The LOYAL City of Bristol, Vindicated from Amsterdamnism, or Devil's-borough, Two Appellatives Occasioned by the over credulous, who have hitherto taken it for granted, that the Schismatics and Heretics of all Sorts were more numerous than the truly Loyal, Orthodox, and Liege people there.  
BUT AT A late Trial of skill, managed by the more Vigilant, and Worthy Angel-Guardian of that City, the point has been lately cleared, and the Churchmen for an Earl have out voted the fanatics for a Knight, though to little purpose: For they have rallied again, since the Dissolution, to fetch in the same Persons.  
But Who? or What? and how Equipped? this ensuing Letter (to an Utopian Prelate) will fully inform you.  
Quisquis medium defugit iter  
Stabili nunquam tramite curret. Senec. Trag. SED  
Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.  
Printed for J. Davies, 1681.   

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.  
THIS ensuing Description of the Hogan-Mogan Herd, a hotchpotch of all Sects and Factions, that lately fetched in none of the best Friends (you may imagine) the King, or the Church had, to stand as Members in Parliament for this City, was Writ by an Eye-witness of it; one that heard the bleating of the Calves, as plain as the Inhabitants of Dan and Bethel did those of Jeroboam's, when driven through their Streets.  
And the Description was designed only to turn the Fanatic zeal here into Ridicule; to shame the more tender of their reputation (if any amongst them) for ever appearing again in such Cabals, and to make the Royal party Merry.  
But the fallen Angels, with their Luciferian Crew, have falsely magnified the Qualities and Quantities of such cattle, (what though, I pray ye? says my beloved Hudibras, 
Extremes of Glory and of Shame,  
Like East and West become the same;  
No Indian Prince has to his Palace,  
More Followers than a Thief to th' Gallows.)  And their beloved Benjamin, who was justly punished in the offending parts, when his Ears were nailed to the Pillory, for hearing such Reports, and obtruding them upon the People; and the Pro. Dom. Intelligencers have dispersed the same Fables; and the old Nicknamed Protestant Coffeehouses, (for sure the Devil was their Godfather,) every where swarm with Diabolical Presbyterianisms of this Sort, and the late Eleven famous Liars of Bristol also, (who were presented by the Worthy, Courageous, and Loyal Grand-Jury here, at the Quarter-Sessions the twenty sixth day of April last, for endeavouring to impose upon the Wisdom of the Nation, by exhibiting a scandalous, false, malicious Petition, at the late Assembly of the House of Commons in Oxford, to corroborate the forerunning Lies, essential to this, their Supplication; against our Loyal Members, legally elected, by the Majority of more than Three hundred Voices,) have strenuously out-thrown their Brother Liars a Bar and a half, in this their plausible piece of Forgery.  
These, and several other notorious Untruths, tending to the eternal dishonour of our Loyal City, being spread abroad, we thought it was necessary to contradict them, by publishing this Dormant Letter, which, every one that took notice of the reception of the lapsed Member, can testify, tells nothing (in the main) but matter of fact; and will, I doubt not, pleasantly enough entertain the Gentle Readers, especially those that love the King and the Church, as she is now governed by his Royal self, and his Laws; and for any body else, we declare (by these presents) that we care no more for them than (as we have cause to believe) does the Utopian Describer, of this riotous and wretched Ribble-Rable, to the Prelate of his own Country.  
Farewell, 

