THE shepherd's ORACLES: DELIVERED IN CERTAIN Eglogues.  
By FRA: QUARLES.  
LONDON, Printed by M. F. for John Marriot and Richard Marriot, and are to be sold at their shop in S. Dunstan's churchyard Fleetstreet, under the dial. 1646.   

To the Reader.  
Reader,  
THough the author had some years before his lamented death, composed, reviewed, and corrected these Eglogues; yet, he left no Epistle to the Reader, but only a Title, and a blank leaf for that purpose.  
Whether he meant some allegorical exposition of the shepherd's names, or their Eglogues, is doubtful: but 'tis certain, that as they are, they appear a perfect pattern of the author; whose person, and mind, were both lovely, and his conversation such as distilled pleasure, knowledge, and virtue, into his friends and acquaintance.  
'Tis confessed, these Eglogues are not so wholly divine as many of his published Meditations, which speak his affections to be set upon things that are above, and yet even such men have their intermitted hours, and (as their company gives occasion) commixtures of heavenly and earthly thoughts.  
You are therefore requested to fancy him cast by fortune into the company of some yet unknown shepherds: and you have a liberty to believe 'twas by this following accident.  
He in a summer's morning (about that hour when the great eye of Heaven first opens itself to give light to us mortals) walking a gentle pace towards a Brook (whose springhead was not far distant from his peaceful habitation) fitted with Angle, Lines, and flies: flies proper for that season (being the fruitful Month of May;) intending all diligence to beguile the timorous Trout, (with which that watery element abounded) observed a more than common concourse of shepherds, all bending their unwearied steps towards a pleasant Meadow within his present prospect, and had his eyes made more happy to behold the two fair shepherdesses Amaryllis and Aminta strewing the foot-paths with lilies, and Ladysmocks, so newly gathered by their fair hands, that they yet smelled more sweet than the morning, and immediately met (attended with Clora Clorinda, and many other Wood-nymphs) the fair and virtuous Parthenia: who after a courteous salutation and inquiry of his intended journey, told him the neighbour-Shepheards of that part of Arcadia had dedicated that day to be kept holy to the honour of their great God Pan; and, that they had designed her Mistress of a Love-feast, which was to be kept that present day, in an Arbour built that morning, for that purpose; she told him also, that Orpheus would be there, and bring his Harp, Pan his Pipe, and Tityrus his Oaten-reed, to make music at this feast; she therefore persuaded him, not to lose, but change that day's pleasure; before he could return an answer they were unawares entered into a living moving Lane, made of shepherds and pilgrims; who had that morning measured many miles to be eye-witnesses of that days pleasure; this Lane led them into a large Arbour, whose walls were made of the yielding Willow, and smooth Beech boughs: and covered over with Sycamore leaves, and Honysuccles. I might now tell in what manner (after her first entrance into this Arbour) Philoclea (Philoclea the fair Arcadian shepherdess) crowned her Temples with a Garland, with what flowers, and by whom 'twas made; I might tell what guests (besides Astrea and Adonis) were at this feast; and who (beside Mercury) waited at the Table, this I might tell: but may not, cannot express what music the Gods and Wood-nymphs made within; and the Linits, Larks, and Nightingales about this Arbour, during this holy day: which began in harmless mirth, and (for Bacchus and his gang were absent) ended in love and peace, which Pan (for he only can do it) continue in Arcadia, and restore to the disturbed Island of Britannia, and grant that each honest shepherd may again sit under his own Vine and figtree, and feed his own flock, and with love enjoy the fruits of peace, and be more thankful.  
Reader, at this time and place, the author contracted a friendship with certain single-hearted shepherds: with whom (as he returned from his River-recreations) he often rested himself, and whilst in the calm evening their flocks fed about them, heard that discourse, which (with the shepherd's names) is presented in these Eglogues.  
A friend of the authors wished me to tell thee so, this 23. of Novem. 1645. JO: MARRIOT.   

THE shepherd's ORACLES.  

Eclogue I.  

Gallio.  
