This emblem here, expresseth to the full  
What shall betide our City Water-gull;  
Who (leaving poesy, Pamphlets, Wine, and Whores)  
Must be trussed Laureate on his proper oars,  
With his own Tackling; Therefore it is meet,  
Th●Sayle stand by, to be his Winding-sheet;  
I'm sure, he must pass thus o'er Charon's Ferry,  
Unless some boisterous Wind overturn the Wherry.  
By John Booker.  
Printed according to Order for G. B. July 19 1644.   

No Mercurius Aquaticus, BUT A Cable-Rope double-twisted for JOHN Tailor the Water-Poet.  
I Should be loath to foul my fingers with any base Pamphlet that comes from Oxford, if the venom of their malicious spleens were darted only against my particular self: But when through my sides they wound the honour of the Parliament, and our Armies abroad, I cannot but set Pen to Paper, and pay them back again in their own kind. And who d'ye think I should meet abroad for a Rogue in Print, but one of our City Water-rats, the doughty John Tailor, who according to the knavish custom, changes his name upon every new paper-design? Sometimes he calls himself Thorny Ailo, Mercurius Aquaticus, and now he entitles himself, NO Mercurius AULICUS, I thought I had lately sent rope enough for all the parrots in Oxford: But I perceive they will be prattling still; and therefore I must unmask the Mysterious Masters of the Science of railing. There are three grand paper-Conspirators well known by the Name of Mercurius Aulicus, George Naworth, and reverend Master John Tailor the water-tankard, by whose sprinklings in this great dearth of Wit and Honesty, the University is cherished and kept in credit: These three are they which pump and pimp about with their prostitute Noddles in the behalf of Popery. Murder and Rebellion against the State; they are Liars in all Elements. Aulicus for Land-l●es, tailor for Water, and hungry George Naworth, for all between Heaven and earth, where I doubt not but to see them all meet together, to take their farewell of the World, where the parrots will find Ropes made of stronger Lines than mine, and such as will nonplus the very primest wits in the University.  
And now thou Thames Otter, thou Malignant Dive-dapper, thou Jack Tailor, thou Motley, Sea-green, Ditch-water villain, that hast more Malignant flowings and ebbings in thy Waterish Brains, than the Thames hath Tides; which makes thee as subject to Moon fits and Lunacy, as the besotted University itself, or as George Digby, when his plots fail, or as Rupert under the Influence of a plundering, or wenching Constellation; whose p●ricranium is fit for nothing but to make an Appendix to the sign of the mermaid Tav●rne at Carfoix: that very tavern which for want of Wine, and money in the courtier's pockets, which used to damn and swe●re the Drawers out of the Reckonings, is now very seasonably turned into a fluent Magazine of Nectar, which according to the old Translation, is cleped an alehouse, which is the highest Title of honour that the best Rend●z-vouz of good fellowship can now attain to in Oxford. In this place I understand that thou thy most aquatical self, and George of No-worth, alias Naworth, with whose dangerous Coxcombrian conceits (to speak Anagrammatically) I am in NO WRATH; and the prevaricating, calumniating Mercurius Aulicus, do meet together weekly to make Ducks and Drakes with your Sottish brains over barley-broth; and muster up whole Regiments of Lies, Slanders, and ridiculous Quibbles against the Parliament and City, and such as myself, who are sworn friends to their King and country: And in stead of answering my Rope for a Parrot, thou and George Naworth have out of your drunken Aleh●use humours, both combined together to be fools in Print; but I perceive that your language is as foggy and fulsome as your Ale, your conceits smell too much of the Malignant Onions and garlic of Egypt, you have so much Irish and Spanish, that I cannot understand you with my Wits; for should they go a rambling after your far-fetched conceits, perhaps I should never recover, or call them back again.  
