A SERMON Prepared to be Preached at the Interment Of the Renowned Observator.  
With some remarks on his LIFE, By the Reverend Toryrorydammeeplotshammce Younke●crape.  
To which is Annexed An ELEGY and EPITAPH, By the ROSE-ALLY-POET, And other Prime Wits of the Age.  
LONDON, Printed, and are to be sold by Langley Curtiss, at the Sign of Sir Edmund-Bury-Godfrey, near Fleet-Bridge. 1682.   

Thrice merry, or thrice doleful READERS. Which you please,  
ACcording to your various affections peruse these ensuing lines: and know that Man is a Mortal that has strange fegaries and quirks, and orders his reason at such an odd rate, that he many times makes sport of their greatest misfortune, their forced departure, and constraint to take leave of the Sun's bright Light. There was a certain Prince, who perceiving himself not well beloved by his Courtiers, yet not well able to discover who they were that bore him enmity, in regard that his Enemies had impaled their thoughts with dissimulation, he resolved to pretend to fall sick and die; to be short, so he did, that is to say, he fell sick and died, like Endymion upon Latmus' Hill, and was laid forth: The report of his death brought all Persons to see him, his Friends to bewail him, his Enemies to rejoice. And the nit was that his ill willers opened the wickets of their Breasts; and while others spoke well of him, others cursed him as hearty, calling him Tyrant, and ungrateful, and lading his memory with a hundred Scandals, and Reproaches, I'll hold five shillings our Observator had read this story. For he, finding himself baited on all sides like a Whitsuntide Bull, resolved to be for a while like an Incognito Ambassador in the world, that he might hear what People said of him. To this purpose he desires a certain Crape Gown Gentleman to make him a Funeral Sermon while he was living, that he might amend and correct his own commendations. The Gentleman (as who could deny the Foreman of his Faith) answered his expectations, and our dear Observator put it up in his Pocket, and goes to the Tavern. There that night it happened to be a dreadful Huzza night, nothing but past Two of the Clock could move the Company— and then the Devil of a Coach was to be got, so that our dear Observator was constrained to totter home before a Link boy— In that condition, by what unlucky accident we know not, he dropped the following Papers. Heavens bless us quo we, is our dear Observator dead, and shall we stifle such a Panegyric as this? Ventre diable by no means. But quo another suppose he should not be dead— why then he is alive. But quo we, suppose he should be dead, what injury can it be to him? so long as the Stationers are in being. For we know there is nothing impossible with God— and it may be a metaphysical puzzlement, whether there be any thing impossible with a Stationer: for a Stationer can make a Man write after he's dead. I'll undertake that there are some men that have been dead these 40 years that shall still write on upon their account till the last Trumpet sounds; so than if by their means the Observator do writ after he's dead what injury is it for him to die or to be dead, I would fain know, for his pay runs on still. For my part I am apt to believe he is dead, for his writings are the mere Skeletons of Reason Well but let him be dead or alive, you have it here as it dropped out of his own pocket— And Men have not the same privilege that Women have. For if a Woman tell ye, she's dead, you must not believe her; but if a Man tell you so, you are not to give him the lie, for fear of farther mischief: Gentlemen I have no more to say i'the business, and so without farther Compliments, Far ye well.   

A FUNERAL SERMON Preached at the Interment of the Renowned OBSERVATOR.  Pantagruel, L. 2. c. 30. Then Eusthenes cried out, Ah Cruel Death, thou hast taken from us the most perfect of Men, upon which Pantagruel arose, and betook himself to the greatest Lamentation that ever was seen in the world. 
