Midsummer-Moone.  
OR LUNACY-RAMPANT.  
BEING A Character of Master Cheynell, the Arch Visitor of Oxford, and Mongrel- Precedent of Saint john Baptist's College.  
With a Survey of the three Renegado-fellowes Web, Inkersell and Lownds.  jam Seges est ubi Troja fuit. 
Printed, An. Dom. 1648.   

CHEYNEL is Bedlam seven stories high, or Sir Thomas his gouty leg wiredrawn: His head is shot up, as if it would only converse with the Prince oth'aire, and what we mistake for the man ith'moon is but a piece of him. he's an Index expurgatorius in the largest folio, or was intended for hoops for the tun at Heidelberg; you may take him for the 119 Psalms, lasting the execution of a whole University, or the Pinnacle from which the Devil would break the neck of it. 'Tis a sufficient argument of Cromwell's death to see this Maypole set up in Oxford. Dido, with his hide, might have had ground enough for her Carthage without slicing it into leashes. he's a monopoly of Steeples, and as often as he sounds, the bell goes out for some deceased Scholar. Babel's are erected for confusion.  
His red Nose is parched like a Beacon flaming on a mountain; Nature when she forged it, forgot to quench it: Web surrendered to it for a flag of defiance; Inkersell for a red Lattice, and only submitted to an Alehouse. The Scarlet-whore of Babylon spawned it with her menstruous profluviums. 'Twas painted with the blood of a witch when she mortgaged herself. The single sight of it made Sedgewick dream of doomsday and the second destruction of the world by fire. Such vessels are broached when Villains ratify their Conspiracies in Sacraments of Blood. If there be such an AEtna such a Purgatory aloof, what's the Demogorgon the Hell i'th' Centre?  
The spirits which ascend from so hot a Limbeck have converted his brains to Sulphur, and made him nothing but an unruly Squib: he's as prodigiously furious, as if he had been bolted out o'th' Monk's pot when he invented gunpowder, or his mother limed by the Devil shot from a Canon. He was begot i'th' Dog-days, or at Michaelmas when his Dam went to Rut. The Hecuba when she conceived this Paris dreamt of wildfire: His Nurse was a blear eyed Hound, Run-wood, and his native soil th' Antipodes to Anticyra. His Sire engendered him in an Itch beyond the cure o'th' brimstone which ruin'd Sodom. You may take him for a Spanish-Jennet, begot by a whirlwind or a tempest raised by a Conjurer, or all AEolus baged up and sold by a Laplander for shipwrecks; he ruminates on nothing but his Salisbury Chains, and his breaking loose from 'em, and therefore 'tis his continual business either to imprison or expel. Yet Mahomet's disease must be a divine rapture; in his paralytic fit, he converses with his Gabriel. Shuffle him with the rest o'th' visitors, and he comes forth like mad Orestes switchd on by furies to kill his mother the University. Brutish Ajax because he's a beast himself wallows i'th' gore of his fellow Greeks and thinks 'em swine. The Cannibal swears Mūmie's Bacon: he differs from an ordinary Tom of Bedlam, as a wild Wolf from a tame one, or Rome on fire from Nero's Fiddle. Sure he's done quicksotted, takes the College for an enchanted Castle, the fellows for Giants, Web, Inkersell, and Lownds, for three distressed damsels. He sweeps the house clean that his Fairy tenants may dance to him with money, his frenzy flames higher because 'tis sprinkled with a little reason, as women paint themselves into wrinkles and ugliness. His blood rides the round post, or dances the Morris through him, and so makes him giddy. His skull is a mere nest of hornets, which sting into him their own waspishness. This makes the mad bandog snap at all he meets. This new Judge (without the Kings writ) is the prime Bencher at condemnation but usually removed at the execution, and kills with his weekly bill as secretly as the Plague: Still like a mad dog which (they say) never barks. He wounds at farther distance than the stars influence can bless: this long boared murdering piece will carry destruction point blank from Petworth to Oxford. Cheynell in a University out rifles Cromwell in an Abbey. The Devil is busiest i'th' Church. Pickhatch ne'er was visited; Turnbull-street needs no reformation.  