Thou railest against Master Pym, and rakest in the ashes of the dead, most sacrilegiously rifling his grave of the honour due unto it: But I know that Malice and envy survive the funerals of worthy men, as well as their virtues; and whereas thou talkest of receiving wages with Achitophel, and Machiavelli, I tell thee that the day of Account and Receipt is not come as yet, though the declination of your Culminating signs and ensigns at York, is a shrewd prognostic that the time cannot be far off. If thou wilt not believe this prognostic of mine, what thinkest thou of your idolised and idolising marquess of the North? He foresees this without Astronomy, and knows not whether he had best arrive in Holland or Ireland: What thinks Count (Saladine the Sarasen, cry you mercy, I mean) Palatine Rupert, the young man that speaks nothing but Daggers and Carbines, and commits nothing but outrageous Cruelties against the best Subjects? What think ye of the Achitophels, the machiavels, and Sanballats at Court, the Turks of Ireland, and infidels of Wales? They shall receive their wages, I warrant you, though none of their Pay.  
Thou talkest of a Long-lie, a shortly, a Broad-lie, and a roundly, and of Cuckolds, and coxcombs: But this variety of lying is proper to none but Courtiers: Thus Rupert hath made many coxcombs, that have no more of Gentility or Nobility, but the bare outside, to be Cuckolds, nay, and some of them contented ones too, very well contented to be dubbed and palatined, and this is his usual kind of lying: you have another kind of lying, which is as common as lying a-bed, the Art of lying, and belying our Armies, the proper gift of your rebellious Faction. This is a special quality of yours too, Reverend Master (Pricklouse, cry you mercy, I forgot) tailor; you are skilled (you say) in the Syriack and Arabian Tongues, yea, the very air of Oxford colleges, and schools, the Authors you have read, the Books you have perused, and the Dictionaries you have poa●'d upon, have much illustrated, elevated, and illuminated your Intellect. But you are a Pagan villain, to run so far as the reign of S●nacherib for an Author (or rather a fiction) to confirm your Roguery, a little too far for me to step, that have other business, than to give every knave an answer, and therefore I shall go no farther than Mahomet and his Alcoran, and there I find the word, Thorny Ailo, the wise Anagram of thy Name, to be thus anatomised and Skellumatized. Thorny in the Arabic, signifies a villain, and Ailo in the Syriack a Rook, otherwise called in the Greek Abaddon, which being Englished, is a destructive villain; or an Antichristian Prick louse, which tacks together all sorts of Fustian, as im●udent lies, slanders, and far-fetched bombast; in the behalf of Popery: Thou art a most expert tailor in this kind, and canst easily take measure of the University Intellects, and fit their fantasies with a paper-work presently: But I will spoil your trading Sir, by being silent at any more fopperies which shall be sent abroad by thee, or thy companion Naworth; for to write against you, is to relieve you, by giving you occasion to raise a fortune with scribbling Pamphlets: But for this I'll take a course to starve you by my silence; I will not be so charitable, as to bestow another Rope upon such parrots, nor spend my labour in vain upon rebels that are past cure.  
But Pretheo Master Thorny Ailo Abaddon, or Abaddon Thorny Ailo, (take which end thou wilt foremost, and still thou art A Bad One) thy mistakes are as gross as thy conceits: Sure you and Naworth had been liquoring your brains with Ale of the infusion of Opium, or for want of victuals, eaten a salad of Nightshade, Hemlock, and Poppy, with Unguentum Populeon, and oil of Alabaster in stead of Butter, some such sleepy, drowsy repast or other, that you could not open your eyes to read right, what I said concerning the conjunction of the 31 of May, but that you must mistake Jupiter for Mars, you print it to be the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, but I said of Saturn and Mars, and my Prediction thereupon you call a Bug bear fear▪ fool Prediction, and a lying Prognostication; But I leave the world to judge that: Have not the Authors of distraction and murder, been sufficiently punished from that time hitherto? Were they not then driven out of Oxford, and ever since up and down the kingdom? And have the Northern Incendiaries fared ever a whit better; their godless Regiments being all dispersed, and the principal Abettors forced to seek their fortunes in foreign Parts. They had raised the flame to such a height, that the kingdom began to be a little too hot for them.  