Britannus.   GALL. 
Heaven-blessed Britannus; thou, whose Oaten Reed  
Sings thy True-Love, whilst thy proud flocks do feed  
Secure about thee, on this fruitful Brow:  
Above all shepherds, o how blessed art Thou!  
Your fruitful Pastures flourish, and appear  
Fresh, and in perfect verdure all the year:  
No summer's fire, nor winter's frost impair  
Your thriving Plains, continuing fresh and fair,  
And full of vigour, like th' Elysian Lay,  
Where every season's like the month of May:  
Your milk-white Ewes enrich your peaceful grounds,  
No snarls of Foxes, nor the yelps of Hounds  
disturb their quiet; whilst your sporting Lambs,  
With bended knees, draw blessings from their dams.  
How happy! O how more than all the rest,  
In the wide world, are Britain shepherds blessed.  BRIT. 
True, Gallio, we poor shepherds do inherit  
A happiness transcending far our merit;  
We have no grief, no misery but this;  
Senseless we are, and blind to our own bliss:  
Goods without evils are oftentimes despised,  
And common happiness is lowly prized:  
But tell me Gallio, make relation how  
Your pastures flourish, and what flocks have you:  
What kind of government do you live under,  
That mak'st our State the object of your wonder.  GALL. 
Ah, gentle shepherd, there, there lies the corn  
That wrings poor Gallios' toe: O! there's the thorn  
That stings my bleeding heart. The sad relation  
Of our disasters, will revive such passion  
In my spent bosom, that each wounding word  
Will prove a dagger, and each line a sword:  
Come, sit thee down beneath this shady Beech,  
And lend thine ear: Full hearts are eased by speech,  
I'll tell thee, whilst thy busy flocks do feed.  BRIT. 
Wounds fester, swain, the less, the more they bleed:  
Speak freely then, and this sad heart of mine  
Shall comfort thee, or else shall bleed with thine.  GALL. 
Then, shepherd, know: There was a time  
My heart even faints to think that word, There was alas!  
Wherein our fruitful Pastures were as fair  
As faithful shepherds, by their fervent prayer,  
Could make them, trenched, and quickset round about,  
Could neither Fox get in, nor Flocks get out:  
Deep were the Trenches, and divinely filled  
With living waters, waters that were stilled  
In heavens great Limbeck, whose celestial power  
Exceeds a strong belief; but this short hour  
We have to spend, can only give a touch  
In things of large discourse; only thus much,  
The German spa (nor yet your Britain Bath)  
Hath not such virtue, as this water hath:  
Now my Britannus, needs me not to tell  
How rare's the kernel, when so sweet's the shell;  
Amongst wise shepherds is not often found  
Costly enclosures, and a barren ground;  
No, no, Britannus; the bright eye of day,  
That in twelve measured hours, does survey  
The moiety of this earth, did ne'er behold  
More glorious Pastures: Nay, I dare be bold  
(With awful reverence to our great God Pan)  
To say, that heaven could not devise on man  
A Good we had not, nor augment our store  
(If earth makes happy) with one blessing more:  
Our flocks were fair, and fruitful, and stood sound;  
Our grounds enriched them; they enriched the ground:  
The Alpine mountains could not boast nor show  
So pure a whiteness, white surpassing snow:  
Our ub'rous Ewes were evermore supplied  
With twins, attending upon either side,  
Whose milk-abounding bags did overflow:  
They fed our Lambs, and filled our dairy too:  
In those past days our shepherds knew not what  
Red-water meant; that common language, rot,  
Was neither feared, nor known; nor did they fear  
That heart-confounding name of Massacre:  
There was no putrid scab to exercise  
The malice of the maggot-blowing flies,  
Whose Prince, Belzebub, (if report be true)  
Breathed forth his loud Retreat, and raging drew  
His buzzing Army thence; and, for a time,  
Led them to forage in another Clime;  
And, to conclude, no shepherd ere did keep  
More thriving grounds; nor grounds, more dainty sheep:  
O my Britannus, in those halcyon days,  
Our jolly shepherds thirsted after praise,  