THE occasion of these words my Beloved was nothing but death, the death of a certain person; mortuus est, extinguitur, as 'tis in the Original. For Pantagruel, the Son of Garagantua, the Son of Grandgousier, was a great Giant, who laid about him upon all occasions, whether it were eating or drinking, fight or sh●●● and as his name was Pantagruel, so he represented Henry the second of France, as the most venerable notes upon our excellent Author declare, & his adherents were called Pantagruelists, or Popelings, and he warred against he Andoullians, who were the true Evangelics. Now to bring the business down to our times, the Pantagruelists were Tories or Popelings, and the Andoullians were Whigs or Evangelics according to those wicked distinctions that are now used among us. As for our venerable Author himself, he was a great Doctor in his Time, and a great Evangelic or Whig, for he refused to kiss the Pope's Toe, as you may read in his Life, for which he suffered much Tribulation, according to his demerits. As for the Book itself, it is therefore called Pantagruel, because therein our venerable Author recites the Acts of the great Pantagruel, as the Books of the Maccabees, are so called, because they relate the Attchievements of the Maccabean Brethren. As for the Person that the great Eusthenes, and the famous Pantagruel here lament, he was called Panurgus, that is to say (for I have not been so long a Disciple in the College of the Inferior Clergy, where our deceased Brother sat Regent, but I understand many pretty knicknacks, especially those of Etymologies) one that would be a Dominus Factotum, a Polypragmon, as it is in the Greek, in English a Busybody. In another sense it signifies a crafty cunning Companion. And thus Jupiter in Lucian's second Dialogue of the Gods, reproaches Cupid with the Epithets of Geron and Panurgus, old and deceitfully cunning. So that upon good authority you may take Panurgus for a Busybody, or a great Deceiver, which you please, it being at your choice.  
To this same Panurgus our once Divine Observator, and dear Brother here departed, and now going to his long home, may be very justly resembled. Panurgus became famous by maintaining disputes; he confuted a man of all sorts of Sciences, once by the motion of his fingers. And what has not our Observator done by his Proing and Cunning? Has he not wrought miracles? has he not confuted all the Andoullians, that else would have over-ran the Kingdom like so many Locusts, and caused all the Enemies of the Pantagruelians to piss Vinegar? Yes marry has he— yes, my beloved, I say he has done it, don't to purpose too, or as I may say, with a vengeance. Nay such was the reverence which the Pantagruelians and Papishes had for him, that had he lived a little longer (and a thousand pities it was he did not) a certain day in the year was to have been set apart, at what time all the Pantagruelians and Papishes were to have met our dear Brother by the name of the most invincible Observator, and he was to have met them; and then was he to have pulled down his Breeches in most solemn manner, and they in like solemn manner were to have kneeled, and kissed his bare Buttocks, and then they were to have had a Sermon, and to have gone to Dinner at the Half-Moon in Cheapside— and the day itself was to have been called Baise-cul or Kiss-nock Day.  
In the second place Panurgus was enamoured of a great Lady in Paris; but when she fell out with him, and slighted his kindnesses, woe worth the Lady, such ill luck betided her. For by virtue of a certain Drug which Panurgus strewed upon her Garment, and the Folds of her Sleeves, as he kneeled by her at Prayers, all the Dogs i'the Church, both great and small of all sorts, came and pissed upon her , and spoiled her a Crimson Satin Petticoat, and a rich white Velvet Justacore. In the same manner our dear Brother, rather our Grand Master of Rhodes, that beat down all before him with the Club of Observation, was enamoured of a Lady, and they loved one another, and caressed one another, and culebuted together for several years, till at length, unhappy and unfortunate as she was, she fell out with him according to the custom of female Inconstancy. But what was the fatal event? Town-buzzing, and Town-talk, slur, blur, pur— whur— finger— pointing— sneering, fleering— Hum for that, etc. and all because the Lady refused to settle the land upon him.  
In the next place Panurgus came to be a Cardinal. For by that name, as our Author of Blessed Memory would have it, is meant the Cardinal D' Amboyse. And why was he made a Cardinal? Why, for inventing a way of arguing without sense or reason, by which he not only gravelled the English Philosopher, as you shall find in the 19th ch. Book second, v. 22. but also gravelled and confounded several Devils themselves. ch. 18. v. 33. And this he did after he had been drinking all night, and playing at Spurn point with the Pages. At another time out of the profoundness of his Kitchen learning, he discovered the great Mystery concerning salt Beef, which lay hid till then under a strange Cabalistical Trifle, and publicly maintained, that the sooner the Monks risen, the sooner the Pot was set on; the sooner the Pot was set on, the sooner the Meat would be boiled; the longer it boiled, the better it would be; the better it was boiled, the tenderer 'twould be, and the more acceptable to the Stomach; the more acceptable, the more nourishing.  