G. J. cum multis aliis.  
C. B. cum multis aliis.   Bristol, May the 5th. 1681.   

A LETTER to the BISHOP OF UTOPIA. Bristol February the 9 th'. 1680.  
My dearest Lord,  
AFter all the Presbyterian Lies of your departure I am overjoyed to hear your Lordship is still well amongst us in the Land of the living, for the King and the Church's sake; and could wish, (for my own) that my Body was always as near you as my Soul is some times, for that has Wings and flies frequently to Utopia, to see the Angel of the Church there, leaving its body tenantless, till she requites her prior Mansion with news from thence, of Love and Charity, Humility and Obedience, reverential Awe and Dread of her ineffable Creator, Honour and Loyalty to her King, and Contempt of those fluid Atoms whose restless Vibrations disturb the Vessel which contains them.  
Of those fiery Meteors, those Ignes Fatui in the Region, that never keep their Stations, that disparage the Element they move in, and amuse the Insipid here below, (on whom alone they have Influence,) leading them out of the sure paths they are appointed to walk in, by mere Chymaerical jealousies and fears, which they call Portensions and Prodigies, to actuate the Mobile into Sedition.  
Of those Airy Spirits, the Protei of Shapes and Colours, whose Prince is Beelzebub that can appear as an Angel of Light to gull its simple Inhabitants, that are Captivated by false glitterings, and dazzled by the glare of those Lambent flames, about which they grow Gay and Splendid, hover and sport, believing themselves to be the happy Finders of the new Light, which the Seekers have been so long in quest on, till at length (like the Busybodies that dared too near the Ark) their Wings are scorched with their overcurious and insolent approaches, by which they are made helpless to themselves, and consequently a prey to their Enemies.  
Of those Earthly Inhabitants, the Ephori, the Tribunes of the People, the Democratical Rabble which are given to change even their Principles for gain, their Religion for Interest, their Church for a Conventicle, their whole King for scarce half a House of Commons, and their Kingdom for a Commonwealth.  
The contempt of these men (my Lord) thus Principled, made me stay at home the other day, when a Cavalcade of Fanatical Porters, and other Mercenary Fellows, mounted on Halliers and Colliers Horses, rod out to fetch in a rotten Member, who ('tis hoped) will scarce hold together till it meets the Body at Oxford. But what should such an old Logerheaded Dunce do at a University, I pray?  
Since that, here has been a more numerous but equally splendid Regiment of Dragoons, to fetch in (and consequently to disgrace) our worthy Recorder; here was Colonel Tag, Major Rag, and Captain Bobb, in short, Tag, Rag, and Bobb, did each lead up a Squadron: All that could suck an Egg of the Cockatrice, all that were hatched from these Eggs, and brooded under the Presbyterian Petticoats; all that could peep, and all that could run of that race, cheated their respective Masters of their Service the while; and footed it to mend the Muck-heap. All that could beg, and all that could borrow a Chephall, and had the wit or courage to mount him, assisted to grace the Ceremony. Nay, one zealous Brother of the Saddle stole a Horse for the Service to ride amongst'em; and as I hope to live (my Lord) had as honest a Face as the best of 'em; and the impudence not to be out of countenance when the Owner of the dissenting Beast cashiered his Trooper, tho' at the high Cross in Bristol. My Lord, was the Devil a Limner, and employed by a Mahometan to make a Chimny-piece for the grand Visers' Dining-room, and ordered to describe in it a Regiment of squint-eyed, ill-looking Rebels, to disparage Christianity by, he could not do it more to the life than this Coetus (this composition of Simples, whose Mass is called Behemoth, to make Pills for the Devil on) has represented. And if any of the back-sliding Sisterhood longs to see such a sight as this was, (lest she should miscarry of the Babe of Grace) let her take a Balcony in Holbourn some few days after the Sessions in the Old Bailie, to fix her Mercurial Embryo. For nothing but the gentle Spectators at Tyburn can Copy this Original. In good earnest, my Lord, the Autometons they bestrid were fitter for a Dog-kennel than a Parade; and their Bestriders looked so like a pack of hungry Dogs, that I expected every minute when they should alight and fall on, worry, and eat the Beasts that brought them hither. By the strength of which imagination I had designed a Painter to express the Assailants in this Posture, as an everlasting Emblem of Presbyterian Gratitude. But oh! (my Lord) had you seen 'em ride! you would have taken them singly for so many Centauris, and altogether for a Covey of Witches, mounted upon anointed Broomsticks and Fire-shovels at an appointed Rendezvous, by their Grand Master the Devil.  
'Tis too long (my Lord) for a Letter to describe either their persons or their parts. Zancho Pancho pickeering upon Rosinante in Don Quixot; and Ralpho riding to the Slaughter of the Fiddles and the Bears in Hudibras, are too gentile and learned for a Similitude, tho' they come the nearest to them (I confess) in Story. For those Squires could read we hear, but the Devil a one of Three hundred in this Farce could tell a Letter of the Book; and I am informed it was more for fear than love that this illiterate Crew attended him, lest he should use them (they say) as he did their Cousin Bromfield, who he served right enough (for being their Kinsman) when he hanged him in this City, because he could not say his Neck Verse, as was pretended, tho' the more Judicious say there was Emulation in the case; for this amorous Bromfield (you must know) was an Engrosser of Fine Women, and two of a Trade can never agree, according to the old Greek Distich, as aptly applied as englished; 

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   

Could he at Bar change places with the Bencher,  
Then this (as that) had hanged for being a Wencher.    
Thus was this noble Knight, Sir Robert, attended into the same place, and by some of the same Persons that had formerly ushered in James Nayler, the Blasphemist, with triumphant hosannah's; and marched hither (poor Gentleman) as much ashamed of his baggage (I warrant ye) as the great Godfrey of Bullen when he went to the holy War: Where the Historian observes, that Thiefs and Murderers took upon them the Cross to escape the Gallows.  
But in all this excellent Procession, where every individual Devil carried his peculiar Cross, to the eternal praise of those that love, honour, and obey the King, and the Church, as it is now established by Law, there was not one such person seen amongst them.  
And now to undeceive the credulous, let them know that Bristol has at length shaken off her Fanatical Fetters, which hitherto have hung as Led on the heels of her jollity, and dulled her motion, and is fledged with Loyal Feathers, (into an activity) that will carry her above the reach of those Vermin, whose Habitations are in holes and nasty corners, that never crawl out but to do mischief, and then skulk again into obscurity, hating the light without them because their deeds are evil.  
That she is fortified with a legal Loyal Band, a noble and worthy Artillery, who with their Abettors are visibly the Major part of her Inhabitants, and that may create a Confidence of her continuance in this happy State; for when there is more of the Yeoman's and Bouchiers than there are of the Scroops and Fines, it is not to be supposed, she can easily deviate into manifest Murders again, because the Hangmen (you see) are not so numerous as the Royal party.  
I beg your Lordship's pardon for this rude diversion, and remain (as every honest man ought to his Diocesan)  
My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient Son, and Servant, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
FINIS.