and the Army. Howsoever sit still (Sir,) I hope the General will not oppose the Votes of the House, now that it is the Armies own House, but let them pass an't be but for fashions sake: and therefore (M Speaker) for fashions sake you may sit uppermost, and next to you my Lord Mayor.  
I think too, for fashion's sake (my Lord General) your Excellency may sit down next. I would be loath to d●splease Mr. Lieutenant general's honour, I hope he will not be angry at your Excellency, nor me▪ I could wish you had voted all your places before you came hither: But your Excellency may sit, I suppose; for Mr. Lieut Gen. looks as if he gave you leave▪ On my Conscience that's a meek humble soul, and will take some other time to set you beside the saddle.  
And for you (my Lord President I should have placed you uppermost; for, I know none so fit to have represented the Supreme Authority, as you that commanded the cutting off that Head of it! Oh, how this Scarlet-gown becomes your honour! It suits exceeding well with mine and my Lord Mayors; for, you sentenced the old King as a traitor, and we have proclaimed the young King to be no King, and a traitor, when we can catch him. It was a dangerous piece of work indeed; I was as afraid as you are of following doctor Dorista; the people did so threaten, as if they would have torn us for the very rags of Authority, and cried up Charles the second, louder than we could cry him down. I think the rest of my Brethren carried it little better than myself; for, my guts began to crow after their, old tune, and wrought like bottle-beer, insomuch that I wished for Coll. Pride to stop the bunghole, till the Troopers relieved us.  
But now (my good Lord President) let's comfort one another: And though you deserve to be uppermost, yet sit down and be content with your place. For fashion's sake M. Lieutenant-General's honour is content to let it be so, till he finds it convenient to turn you off as well as his Excellency. Pray take it not ill that I whisper this in your ear; for, now that he hath made you serve his ends, he cares not so he were rid of you; since you may serve them all as you did the King, in a new High Court of Justice, because you are pleased to let it be so.  
The next place (Mr. Lieut. Gen.) must needs be yours. By his Excellencie's leave, you are the Saviour of the three Kingdoms. You are he that hath filled our hearts this day with Thanksgiving and gladness. You trained the King into a snare at Carisbrook Castle, and fooled and routed all his Party. You set up a High Court to cut him off, and you lie at catch for his Son. You have made us a commonwealth, that is (as Malignants say) have given us power to put a finger in every man's purse and ●ocket. You have made the people the Supreme Authority, and left them no Laws. And well done (Sir) for what should we do with any Law but the Sword? Or what Law like Liberty of Conscience and Power met together? You it is that lead his Excellency by the nose like a Bear, and at last will bring him to the stake. You have new moulded the City. You are the joy of our hearts, the light of our eyes, and the breath of our nostrils, though Cavaliers call you the cutthroat of our lives and liberties. For all which we set this day apart to give thanks to God, and a dinner to you, and somewhat else into the bargain, as you shall see after dinner. In the mean time fall to a short life and a merry; (may it please your Honour) a short life and a merry; and so give me leave to conclude heartily with part of the Lords-Prayer (though I do not use it) Thy Kingdom come; or as the Thief did upon the Cross, remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom, and I promise you faithfully I will never beshit the Palace.   

Alderman Isaac Penningtons' Speech. at the presenting of the Golden basin and Ewer unto the General, with Plate of 300 l. value, and 200 l. in Gold in a Purse to the Lieutenant General.  
GIve ear O Heavens, and regard O earth; may it please your Excellency to open your mouth wide and I shall fill it. I Isaac Pennington Alderman of London, confess myself altogether unable to speak the praises due unto yourself, Mr. lieutenant General, and all the faithful Officers and soldiers of your Army. Yet why should I hold my peace? I wil● speak though I cannot speak, and though I cannot speak I will not keep silence. Some have been so bold as to brand me for a cracked vessel, yet I have been meet for my Master's use, and they shall find me as sound as sounding Brass, or as a tinkling Cymbal▪ Moses was a man slow of speech, yet he was a great leader, and so have I been, and so is Your Excellency. But as for Mr. Lieut. General, though he be such a one too, yet he hath the torgues of men and Angels so much at his devotion, that the very noise of them drowns the fame of your Excellency, and swallows up your senses.  