Not servile wages; They were, then, ambitious  
Of Fame; whose flocks should be the most auspicious;  
Who, by most care, should most increase their fold;  
They hunted after fair report, not Gold:  
They were good shepherds, and they loved their sheep,  
Watched day and night: One eye would never sleep:  
Small Cottages would serve their turns; That day  
Knew no such things as Robes: A shepherd's grey  
Would clothe their backs: for, being homely dressed,  
Their sheep, whose fleece they wore, would know them best:  
They were good shepherds; seldom durst they feed  
On Cates, or drink the Juice that does proceed  
From dangerous vines, for fear the fumes should steep  
Their brains too much, and they neglect their sheep:  
They were good shepherds; these would every day  
Twice tell their flocks, and, then, at night, convey  
A secret blessing, got by fervent prayer,  
Into their peaceful bosoms unaware:  
They were good shepherds; They would even lay down  
Their dearest lives, nay more, the eternal crown  
Of promised Immortality, to keep  
Their lambs from danger, and preserve their sheep:  
But now, ah! now, those precious days are done  
With us poor shepherds: ah! those times are gone,  
Gone like our joys, and never to return:  
Our joys are gone, and we left here, to mourn:  
Let this relation of those times of old,  
Suffice; the rest were better be untold.  BRIT. 
My dearest Gallio, had it pleased heaven,  
I wish no further matter had been given  
To thy discourse: it would have pleased mine ear,  
And eased thy tongue t'have pitched thy period here;  
But since our God, that can do nothing ill,  
Hath sent a Change, we must submit our will;  
What he hath made the subject of thy story,  
Fear not to tell; his ends are his own glory:  
There's nothing constant here; the States of Kings,  
As well as shepherds, are but tickle things:  
Good days, on earth, continue but a while;  
We must have vinegar as well as oil:  
There must be rubs; can earth admit all level?  
The history of a State is good and evil.  
Speak then my Gallio, this attentive ear  
Can not hear worse than 'tis prepared to hear.  GALL. 
Know'st thou Britannus, what, in days of old,  
Our great God Pan, by Oracle foretold  
Of that brave City (whose proud buildings stood  
As firm as earth, till stained with shepherd's blood)  
That there's a time should come, wherein not one  
Should live to see a stone upon a stone?  
And is not, now, that prophecy made good?  
Grows not grass there, where these proud buildings stood?  
Nay, my Britannus, what concerns us more,  
Did not that Oracle, in times of yore,  
Threaten to send his Foxes from their Holds,  
Into our Vines? and Wolves into our Folds?  
To break our Fences, and to make a way  
For the wild boar to ramble, and to prey  
Where e'er he pleased? O gentle shepherd, thus,  
Thus that prophetic evil's made good in us:  
Our Hedge is broken, and our Pastures yield  
But slender profit: All's turned Common-field:  
Our Trenches are filled up: our crystal Springs  
Are choked with Earth, and Trash, and baser things:  
Our shepherds are grown ploughmen all, and now  
Our generous crook is turned a crooked Plough:  
Shepherds build Halls, and carry Princely ports,  
Their wools are changed to silks; their cots to Courts:  
They must have hospitable barns to keep  
Riot on foot: no matter now for Sheep;  
Turn them to graze upon the common fallows,  
Whilst the luxurious shepherd swills, and wallows  
In his own vomit: Having swallowed down  
Goblets of wine, he snorts in beds of down,  
Whilst his poor Lambs, his poor neglected Lambs  
Bend fruitless knees before their milkless Dams:  
Nay, my Britannus, now these pampered swains  
Are grown so idle, that they think it pains  
To shear their fleeces: No, they must be picked  
And rinsed in holy-water (they are strict  
To touch defiled things) must be presented  
Upon the knee, as if they had repented  
Their service, and for which they must deserve  
But what? A Dispensation now to starve.  BRIT. 