By such idle methods of Argumentizing as these did our deceased Brother endeavour Tooth and Nail to acquire fame, and a Cardinal's Ha●. He had read how Poole, Bellay, and others, had the Honour to be damned in Scarlet, as Antichrists Nobles, for their indefatigable Industry in die Pope's Service, and a Cardinal's Cap he had had, my beloved, as sure as a Gun, had not that Hag of a Spinster Atropos clipped, I will not say the plain Thread, but the silken twist of his Immortality-deserving life, just in the very juncture of Time, or as I may so say, in the very nick: just when the Roman Catholic Lords in the Tower had concluded upon the business: and there's no Man can think they could have failed of their intercessions at Rome. Nay I dare say my Beloved, the Lord Stafford himself would have risen again, rather than he should have gone without it. And did he not deserve a Princely Purple Diademd ' ye think? Has he not from the first beginning, or at least as soon as he durst for his Ears, been always snarling at the Plot; has he not done all that lay in hispower to ridicule and render the King's Evidence contemptible, to the inexpressible joy, rejoicing, gladness, comfort, jocundness, delight, and pleasure of the drooping & every where detected Offenders, who had no friend to speak a good word in their cause, till our deceased Brother here, God rest his Soul, first opened for Madam Cellier, and her Presbyterian Plot? Has he not to this purpose filled the Town and Country with his weekly, I may say almost daylyshreads of Waste paper, stuffed with Flim and Flame, Tales of roasted Horses, Antipendiums and Screws? Has he not laboured, like Sisyphus in Hell, to engage the Nation in a universal quarrel about his pitiful personal peeks, and silly foppish, idle and impertinent squabbles, and brabbles about Goat's Wool? all about Papist or no Papist? And yet you may well believe, my beloved, that of twenty parts of the Nation, hardly eighteen ever cared a straw whether he were a Papist or a Pipin-seller. Again, my beloved, was it not his weekly practice, that he might render himself redoubted and formidable to his Antagonists, the Enemies of Popery and Sham-Plots, like the Devil in Isaiah, to exalt himself upon the Mountain of the Congregation, to blazon his Gentility and his Parts, and like the Son of Vainglory and self-conceit, to cry with Oliver, Nemo me impune lacessit, and make Instances upon it? On the other side, to degrade and debase his Opposers, to render 'em ridiculously contemptible, and to reduce 'em to Mites and Atoms, has he not all along outscolded Billingsgate, and outrailed all the Course Compliments of Blooms-bury, and Luteners-lane? Ha● he not taken upon him to be the Phoenix of utterance? Has he not taught the world in a most gentile and argumentative way to confound the Andoullians, or Whigs and Dissenters, with the convincing Epithets of Rogues, saucy Rascals, Coxcombs, Monkeys, Fools, spawn of the Devil, Scribbling Varlets, and comparing their expressions to the filth and nastiness of Piss-pots, Close-stools and Common-shoars, the certain effects of foul mouthed Dotage, peevish Choler, and want o● better Reason? Has he not outdone Ramus and Burgersdicius, Smith and Keckerman in his impregnable Syllogisms of Ye lie, 'tis false, may I be damned if it be true, may my Soul be delivered up at the last day if it be so, with severa● other Ferio's and Darapti's of the same nature▪ the bold dashes of an Arbitrary Pen? Has he not by this means stiffly defended the gasping cause of Popery in this Nation, and furnished the Traitors themselves with words at least, if no● with Arguments, to defend and justify thei● Treasons? True it is, there are thousands, who believe that Oats and Prance have done their King and Country better service than ever our dea● Brother, with all his Gentility and Grandeur or all his huffing and puffing and snarling against Parliament Privileges, could ever pretend to, and I am apt to believe it among the rest. But the never aimed at Cardinal's Caps. 'Twas the Cardinal's Cap that our dear Brother had in his Head. I have wished it upon his Head an hundred times. However my beloved, since he missed this same Hat of Eminency in this world, I make no question but he will have one in the other world, and that not an ordinary Hat neither, but a Hat, a Princely Hat, of the best fashion, a Hat with Tossels, a Hat with Tossels, my beloved— Amen, so be it—  
Hum— Hum— Hum— Hum— Hum— Hum— Hum— Hum— Hum—  
I come now to open the words themselves— Then Eusthenes cried out, Ah Cruel Death, thou hast taken from us the most perfect of Men; How! the most perfect of Men That is my beloved the most perfect in his way; in his calling or profession, and thus he was the most perfect Observator in Europe. For he observed many things that no body could observe but himself. For he could observe a mote in a Whigs Eye no bigger than a Pins point; he observed Schism and Faction among thousands that never dreamt of it: He observed a Presbyterian Plot among those that never thought of it; by which means he attained to many great perfections, as Pasquilling, Libelling, inflaming, Boutesewing, Scolding, etc. Railing, which so increased his fame, that by general consent he was acknowledged, Yerker, Firker, Whipster, Scribbler General of Toryland.  