For my part, I ble●s God exceedingly for you both, for all your labour of love in gunpowder and Gosp●l, and carrying on that glorious work of Reformation, which though I began in desperation, yet you have brought it to perfection. Henceforth therefore all Generations shall call you blessed, and me no mad man, though I have been as mad as any of you all; and yet I think I am fit enough to deliver the sense of the City; who by me returns you thanks for the great pains you have taken in purging the malignant Presbyterians out of the Common council, as well as the House; by which means you made shift to new-model the City, as you did the Army, turning out all that were not of your own temper; so that we are all now of one soul and one mind, and lay all things in common for the use of the State, but what is our own.  
Add to these things your borrowing money of the City, but never paying them again, your brea●ing all their privileges, and putting daily affronts upon them, your imprisoning, fining, assessing, taxing, exci●ng, Free-quartering, and fleecing all their fellows; your conquering them by treachery, and riding through their streets in triumph, your overawing them with the Military power, and destroying their Trade by Land, and traffic by Sea. For all which unexpressible favours, with the extirpation of presbytery, and the suppressing of the Levellers, they conceive themselves bound to return an acknowledgement, and rejoice in the opportunity of dedicating this day of Thanksgiving unto you and your Bellies.  
But since man lives not by bread only, but by killing of Kings and loyal Subjects, and seizing on their goods and estates, and turning them into money. Since Gold is the only Goddess of this Reformation, and the Saints cannot establish their Kingdom without it; since your Excellency, and your Lieutenant-General Guardian, have vouchsafed us this favour of a visit which you denied to the Presbyters, we here present your Excellency, with the same golden basin and Ewer, which you refused from their hands. It cost them one thousand pounds, and because it was of their providing we can the more freely bestow it upon you. I have been an old Thanksgiving-Sinner, as well as M. Speaker, or any of them all, in the days of old Essex, who (I am sure) never received such a present for all his pains, but was content to be fobbed off with a Close stool and a pipe of Tobacco; which was the reason (I conceive) why my brother Atkins here in those days, kept so close to him after dinner.  
And as for you (M. Lieutenant General) though your merits outweigh whatever we can present unto you, and though in all the beforenamed exploits we must allow you the greatest share, yet be pleased to accept of the less requital, a poor pittance of 300 l. in Plate, and a Vision of golden Angels in a purse, to the value of 200 l. all the cost of our own Fraternity.  
As for the rest of the Lords and Gentlemen here present, I hope they will excuse us, and think themselves well satisfied with their dinner: And in particular, you my Lord President, who deserve much in the settling of this republic. But having done but one single Act towards it, if you expect more than a dinner, we must leave you to the consideration of M. Lieutenant-General, who set you on work and in the end (no doubt) will pay your wages.  
I have but one word more to say, and that is this: We have great cause to rejoice in the happy settlement of this commonwealth; but I fear we shall not be quiet yet. God bless us from untoward dreams and restless nights, and send us well to digest this Thanksgiving-Dinner, and to have no more of them, nor occasion for them in haste: for the frights they put us into beforehand are terrible, and the dinners themselves are chargeable and will prove very chargeable indeed, if Malignants speak truth, who say this very days Thanksgiving will costs us no less than our heads, if not our souls too into the bargain. Therefore (Gentlemen) in a word, I think we have but one play, and that is to hold up the State as long as we can, and to make sure of our heads and estates, and pillage other men's, when we can hold it no longer.  
In answer to this, Hugh peter's being well whittled with mine, made the following Reply.  
Reader, Peter's his being drunk is no Fable (I assure you) and he fell out with the Butler.   

Hugh peter's his Thanksgiving Speech for a farewell to the City, in the behalf of the General and Lieutenant General.  
Mr. Alderman Penningtons', and the rest of the Representatives of the City,  
I Must tell you, I have been half the world over, and yet I am come back again; and by my Faith (Sirs) I must tell you, I never saw such a godly jolly crew as are here, all heigh Fellows together. 'Tis merry when maltmen meet; and (they say) some of us here have been Brewers, and of worse Trades too: But uh— uh— let that Pass. I defy Brewing, for, I have been all over your Wine Cellar, and that's another world, but it's as slippery a world as this, and runs round too. What a Nicodemus is the Butler! he was loath to own Me but by night; he bade me stay till night, and then I should have my bellyful: Now (Sirs) I conceive a bellyful is a bellyful; and if a man have not his bellyful, it is no Thanksgiving: And if you (Gentlemen of the City) have not a bellyful of this Thanksgiving, I say you may have a bellyful.  