But stay, my Gallio, let not my attention  
Too far exceed my slower apprehension;  
'Tis better manners t'interrupt, then hear  
Things serious with an ill-instructed ear:  
Make me conceive your foreign acceptation  
Of that ambiguous word of Dispensation.  GALL. 
It is a term that foreign shepherds use  
Too much, (I was about to say, abuse.)  
In elder times, when Pastors took delight  
To feed their flocks, and not their appetite,  
It was a word expressed (now fallen asleep  
To that true sense) A feeding of the sheep:  
But now 'tis altered, and it does appear  
Differing as much, as they from what they were:  
And if your gentle patience will excuse it;  
A word too much shall tell you how they use it:  
In times of yore the pious minded swain  
Finding base Sodomy, and Incest reign  
In looser breasts, taught their obedient Sheep  
T'observe those laws that Goats refused to keep,  
Forbidding Twins to couple, and the Rams  
To take a ●arnall knowledge of their Dams:  
To which intent it was their studious care  
To several such flocks as might not pair:  
So much those holy swains abominated  
Unnatural Incest (as we find related)  
That even among their sheep they thought it good  
To punish such enormous crimes with blood,  
Not to be used for sacrifice, nor food:  
But now Britannus, times are grown more course,  
Declined from good to bad; from bad to worse:  
Those rules are broke by these licentious times,  
Laws are esteemed no laws; and crimes no crimes.  
'Tis true, our rascal-sheep, whose fly-blown skin  
Hath lost her fleece, and brings no profit in,  
To such, the law continues firm and strict,  
On such the hand of justice does inflict  
The height of law; But those, whose fleecy loins  
Bear thriving burdens, there th' Edict injoines  
An easy penance: sisters with their brothers,  
And budding Rams may tup with their own mothers:  
(O! where the sacred bell of profit rings,  
Murders are merits, Rapes are venial things)  
Such may transgress their pleasures, such may do  
Their lists, be' incestuous with their shepherd too.  
Such may have Pardons for elapsed crimes,  
And cheap Indulgences for present times:  
Nay, more than that, a Twin-producing suitor  
Shall find a Dispensation for the future:  
A liberty to sin for years, or life, our Nation  
(In a more shadowed term) terms Dispensation.  BRIT. 
Monsters of monsters! O prodigious shame  
To all mankind, and stain to shepherd's name!  
I thought, our shepherds had deserved the stile  
Of bad, till now; and (to speak truth) a while,  
Upon the entrance of thy sad complaint,  
I feared thy gamesome wit began to paint,  
In shadowed Scopticks, some that bear the Crook  
In our blessed Island; to which end, I took  
Ungranted leave to hinder your relation,  
With a forced ignorance of Dispensation,  
To feel thy bent; But now my jealous ears  
Are made unhappy losers by their fears:  
But tell me Gallio, (for the eye of heaven  
Is yet unclosed, and hath not quite made even  
With earth) where graze thy flocks, and to whose keep  
Hast thou committed thy absented sheep.  GALL. 
Nor dare, nor can I tell, unless thine ears  
Will give me leave to mingle words with tears,  
And tears with blood, & blood with saddest moans,  
And moans with sobs, and sobs with deepest groans:  
O my Britannus, 'tis not yet two years  
Twice fully told, since my abundant tears  
Began to flow: I had, I had, till than,  
The fairest flock that ever eye of man  
Beheld, with envy; (ah! I had but few,  
My dear Britannus, if compared with you:)  
But 'twas a thriving flock: for bone and fleece,  
Arcadia, no nor all the plains in Greece  
Could show the like: it was my only grief,  
That my report (exceeding all belief)  
Was counted fictious: when I made my boast,  
'Twas thought but my affection's voice, at most:  
Ah gentle swain, the poorest Lamb I had  
Did bear a fleece, nay such a fleece, as clad  
A naked brother, and the meanest Ewe  
In all my flock did suckle ne'er so few  
As Twins, besides the surplusage, that fed  
A leash of Orphans, in their mother's stead:  
Nay, (as these eyes can witness) on a day,  
One of my weaker yeanlings happed to stray,  
Where, being fast upon a crooked Bryer,  
The rest came in, and gently did supply her  
With all the strength they could; I could not choose  
But smile, to see while some assayed to lose  
The prisoners bands, they hung as fast as she,  
But in the end they set my yeanling free:  
O my Britannus, when they heard my voice,  
How my poor Lambs would frisk, and even rejoice  
To see their shepherd! They would come and stand  
About me, and take Ivy from my hand;  
But o my God, what patience shall I crave,  
To tell the rest! what patience shall I have!  