And now I have mentioned the word Whipster, I must tell ye my beloved, he was the best Whipster in England. For the time was, when he whipped Cats into Civility. 'Twas when he was a Youth, my beloved, and then he kept Birds, and then his Neighbour's Cats came and killed his Birds; and then he killed his Neighbour's Cats. Then came his Neighbours and said, why do you kill our Cats? and he answered and said, why do your Cats kill my Birds? This had like to have made as great a Division between our dear Brother and his Neighbours, as between Whig and Tory; till at length the Heavens found out a happy way of reconciliation. For said one among the rest, reverend for his grey hairs, and his grave utterance, if our Cats come any more to devour your Birds, there is a milder way to be taken, so that neither we may lose our Cats nor you your Birds: Sir, when any of our Cats came again to kill your Birds, do but catch the Cats, whip 'em well, and rub their Noses against the Cages, and the Cats will never come near your Birds any more. For Sir, as the  Child dreads the fire, so our whipped Cats will dread your Catt-a-nine-tails— observe this ever while you live. This advice proceeding from one of the Nestor's of the Parish, he took it: so that when any of his Neighbours Cats came to kill his Birds, as I said before, he was still too cunning for 'em, and caught 'em; and when he had 'em, 'twas not all their mewing, or spitting, or scratching would serve their turn, he gave them School Correction, and taught 'em the sad inconvenience of watching his Cages. However I must needs say this for him, that in whipping those Cats he used that moderation, and did it with that prudence and equal balance between Rigour and Compassion, that it was wonderful to behold in a Youth of his years: and it got him that renown, that there was hardly a Cat in the Parish that had stolen a piece of Cheese, or a bit of Bacon, or had broken an Earthen Pipkin in her privy searches of the Buttery Shelves, but was brought to our dear Brother to be whipped. Upon which the Soothsayers being consulted, they all agreed, that as Midas' wealth, and Plato's Eloquence were portended, the one by the Emmets, the other by the Bees that fed them with Wheat and Honey in their Cradles, so that Cat-whipping prudence was looked on as a prognostication of our dear Brothers future Grandeur, and that as the Cats had been reform by the lashes of his Hand, so the Whigs should be reform by the lashes of his Pen.  
This Man, this Person of these perfections has Death, Cruel Death taken from us. Death himself is turned Whig, to deprive the Tories of their Darling and their Idol. The Thamuz, the Adonis of Toryland is departed, Death, Cruel Death, Factious, Schismatical, Presbyterian Death has taken him away from us: Let the Virgins of Toryland bewail him annually among the Mountains.  
Ailina moi stonacheite napai, Kai Dono Hydor  
Kai potamoi Klaioite ton Himeroenta Biona.  
Henceforth may Coffee lose its virtue, and Tea its operation, since he is gone, that was the Soul of all Coffeehouses, and the delight of those that love to dung and read at the same time.  
Hum, hum, hum—  
But now, we would fain know what Death has done with him? Death has got him in his clutches, and therefore, I say, what has he done with him? Heaven forbidden that Death in a peevish humour should have taken our dear Brother at his word; for he has promised, (that's the truth on't) to deliver up his Soul to the Devil at the last day, and given it under his hand in writing: so that whether the Devil will stay so long, or be so critical, as to take the last day, for the last day of his life, is the Question. And then again whether the Papists will admit him into Purgatory, since he has renounced their Religion with such a testy, nonsensical imprecation is another question. For I must confess, 'tis my opinion that all the world ought sooner to believe Prance upon the customary way of assertion upon Oath, than our dear Brother upon a  piece of Choleric, and extrajudicial fury, or rather extravagant Rodomontado of Tipsy Infusion. But we hope that neither the Pope nor his Jesuits will be so ungentile as to take notice of the failings of his Age, considering the good Service he has done 'em. For he only renounced the Queen's Chapel, and not Popery nor Purgatory; He had a defference we hope for that White Friars of the other World, where Heavens debtors can lie till they have compounded with Heaven; or else find an opportunity to give Beelzebub the bag, by slipping out at the back door into Abraham's Bosom. And there it is that we also hope our dear Brother will call and stay by the way, rather than deliver up his Soul, so rashly as he talks of, as if he were to do a kind Act in discharge of his Bail. We may flatter ourselves, that Pluto will entertain him like a Gentleman, let him deliver himself up when he pleases; but when we consider how he uses our dear Brothers Betters, Xerxes being in Hell, no more than a crier of Mustard, Hannibal, a seller of Eggshells, Priamus a shailler of Beans, Pope Alexander a Rat-catcher, and Boniface the Eighth a Chimney-Sweeper, it would grieve us my beloved to meet our dear Brother hereafter in the Stygian shades, walking with a long stick upon his shoulders. But we hope that the Popish Lords have taken care of his future happiness as well as they did of his content in this world. However while we are in these Dilemmas in the midst of these fears, doubts and jealousies concerning our dear Brothers uncertain condition, we may well cry out with the great Eusthenes, Ah Cruel Death, that hast taken from us the most perfect of Men.  