Cheynell among the visitors, is a mountebank extraordinary with 4 zanies, or blustering AEolus with his Cardinal winds. This purger is the only scammony; the rest somewhat milder simples, Rhubarbe and Sena, one indeed is all honey and manna dropped from heaven, but kept till 'tis mouldy and stinks. This Sugar-Cane, this Posset, and Caudle visitor; with his marmalade quagmire, his blathered puff-paste, liquorish Kate Subs the second, are the Universities tooth drawers, and will leave no more Scholars than themselves have gums. These Figs and Almonds rot the University, while Cheynell like aqua fortis corrodes it. And yet that Cormorant can be dainty too: Doctors and Seniors are too tough for continual cramming, he must have Bachelors of art and Rabbits, under-graduats and Chickens; master commoners and Pheasants. Domitian gorged with men, wantoness with flies afterwards. He runs himself off his legs the first day's journey, and like a Brewer tuns once a week. Though he rides post yet he must have his stages: the dismallest Tragedy is cantelled into Acts, sure he hath got the mathematical trick to make so many Turks, and then by his hocus pocus Arithmetic, juggle them over board; yet the visitors like their harbinger the last new disease, murder the best. Among Moor's blacks are the only beauties: Cheynell good Churchman (like Altars) protects the guilty only; he thinks others breath corrupted when 'tis but the reflected rancour of his own; like Senecaes' wife's fool, struck with a sudden blindness, imputed it to the darkness of the room: You would scarce believe he should have any Proselytes but that some have worshipped Cacodemons'; and Asses yet kneel to Mahomet: Dirt will submit to be trampled on; good ingenious souls confess themselves sufficiently vicious & are thought worthy heaven because they boast no merit. But Cheynell admits them as Politicians do Jews to use their villainies, or Romulus his Asylum Courtiers to Lord over them; else why should the Muscovite worship painted images and reject carved ones? why should my Lady expose her child and nurse her dog, be divorced from her Lord, and wanton with her Catamite Monkey? But alas a slip may break a sober man's neck, while drunkards tumble and have no hurt. A privy-councillor is scarce secure in his dream: My Lord of Pembroke and Archy can never speak Treason. Ugly cubs are most licked, and the Changling's still the dilling: In Martyrdoms the best must to the stake; and who so fit to be Pilgrims as the holy? if their be any left in the hive it will be the drones; Cheynells thirst drains the liquor, the lees would choke him. Thus of Theophrastus' characters, the vices only survive, the virtues are expelld the world.  
Cheynell and Doctor Baily differ as the College good and bad ●eni●us, as a wizard and a prophet, or the dipped horse in Cornwall and a Christian. He succeeds the Doctor as Caligula's horse did the deceased Senator, or as the Apocrypha doth the old Testament, and Toby and his dog, Moses and Aaron; thus Innocents' day pursues Christmas, a damned massacre at the heels of a blessed nativity; nor can Herod persecute innocence without murdering St. John's, every meal he carves the Precedent, at every course the Baptists head is dished for him, and yet (unless the Merchant-taylors' prove almoners) perhaps he may be devoured by his Colledgiate vermin.  
Saint john's looks like Scevaes' shield, so many expelled pieces so many wounds 'tis reformed into its primitive purity and turned into the Baptists desert: The whole University resembles Greece overrun by Turks, or Italy Gothed and Vandald, it looks like the world purged by a deluge, and destruction. Delos is turned errand at Apollo's death, as it was at his birth. Colleges are converted into Hospitals, lodges for diseases, scald heads and crutches, 'tis the only expulsive crime here to be wholesome.  
For how should Cheynell be a reformer, unless as an Atheist makes a Pope pious? as winter brings the Halcyon, or dead beer makes Aqua vitae: He is a strainer, retains all the dregs, and clarifies the University as milk and whites of eggs doth Ippocras; thus sinks, and common shores are the best scavengers, dirt is sometimes a good fuller, and filthy Soap the only Laundress, miraculous Cheynell! Clay and spital shall be a collyrium for the Kingdom's eye.  
He hath sullied the University and will huckster in washing it; the mountebank gives out it is poisoned, that he may quack in curing it. Thus Oxford, like the house of office at Westminster, is voted to be reform by those who fouled it.  
But perhaps man must still forfeit paradise for too much knowledge; and Scholars perish (like the old Bishop) for discerning the visitors to be Truth's and the Law's Antipodes. Is the University Pimed, and therefore must change shifts, or are men turned out (like the Israelites out of Egypt) for being scabby? Because Cheynell itches, must all smart? The Pope excommunicates the King of Spain on one day, and restores him the next, Cheynell hath his Maundy Thursday, but the good-Friday's Popery. Extremes may concentre, Rolfe and a jesuit are both Ravilacks; Cheynell and Captain Allen (his blasphemous adversaries second) can covenant in mischiefs, as humiliations and thanks-givings conspire to ruin the Kingdom, or Naseby field and the Butcher's dog to worry Skippon. But he would have us mistake a hangman for an Angel, and kiss his lightning, because it comes from Heaven. Indeed he goes to Church but (like the Devil) 'tis to tempt: each prayer devours a widowed College, each bead pistols a Scholar: he never preaches but 'tis the Universities funeral Sermon, his doctrines and motives are mere proscriptions, and he'll murder a whole College with a use of consolation; his reformation hath got him more than the work of 10 talents got Aristotle, this one word hath cost more than would have purchased the Sibyls books and Prophet too. Beggars sell their ulcers at the rate of Diamonds; but though he excommunicates, it must be still the Pope and his holiness: 'Tis his faith removes the University, as the public faith the silver mountains of Guildhall, and Xerxes levelled Athos through the world's credulity. But this Kennell-raker, this Jaques-farmer is dirty only on weekdays. O the Sanctity of a sunday pudding! And yet perhaps the sabatical river is no better than profane Isis. Turks have their Saboth, and not only a monthly fast, but a fast for a month. But Cheynell is a double Turk; Captain Prestor Frank is both Mufti and Aga too.  