Upon a night (It was a night as dark  
As was the deed; there was no glimmering spark  
That would vouchsafe to shoot his feeble rays  
From heaven, (alas! why did no Comet blaze  
Against such hideous things?) upon that night  
Rushed in a rout of Wolves (no Jesuit  
Was sharper bent to kill:) Into my Fold  
They rushed, they slew, they spared nor young nor old.  
O! the next morning all my flock lay dead,  
All but some few, that being wounded fled:  
Myself, that held ten thousand lives not dear  
To save my dearer flock, they wounded there,  
Upon the rescue: Ah! they gripped me sore,  
Yet let me live, to wound my soul the more.  
But gentle shepherd, I am lately told,  
Some of my scattered sheep have been so bold  
To seek for refuge in the British Fold:  
Long have I sought, like one that knows not whither  
To guide his wandering steps, I happened hither:  
O, canst thou tell me tidings? Canst thou give me  
At least some hopes of comfort to relieve me?  BRIT. 
Towards bright Titan's evening Court there lies  
From hence ten miles not fully measured thrice,  
A glorious city, called by the name  
Of Troynovant, a place of noted fame  
Throughout the Christian world, of great renown  
For charitable deeds, a place well known  
For good and gracious Government; in brief,  
A place for common Refuge, and relief  
To banished shepherds, and their scattered Sheep;  
There our great Pan's vicegerent now does keep  
His royal Court, whose gracious hand hath store  
Of sovereign balsams apt for every sore:  
In that brave City, there be folds provided  
For Sheep of diverse Quarters, all divided  
One from the other, ready to receive  
Affrighed flocks, and bounteous to relieve  
Their several wants: haste Gallio, hast thee thither,  
And if thou miss thy ends, return thee hither,  
And make Britannus happy to enjoy thee,  
Until thy pleased God shall re-imploy thee.  GALL. 
Thanks gentle shepherd; let that God increase  
Thy flocks: and give thy soul eternal peace.   

Eclogue II.  

Brito.  
Luscus.   BRI. 
GRaze on my Lambs, here's nothing to disquiet  
Your gentle peace, or interrupt your diet:  
Why crowd ye thus so near your frighted dams?  
Here's neither Wolf, nor Fox; Graze on, my Lambs:  
Graze on, my Sheep; why gaze ye to and fro,  
As if ye feared some evil? Why gaze ye so?  
What serves your shepherd for, if not to keep  
Your hearts secure from fears? Graze on, my sheep:  
Forbear my Lambs, to fear ye know not what,  
And feed; your feeding makes your shepherd fat:  
But who comes yonder?' Seems far off to be  
Our creeping shepherd Luscus: and 'tis he:  
I thought my Lambs had something in the wind,  
They left to graze and looked so oft behind:  
They love that Luscus, on the self same manner,  
As dogs, by instinct of nature, love the Tanner:  
See here he comes: Lord, how my lambs divide  
Their eching paces to the farther side!  LUSC. 
The blessed Virgin, and S. Francis keep  
The jovial shepherd, and his jolly sheep.  BRI. 
Would not the blessed virgin's blessing do,  
Without the blessing of S. Francis too?  LUSC. 
Why, captious Brito, Store is held no Sore;  
And two Saints blessings make us blessed the more.  BRI. 
Is Luscus, then, my soul two blessings deep,  
Or am I joined in Patent with my sheep?  
But tell me now, my Saint-imploring brother,  
One cipher being added to another,  
What makes the total sum?  LUSC. 