But to say no more of this, seeing it is apparent, I will cut thee for the Simples throughly before I have done: Th●u sayst that Saul was sent to seek two Asses, and (not finding them) he found a kingdom. But how did Saul play the ass, and lose his kingdom? Was it not for saving Agag the King of the Amalekites alive, whom he should have destroyed as an utter enemy to Israel? what shall we think then will become of that King, or those Counsellors, which have made Peace, and spoke friendly to those which have cut the throats of 200000. Israelites, I mean Protestants in Ireland? If I should Prognosticate on such a business a● this, what would become of them: and if Justice should suffer thee to live to see the event, thou wouldst then confess that there were some more realities in my Predictions, than in the books of Fortune, the shepherd's calendar, Erra Pater, Mother Shipton's prophecies, or the long-eared Outacousticou of Albumazar.  
I could willingly Prognosticate somewhat concerning thy villainous Self; and now I think on't, it is very neatly couched in the Anagram of thy name, and it is the very thing which the men of thy Element do foretell of thee, and to this they say, there needs no Art, for they can do it without the help either of Necromancy, or hydromancy, having had experience too often of your Bank side, and Beare-Gardes rogueries; and they all agree with one consent, that to— John Tailor,— join Halter is a most complete Anagram, than which none could ever have framed a better to speak thy deservings: But thou wilt except against this Anagram, as irregular, because that I place an E, where thou puttest an O, in spelling thy surname; I will then deal critically with thee, and prove that thou are guilty of an Innovation or Corruption in thy Name; for all our Trades, Professions, Callings and Offices in England, do for the general, end in or, as haberdasher, Ironmonger, Draper, Sculler, &c. and none of them in or; look in Holinshend his description of England, and he tells us, that this custom was derived from the Saxon language, which Nation had once possession of this island: And therefore thy Name being the name of a Trade, ought sure rather to follow the general, in being spelled tailor, and not tailor.  
What is the reason Sir, that you spell false? Is it because your Skellumship would not have the world to think, that your pedigree was derived from such a lousy, Snip snap original, as to have thy Ancestors thought to be tailors. Such an extract were too good for thee: No, thou art tailor from the tail of the Dragon, which thou ranest to Oxford, to lay hold on as the surest stay: And now that the Beast begins to be faint and weary, and is unable to support Popery any longer in England, you are even at your wit's end: thou lookest toward London with a heavy heart, not for the offences and villainies which thou hast committed here, and since thy departure, against this famous City; but because thou darest not come hither again to commit more, and play more pranks than thou hast done formerly. So that I suppose, thou art even ready to join Halter indeed for want of necessary maintenance; And therefore I'll express some Charity towards thee, though an enemy, and put thee into employment: And because thou s●yest, that the seven Planets, and the twelve celestial signs are all offended with me, I do constitute George Naworth join-commissioner with thee, to carry them, such news, which I know will be welcome to them, and be a means to procure thee a reward.  