Had D. Dorista been so wise as to have stayed at home, he might have had another kind of bellyful than he had at the Hague: But a belly full still is a bellyful, and Grocers-Hall is a better Ordinary than a Dutch Ordinary for a bellyful. Pox o' your Dutch Ordinaries, I think they will become English, and give us all a bellyful; but in another kind (I fear) than I gave my Dutch Land-Lady and her Daughter.  
But no matter for that, a bellyful is a belly full: their bells were empty, and so was mine; for I had not so much as a stiver to bless myself, and they would never let me be quiet, and I scored up still, and so I got my bellyful, and they got their bellyful; which was one bellyful for another, and so at length I was quit with them.  
Then I went to New-England, and there I saw a blessed sight, a world of wild Women and Men lying round a fire, in a ring stark naked. If this custom should 〈◊〉 up in London (as I see no reason but it may, if the State will vote it) than every woman may ●●ue her bellyful, and it would be a certain cure for cuckolds and jealousy, and so the City would lose nothing by this Thanksgiving.  
But now I come home to the point in hand, my Lord Mayor, and you Gentlemen of th●City, I am commanded to give you thanks: but I would know for what? for your dinner? yes, I will when I have my bellyful, but your Butler is no true Trojan; he knows not how to tap a●d ●oss the Stingo. Sure, he is some Presbyterian spy that is slinkt into office; some cowardly fellow that pines away at scandalous sins, and the stool of Repentance, and he will never do well till he be ●rencht for the humour: so that now I see I am like to go away without my bellyful; and have never a Jig to the tune of Arthur of Bradley— Sing O brave Arthur of Bradley!— Sing O!—  
But if things go thus, what should I thank you for? The States sore saw wh●t slender good fellows you would be, o● else some of you had been Knighted as well as my Lord of Pembroke. Nay, it was God's Mercy you had not all been Knighted: For, it was put to the vote (I tell ●ou) whether my Lord Mayor should be Knighted, and whether you, Alderman Pennington, and Alderman Atkins, should be dubbed Sir Isaac and Sir Thomas of the States own Creation. But since it's resolved otherwise, I pray you bid the Butler bring up his Cannikins, and I'll make you all Lords like myself, for now ● am no less in Title than Lord Hugo de santa Pietro Puntado, and every jot as merry as forty beggars.  
Now I warrant, you expect I should thank you for his Excellencies golden basin and Ewer. 'Tis true, I was commanded to do so; but what care I for a basin and Ewer? Give me a Pipe and a Chamber-pot: I mean a pipe of Canary into the bargain, or else it shall be no Thanksgiving-day for me. Oh, for a Condu●t from Malago, and that we knew how to convey Middleton's pipes to the Canary Islands, than there would be no end of Thanksgiving.  
I am commanded likewise to thank you for the Lieutenant general's Plate, and his Purse of Gold: and I am so much the more willing to do it, because I hope to have a feeling out of it anon when we come home: But (as I take it) you have more reason to thank him, than he you: For, you gave him a little purse of money, and 'tis his goodness he does not take all. I observe too you have given him but the value of 500 l. and his Excellency (forsooth) as much more. Do ye know what you do? Cou●d you not have asked my council before? you may chance to be switched (i'faith) for not setting the saddle upon the right horse; and well you deserve it, if I be not furnished with a pipe of Canary. Let me not be put off with nothing, like my Lord President, and M. Speaker, you know whether to send (Sirs.) My lodging is sometimes at St. James', but most an end in Thames street. Ther●'● my Maid, a handsome lass. I tell you, will take it in, as well as myself, or else I would never keep her, Farewel● (Sirs) here's nothing to do (I see.)  

A Pox on your Butler and his lean joules,  
There's liberty lies in the bottom of the bowls.   
Thus it is in one of our modern Authors; but I Profess I can have none of this liberty, though it be the first year of freedom, and then judge you whether the State, or the State's Servants have any cause of Thanks. farewell (Si●s) I am gone. Oh for a mill-boule, or his excellency's basin and Ewer now to spew in, and make an end of Thanksgiving.  
FINIS.