No sum at all.  BRI. 
Such were the blessings, thy late tongue let fall:  
But 'twas thy blinded love, and, to repend thee;  
That blessed Virgins blessed Son amend thee:  
But say, what ailest thou, Luscus, that thy skin  
Appears so course, and thy pale cheeks so thin?  
Me thinks thine eyes are dim, those eyes of thine,  
That lately were so radiant, and did shine  
Like blazing stars, (which oftentimes foreshow  
The fall of some great Prince, or overthrow  
Of prosperous States) how dull, how dead they look!  
As if the style of some new-answered Book  
Had overwatched them, or thy hollow cheek  
Had been at buffets with an Ember week.  LUSC. 
Plump faces, Brito, are esteemed the least  
Of shepherd's care; Good shepherds may not feast,  
They must been sober, keep their bodies chaste;  
A shepherd's calling is to watch and fast:  
Their lips must taste no Cates; their eyes, no sleep;  
Such diet, Brito, Roman shepherds keep,  BRI. 
Or should, good Luscus: shepherds love their ease  
Too well, to make a die of that disease:  
Their faces are not always faithful signs  
Of hidebound Ribs, and narrow wasted loins:  
Shepherds can make Good-friday on their cheek,  
When their full hearts, at home, keep Easter week.  LUSC. 
Curse on those shepherds, that been so untrue.  BRI. 
That Curse, I fear, belongs to some of you:  
Your Roman faces can look thin, by art,  
Their eye can weep tears, strangers to their heart.  LUS. 
Rash are those censures, and those words misguided,  
Where Hearts and Charity, are so far divided:  
But tell me, Brito; what have we misdone  
To earn so sharp a censure? Whereupon  
Groundest thou thy harsh conceit? what has our nation  
Committed, worthy of so foul taxation?  BRI. 
I'll tell thee if thy patience will but lend  
A quiet ear; Plain dealing speaks a friend.  LUS. 
Speak freely then, Luscus shall find an ear;  
Thou shalt not speak, what Luscus will not hear.  BRI. 
When our great master-shepherd, (under whom  
We serve, being substituted in his room)  
Forsook this vale, and took his journey on,  
To take possession of his father's Throne,  
He called his under shepherds, to whose care  
He lent his flocks, (those flocks he prized more dear  
Than his own life) to them he recommended  
The highest trust that ever yet depended  
On care of man: To them he did enlarge  
His strict Commands, to execute that charge,  
With greatest faith and loyalty, to keep  
His Lambs from danger, and to feed his Sheep;  
Nay, Luscus, the more fully to declare  
His gracious pleasure, and his tender care  
In that behalf, what his desire did move  
His zeal did quicken on the Bands of love;  
Nay more, that word, whose accent had the power  
To ruin Heaven and Earth, and, in one hour,  
To build a thousand more, (whose very breath  
At the first motion could blow life or death)  
He thrice repeated, O my shepherds keep  
My Flocks; O feed my Lambs; O fold my Sheep:  
Yet did our bounteous Master not regard  
His good alone; our Pan was not so hard,  
(Although our lives, and all that we enjoy  
Lie prostrate at his pleasure) to employ  
The busy hands of us poor shepherd swains,  
Or to require our unrewarded pains:  
He gives us peace, and freedom; He sustains us  
With full and wholesome diet; He maintains us  
In needful raiment; keeps us sound in health;  
Gives us content; the very height of wealth:  
Besides, at every Shearing he allows  
A golden garland, to adorn our brows;  
And when our faithful hands shall give account  
Of our improved endeavours, we shall mount  
Into our Master's joy, where, being dressed  
In Robes, and crowns, we shall enjoy that rest,  
Prepared for faithful shepherds, and there sing  
Perpetual Past'rals to our shepherd-king:  
But they whose slumbering eyes have misattended  
Their wandering flocks, whose hands have not defended  
Their worried lambs, those shepherds shall make good  
Their own defaults, with their own dearest blood.  LUSC. 