Hum— Hum— Hum—  
'Tis true, no Man can attain to perfection in this world; but our dear Brother had excellencies peculiar to himself, and therefore we may account him in some measure perfect as I have said already. Pray my beloved do not cavil with me about a word or two, when used to so good an end as the praise of our deceased Brother. He was the most excellent guide to the Inferior Clergy that ever our Land produced. He walked before 'em like a sumptuous Fore-Horse in Peascod time, and lead 'em along as he pleased himself with the Harmonious gingling of his painted Collar. So that if any thing were wanting to this extraordinary Train, it was only that Celestial Constellation called Auriga, or the Carter, with his heavenly Geehoes and Haitho's for their Driver. Cambridge was not ignorant of this; and therefore was he by one of their Members quoted at St. Mary's for an Author. Oh the Learned, the Great, the blessed Observator; who knows but that in time he may stand in competition with St. Ambrose, St. Austin, and St. chrysostom? I remember, my beloved, I have read of a certain Bird called Onocrotalus, a Bird resembling a Swan in shape and bigness, but most sonorously braying like an Ass. Ah— my beloved was not our dear Brother the Swan of our Age—  Rara Avis in Terris Nigroque simillima Cygno. 
And then again how sweetly has he brayed against the Whigs once, twice, sometimes thrice a week? I say he brayed sweetly, gently, not like a Beast, but like a Bird: And why did he choose to bray my beloved? Oh my beloved he knew that the Whigs were a kind of Aegithi, or Hawks, that is to say, Birds of prey, that built their Nests among Thorns and Briars, that is among Factions and Fractions, and that there was nothing so terrible to those Hawks as the braying of an Ass; in so much that if they do but hear an Ass bray, they will spoil their own Nests, and break their own Eggs out of mere fear and astonishment. Therefore my beloved, our dear Brother chose to bray: to the end he might scare the Whigs from their Nests, their Clubs and their Conventicles, and cause them to break their own Eggs, their Designs and their Plots and Contrivances. Ah my beloved, was there ever such an Onocrotalus as this? Heaven send us more such Onocrotalus' as thief—  
Hum— Hum— Hum—  
But 'tis our comfort my beloved, he deceased in a good old Age; and though he did not die a Martyr, yet he died as like one as five pence to a groat. He had many Enemies my beloved. And indeed there is hardly any creature either in the Water or the Air, or upon the Land, but has its peculiar Enemy. The Swan and the Eagle are always at Daggers drawing, so are the Weasel and the Crow, the Lion and the Wolf. In the same manner did our dear Brother live in perpetual Antipathy with one or other to his dying, day. His Hand was against every body, and every body's Hand against him. On the one side the Cares and the Curtiss'; on the other by the Baldwin's and Janeway's. Had he not been a right mettled Towzer indeed, they had worryed him to death. One tells him of his Coach and six Horses, which he kept by virtue of Phil-Porters Motto. Another rubs him up with the tale of the Printers Wife, to whom he had promised peculiar immunities when it was in his power, would she have condescended to have been his Elderships Susanna. Another twits him with the twenty pieces reconciliation with the Bookseller near Mercer's Chapel, upon which followed a Cessation of his Master's suit that employed him. Another swears him a Papist, nay another would have sworn him into a Plot to destroy the Plot itself. Lastly, when he thought to have thrown off all these things by taking the Sacrament, up starts another and takes the Sacrament with him in justification of what he had sworn, and so spoiled all again. These and many other such snubs and rubs, and whirrets o'the Ear of his Reputation, were enough to have sunk a Person of a softer and milder temper long e'er this. But ne Hercules contra duos; had he been Towner with as many heads as Cerberus, they would have worryed him at length; for I find they were resolved upon it. I wish these Butters against Antichrist may not have cause to repent it, and I hope to see the day when these Greek Kalends shall come. Those Grecian Kalends I have heard much talk