Thus is Oxford at last reformed into an Algeers haunted by Pirates, where Janissaries are the only favourites: What to others is an inquisition, is to these a shrift. These are the only converts, because the only sinners: Some are expelled for just oaths, others are dandled for loud perjury; like the Priest that lost his benefice for having a wife, and was retrived when she was proved his whore. But Cheynell (like Romulus) is the son of heaven; when no man will own the brat, a God must father it. he's a libel and an ordinance; hath never a Sire, and yet perhaps a hundred: His mother sure hackneyed herself to one of the guard, or the great porter on a mask night, and so conceived this hypocrite: Had he kept within his pulpit the lower part of the Minotaur might have skulkt undiscovered, but when he would be a bastard precedent too, a Perkin Warbeck Doctor Bailiff (like Alexander, ambitious to be a God) he proved himself a byblow.  
Cheynell, with his precious Triumvirats' Web, Inkersell and Lownds, thinks himself the Emperor with his three spiritual Electors, or the Pope with his triple Crown; He looks like wild March borrowing three days of February. These are forsooth the 3 children (or Pluto's 3 furies) whom no flames can blister. All 3 are o'th' progeny of Noah, drunk: Their mothers longed for wort, they were borne in a brewhouse, and christened in a Stand of Ale. They are only 3 Sponges possessed, and submit to the upper and lower houses, as representatives of the Buttery and Seller. Certainly they are entertained for Gospelers, because they have drunk away their Bibles. I might as well say Inkersell were a Nightingale, because he hath lost his tongue. Moths and Worms are acquainted with more Authors, and Parrots are better linguists. Latin not the language of these Beasts, nor have they any thing of Greece, but drunkenness and lying. Hebrew to them is Welch, they reel sufficiently of themselves, they need not study to go backward. Their Souls are blanks sufficient to write new mod'led Preachers in. Tiresias could not foresee any thing till he was blind.  
Inkersell has one property of a Scholar, Poverty. You would take him for country- Tom broke loose from the Gallows. If a man be a Tree inversed, he's Beggars-bush. He was borne in Lent at a coursing, and sent into the world with sippets. he's sunk below the wardrobe of dunghills, and the use of paper-mills. He must tick with Charon, and have his Epitaph writ in chalk. By his maggot-eaten face, you would swear he had been raised out on's grave with all his worms about him to bait Eele-hookes. You may compare Cheynell to the Chemists aqua Stygia, and him to their terra damnata. he'll shortly be a Baptist without a voice, and wheases already as if he fed on nothing but Locusts and Grasshoppers.  
Cheynell and Web look like Mahomet and his Pigeon, or my Lord of Pembroke, and Michael Oldsworth. Had every bird their feathers of him, he would be o'th' same callow livery with Inkersell: he hates all books because he is so much i'th' mercers; and without a strong antidote will die of gall and Coperas: he's as much in Ink as Inkersell in chalk, the one is all in mourning, the other is in his winding-sheete: his brother & he drink duels, yet both, like their thirst, are still immortal; though the Sea they have drunk would have made stage enough for the battle of Lepanto: Yet his brother may be dead drunk at last, he looks like Tiffany already; brimstone and hell will have him shortly, 'Tis fit the Soldier should conquer especially in bousing combats: But our Mars must have his Venus, and his salt Nancy newly ducked looks like the Sea-born goddess. Cheynell cannot expel him farther than Bocardo, nor any College so fit for him, as where Cheynell's Precedent, and who but those Goale-birds were ever bribed to christian him so? What baseness would submit to the scorn of Prisoners? Who would be slave to a penny ballad?  
Lownds submitted to Cheynel's Sanguine promontory for fear of a bloody Nose; he may be steered with any rudder: You may hang in a single thread and use him instead of a bobin to wove Bonelace: This rabbit sucker would submit to a ferret, and is scarce fit to be a fellow of a Warren: he would adore a reformer though he were a Chimny-sweeper, and go bare to Pigeon as willingly as to Cheynell: A well grown spider might be his Precedent, Whittingtons' Cat a Lord Mayor over him. He cannot go a high loan yet, but is carried on his father's sleeve like a faulkoners Hawk; he'll dam himself lest he should be whipped, and be perjured because his father hath covenanted, like the fellow who would not be a Christian because all his friends were gone to hell before him.  
O that Lice should be humane offsprings as well as men! but the happiest mothers may have abortions. The King's Image is sometimes stamped on lead, and nature's mint coins monsters; as this Ostracism proves the University a true Athens, so some Apastates makes her a Heaven.  
FINIS.