I prithee, in the first place, tell Jupiter, that he spends his thunder in vain, and that Vulcan knows not how to procure him any more thunderbolts, unless he return to his ancient Throne, in a lawful Assembly of the Gods: And that whilst he was abroad managing those tempests, which the anger of Juno had raised, she stupefied him by Circean enchantments, borrowed of the great Red Dragon, and mingled by the grand whorish Cassiopaea in the Cup of Abominations. Tell Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor, that when Endimyon Porter hath recovered of his madness, I have appointed him to be their chief bearward, and thou thyself to be Sub-Bear-ward, that Mercury the Irishman may pass freely to Jupiter's Court, without fear of being, Bugg● beared by the way, and that he may have safe Conduct in Charles his wain, through the Milky way, or the Purple way, no matter which, so he make haste. Petition Mars, that he would favour Jupiter's Cause so far, as that the Protestant Religion may be maintained, according to the desire of Juno, and no otherwise, in despite of inferior mortals. Desire Venus that she would recall her severe messenger, Morbus Gallicus from the royal Army and Court, who is like to prove the ruin of the camp and cabinet-council: Especially remember to beg of Luna to withhold herself in mists and thick clouds, for since the Cavallers were soundly banged near York by moonshine, they will henceforth be ready to swoone at the sight of her, or grow lunatic, as men of no hope in this world, and of less in that which is to come. Withal when thou hast dispatched this business, and art returned to thy friends at Oxford, carry them this news: That in my late return from my astronomical Journey, as I passed by the Twelve signs, I perceived very few of them to be Malignant; but all sworn enemies to the desperate cavalry; Aries and Tayrus have so rammed up the way to heaven, and so guarded it, that they will gore any Cavalier that shall offer to pass: Gemini indeed would willingly entertain them, because they are of kin, being double every way, double-tongued, double-hearted, double-religioned, half one thing, half another, half Protestant, half Papist, or whole atheist: But neighbouring Cancer will pinch and gripe them for their cruelties, and cast them into the den of Leo, where they shall be plundered and tolmented, and never be suffered to Quarter in Virgo, (tell Rupert so, for that is his Heaven, his Turkish Paradise, and the only hope of his Religion.) And then Libra will weigh them all, the weight of whose Plundering cannot but b●eak the Scales; And then they shall be bitten by Scorpio, shot though with darts and arrows by Sagittarius, hamme-stringed by Capricorn, soused, ducked and pumped by thy kinsman Aquarius, and then their blasphemous Tongues, and blood-guilty feet be bitten off, and devoured by Pisces, and so at length they may chance to be cooked in the devil's Frying-Pan.  
And thus thou learned Metropolitan of villainy, I have anatomised, and Skellumatized your ridiculous, roguing, and lying Pamphlet, which for this once, I have taken the pains to answer in thy own strain, being resolved to be troubled no more by thee; for I have of late found out a Medicine which will cure thee and all thy Malignant Companions, of their railing and malignant fits. It is very good for purging away humours in the head, and will cure the Vertigo or Staggers in Religion, and clear the eyesight of the University, and cure them of the Surfiet, which they have taken of Protestantism, and quench the praeternatural thirst after Popery and Slavery, and take away the obstructions of Reformation. Pray send the Bill to Her Majesties own Apothecary, who will very carefully compound it.  

Rs. One dram of King James his cordial, that was made by Buckingham.  
Of His majesty's Protestations.  
Of the Cabinet-Councells Honesty.  
Of Harry Jermyn's Honour.  
Of Rupert's Religion.  
Of Digby's English heart, ana. 2. grains.  
Of Tompkins his Halter, Quantum suffocat.  
One of Her majesty's good Intentions to the kingdom.  
Two Arguments at Law, of Justice Heath's own making.  
Two Ounces of the Irish Commission, and an ounce and an half of the wax that seared it, and three Pen-fulls of the ink that wrote it.  
I. Case of Conscience of Doctor Ferne, in the behalf of Tyrani●.  
I. headful of mischiefs of Bristol and Cottington.  
I. heartful of fears of the junto, and one pound of their slavery.  
Half a dram of University Divinity, and one scruple of chopped-logic, and Hebrew roots, ana:  
5. Gallons of Holy-Water, of the Vice-Chancellors own Consecrating.   
Boyle all these the length of a Masque at White-Hall, or rather of Cartwright's prophetical Play, called the royal Slave: Then stop it close with Surplesses, Copes and Hoods: So let it simper, like a Madam in her night-clothes, in the ashes of the next Town, which shall be fired for the Liberty of the subject: then strain it, and in stead of syrup, sweeten it with a Bucket or two of Irish Protestant Blood, that it may please the Palate, Drink three ounces of this Cursing and Swearing, and if it help not thee and thy friends to breathe out all your Malignant Humours, which have so intoxicated your Noddles with vile Conundrums: I must sit still admiring, and leave you to the gallows, the proper cure for such rebels as thyself, that are past Cure.  
FINIS.