Brito, this night, the moon begins to gain  
Her wanedlight; I fear, she threatens rain;  
These busy Gnats, I doubt, conspire together,  
To bring us tidings of some change of weather.  BRI. 
Luscus, 'twere much for faithless shepherd's ease,  
If no worse Gnats might suck their blood than these.  LUSC. 
The Sun shines hot; the Southern wind blows warm:  
But kindly showers would do these grounds no harm.  BRI. 
Less harm, good Luscus, (if my thoughts been true)  
Then this discourse (which you so balk) does you:  
We talk of shepherds; our discourse relates  
Of thriving flocks; and you of showers and Gnats:  
A pleasing subject may command your ear,  
But what you like not you are slow to hear:  
A Roman Swain can hear, and yet can choose;  
His ears, like Jugglers, can play fast and loose,  
For his advantage, nay, (and what appears  
More strange) he can be deaf to what he hears.  LUSC. 
What ails this peevish shepherd? I attended  
Till I was tired, and his Tale was ended;  
What wouldst thou more with my obtunded ear?  BRI. 
That, shepherd, which thou seem'st so loath to hear;  
That, which observed with attentive heed,  
Will make thy heartstrings crack, and thy heart bleed.  LUSC. 
Speak, Shepheard, then, whilst I renew my ear:  
A Roman spirit scorns a childish fear.  BRI. 
Ay, Luscus, 'tis the want of Childish fear  
That makes thee lend a fear-disdaining ear:  
Thou art a shepherd; (else, the fouler shame  
T'usurp the honour of so high a name)  
A Roman shepherd too, that does profess  
To feed the flock; and yet does nothing less;  
You take the crop; your flocks, alas, but glean,  
And what makes you so fat, makes them so lean;  
God knows you feed yourselves: by what Commission  
Plough you those Pastures, for your own provision,  
Which our good shepherd severed out, to keep  
And to maintain his poor deceived sheep?  
Who gave you licence thus, bold swains, to pinch  
Your Masters gracious bounty, and to inch  
His bounteous favours, that can but allow  
The Headlands, but the margins of your Plough,  
To feed so fair a flock? Nay, more than so,  
They are forbid those slender Headlands too,  
Until the slow-paced sith, has shorn them down  
So late, that winter floods have overflown  
Their sapless swaths, and filled them so with sand  
And earthy trash, brought down from th' upper land  
By th' unresisted current of the flood,  
That 'tis but flattered with the name of food:  
Nay, more than that, poor flocks, they are forbid  
To feed at large, as heretofore they did,  
They must betethered now, must be bereaven  
Of the sweet moisture, of the dew of heaven:  
Nor must their slender food be simply such  
As heaven had made it; no,' 'tmust have a touch  
Of new Invention, which our wise God Pan  
Ne'er thought on; since, devised by wiser man:  
It must be mingled with fast growing flags,  
Mire-rooted rushes, sweet'ned with the brags  
Of pious Thrift; nor must the hungry flocks  
Take what they please; it must be served in Locks,  
And Ostry Bottles; neither when they would  
They must be fed, nor yet with what they should:  
To day, they must be dieted, and fast  
From common food; no less than death, to taste:  
To morrow, pampered with excess, (and nursed  
With a full hand) may ravin till they burst:  
Brave shepherds, Luscus; fit to serve such flocks!  
Where you command, Lambs need not fear the Fox.  LUS. 
No wonder, Brito, that your Censures be  
So sharp to us, that so much disagree  
Among yourselves: you Britain shepherds are  
So strangely factious, that you would even jar  
With your own shadows, had no substance been  
Subjected to the venom of your spleen:  
Look, first at home, and seek to reconcile  
Yourselves, that mix like vinegar with oil:  
Then snarl: Till heaven shall send you such a season,  
It is your Faction speaks, and not your Reason.  BRI. 