of: O may the Sun and Moon bring 'em quickly about, that we may be at once avenged for the loss of our dear Brother, for he is gone, the most perfect of Men. He that, as it is said of the great Xenomanes had a memory that was like a Colonels Scarf, that would carry away a whole voider of Sweetmeats at a time. An imagination like the jangling of a Country Steeple; whose thoughts were like a flight of Telfares; an understanding, like a torn prayer book; conceits like those of a Snail creeping out of a Strawberry Bed; the judgement of a shooing Horn; the discretion of a pair of children's mittens, and the reason of a Bartholomew fair Drum. And now my beloved let us weep a while over the Hearse of this great Person. May his emmory last as long as the Skeletons in St. John's Library. He that offers to wipe with an Observator, may the piles vex him to his Grave. And may that Grocer break, and all his Plums rot, that uses those holy sheets for waste paper. And may all Washballs moulder to dirt that shall ever be wrapped up in Whig and Tory. May they have the same charms as the Hankerchers dipped in Staffords blood, to cure the Measles in Hogs, and the Pip in Chickens.  
Laftly, my beloved, carry these dear Relics of his fame always about ye, like Zisca's Skin, as a terror to the Whigs. So may our dear Brother live in his Eternised Lines, whom otherwise I fear me, this Ingrateful Age will soon forget.  
But my beloved after all this there are a sort of People, that though they will not deny him to have been dead, yet obstinately affirm him to have been come to life again. For say they, should not so great a Hero as our Observator have as much privilege as Lucian allows to Hercules, Orpheus and Ulysses. Nay we find how the barking snarling Menippus cheated that same Devil of a Sculler Chavan himself, under the disguise of a Lion's skin, and a Club in his hand. And indeed my beloved the world is grown to that pass now, that men are become so vastly spiritualised in craft and cunning, that it could be no disgrace for the Devil to be cheated by such a one as the Observator, a Person that exceeded the Tyrant of Orcus in cunning and Romancing as much as that Infernal Monarch exceeded Jack Adam's, or the Author of Valentine and Orson, So that why he might not have the same Privilege as Hercules, as being so great a Champion as he is; or as Orpheus being so great a Musician as he is; or as Ulysses, being so eloquent and mellifluous, so vanquishing and persuasive an Orator as he is, that is to say, to go to Hell, and come back again, is more than I understand. For as for Charon, there's no Man had more reason to be civil, and caress our dear Brother the Observator than he had, in regard that he was once an Observator himself. The Story is this my Beloved; (for you never knew a right Sermon without a Story) Charon having a mind to behold what busy Mortals did in this world, and what these things were of which they complained and howled so much to be deprived of in the other, he got Mercury to help him; who after much entreaty did so, and so they two together set three or four high Mountains one upon another, from whence, as from a high Beacon, Charon had a full prospect of the whole Earth, and the vast Lake that encompasses it: then he beheld the several swarms of Mortals in their little Nests, or rather Hives, called Towns and Cities. There he had a full view also of the folly of Regal Pomp and Riches; the vanity of worldly wisdom, the Errors and confusions among Philosophers. There he beheld the busy multitudes of Hopes and Fears, Madness, Pleasure, Avarice, Anger, Hatred, and Jealousy, that plague and vex the world: and after he had observed as much as he could observe, Mercury and the Ferryman set the Mountains again in their places, and so the Observator Charon returned to his Employment, so than it is plain that many Persons of Fame and renown did make a journey to Hell, and returned back again, and why our Observator so renowned, and so famous, should not have the same privilege, as I said before, is a thing hardly to be believed, especially having too such good friends upon the Shore of the Stygian Ferry, as Mercury the vafrous, and Charon his Brother Observator, who would not refuse him any kindness that lay in their Power.  
Others there are that say he was too hastily Interred; so that when he heard the Stones and the Brickbats rattle about his Ears upon uttering the words Dust to Dust, he made a noise in the Coffin, and so was taken out again, like the Woman in Sussex to lead a new life in the old World.  
Another sort there are who affirm, that they heard him cough in his Grave, as being one that used to drink in his Porridge; which occasioned his miraculous deliverance. But these my Beloved I fear me are mere surmizes, flashes and conceits of those that fain would have it so, as I among the rest could wish they were; and not mere stories like those of his own writing. Alas for he is certainly departed. He and his Friend Quevedo, now I think on't, went together into the other world some years since, to make new discoveries: and some few they made; but going to make more, were never heard of again.  
But you will say we have several Observators come out every week. 'Tis very true, a company of dull flat heavy Dialogues between Tory and Whig, without life or soul, not worth the glance of a Man's Eye; which is the more to be wondered at, considering how many several notions of other men, posted every foot in the Coffeehouse Leaguer Book, go to the forming and shaping of one nonsensical half sheet, wherein you are bound not to forget the Screws, and an Ironical ●●i●t upon Dr. Oats, of no concernment to any body else, either public or private, but those that are afraid of their Testimony.  
But let the Observator be dead or alive, 'tis not a halfpenny matter, you have heard the reason of this Memento Mori: Neither is it an unusual thing for great Persons to have their Tombs and Monuments erected in their life Times. However 'tis most certain he must die at one time or other, and he had as good make use of this kind Encomium, as impose upon his Executors to pay two broad pieces for another that may prove worse.   

An ELEGY UPON THE Right Reverend THE OBSERVATOR, Guide to the Inferior Clergy.  
WHen Indian Kings in bloody Battles fall,  
Their, Wives, & Slaves attend the Funeral,  
Mounted aloft they squeeze a grinning smile,  
Then tumble headlong from the flaming Pile:  
So when the Pagan- Observator dies,  
And little Tories close their Grandsires Eyes,  
The Orphaned, poor, Inferior-crape-gowned Elves  
In their own Sursingles should hang themselves.  
While Mournful Sam's is daubed with Scutcheons round,  
And dismal Coffee scattered on the Ground,  
The Newgate-Priests come dribbling dainty verse,  
Blubbering Joanna gloats upon the Hearse;  
Alas! (she sobs) there lies that brawny He  
That has so many'a time Observed me.  
The Inferior gaping Devils his fall attend,  
And wrapped in Crape expect his happy end;  
He'll find 'em kind; forgive the Devil his due,  
And Lucifer's an honest Tory too,  
Who can if necessary cause appears,  
Go once, or twice to Church in 20 years;  
Of every thing on Earth he's the Spectator,  
And may be termed a very Observator:  
The Whiggish Angels he would fain pull down,  
And on his sooty Highness set the Crown,  
Roger even there does earn his Pension well,  
And bawl's for the Succession, though in Hell;  
As Loyal Seamen when they needs must go  
Gargling Huzza's complete the health below.  
Good Devil take heed, for if thou careless be,  
Hodge will outlie, out-cheat, out-devil thee.  
If to the Coffeehouses he can run,  
He'll call thee Whig, and then thou art undone.  
Pluto beware! or he thy Imps will shame,  
Corrupt thy Guards, and steal away thy Dam,  
Towzer in spite of Cerberus will pass,  
Who'll take th'old Crone for Madam Baltinglass.   

Another Epitaph, found in the Cardinal Van Hesse's Library, and Translated out of French, supposed to be writ by Nostredamus.  
HEre lie Antipendiums, and Fiddles good store,  
Here lies the old Stallion of the Roman old Whore;  
The Lap-dog of Ladies, and the Wonders delight,  
Whom Death did like Topham to the Netherlands fright,  
The Inferiour-Clergy (poor Noddies!) will stray,  
Now their Will-a-Wisp-Guide is gone out of the Way.   

His Epitaph.  
Here lies the Man, whom Fate among us Hurled,  
With bombasts Dialogues to plague the world.  
Who rather than not vainly keep a pother,  
Set one side of his mouth against the other.  
And bid the Pope believe what wonders He  
Would work to save his falling Monarchy:  
With that he told a thousand tales and more,  
And when his empty reason failed he swore.  
But falling short of all the brags he made,  
Here he succumbs in Crape Gown Masquerade,  
So let him rest until the second Change,  
The blustering, but unfortunate L. S—   
FINIS.