We have our factions, swain, you speak but true;  
They must have Itch that touch such Blanes as you:  
You broach new fangles; you devise new ways,  
And give more licence to licentious days:  
You limit, you distinguish as you please;  
You take no pains but in contriving ease,  
And plotting how to pamper Flesh and Blood,  
Masking true evils with apparent Good:  
Thus you corrupt our shepherds, and even those  
That of themselves are apt enough (God knows)  
To love their eases; shepherd, when we jar  
Among ourselves, we do but only war  
Against your Doctrines, which too much increase  
Among us: No, such wars conclude a Peace.  LUSC. 
Our doctrines, Brito? Recollect thy thought,  
Whose doctrine was it, that swain Luther taught?  
Who taught your wisdoms to forsake your flocks,  
And let them ramble on the barren Rocks,  
And wander God knows where? who taught your hearts,  
(More hard than Marble) those well practised arts  
Of cruel Piety, to prize Conceit,  
And wild Opinion at a higher rate  
Than all their lives, and rather bear the loss  
Of your whole flocks, then brand them with a cross,  
Our Master's sheepmark? These conceits are yours,  
Good Britain swain; These doctrines were not ours.  BRI. 
Fan not my smothering fires, lest their flame  
Torment your neighbouring shins: should I but name  
The Tithe of that base dunghill trash, brought in  
By your Dominicans, scavenged out again  
By worse Franciscans; the perpetual jars  
Twixt your hot Jesuits and your Seculars;  
How Thomas snarls at Scotus; and how he  
Snarls back at Thomas; how your new Decree  
Confronts the old; and how your last does smother  
The first; and how one council thwarts another;  
'Twould stop your mouth, and make you scorn the  
Or wisely pray for more increase of fools:  
But to conclude, the shepherd's charge is given schools,  
To us; and if an Angel come from heaven,  
And teach new ways, whose rules should disaccord  
From what our master-shepherd left by word  
To our performance, I would teach mine ear  
A scornful deafness; or (if forced to hear)  
My tongue should find the courage to defy  
His words, and boldly give his face the lie:  
But see! the treble shades begin to damp  
The moistened earth; and the declining Lamp  
Invites our lips to silence; day grows old:  
'Tis time to draw our willing flocks to fold:  
Hark, hark, my Wether rings his evening bell;  
I must away.  LUSC. 
Shepherd good-night.  BRI. 
Farewell.   

Eclogue III.  

Pan.  
Gentilla.   GENT. 
WHat ails my dearest shepherd? what new change  
Has taught his heart-rejoicing eyes such strange  
And dire aspects? what humour hath possessed  
The Sanctuary of his troubled breast?  
What mean these sullen frowns? 'gainst whom dost thou  
Thus sternly bend thy discontented Brow?  
At whom does this Artil'ry of thine eye  
Level such flames? Here's none but thee and I,  
Why dost thou turn aside? Why dost thou shun  
Gentilla? What has poor Gentilla done?  
Have I proved false? Say, did I ever bow  
To a new choice, or started from my Vow?  
Have not my thoughts observed a holy Fast  
From new desires? Have not these eyes been chaste  
As th' eyes of Turtles? Did Gentilla's knee  
Ere bend to any, but her God, and Thee?  
If I be loyal; say, why dost thou shun me?  
Why do thy causeless brows thus frown upon me?  
And if my faith be conscious of a blot,  
Why stand'st thou mute so long? why chidest thou not?  
No, no, my dearest shepherd, if there be  
Cause of suspect, that cause is given to me:  
How long (too too unkind!) hast thou denied  
Thy presence? Ah, how often have I cried  
In corners? Nay, how often have these eyes  
Been drowned with briny streams, that did arise  
From the full fountain of a flowing heart?  
How often have I charmed by the black Art  
Of all my sorrows? Yet my shepherd's ears  
Were deaf; his eyes were blind to all my tears:  
And now thy wished-for presence (the full crown  
Of all my joys) is clouded with a frown.  PAN. 
Thou know'st, Gentilla, when thy breasts were green▪  
Unripe for Love, there past a Vow between  
Thy elder Sister Judabell, and me,  
Whose only portion was virginity;  
She had no beauty to inflame mine eyes,  
Nor wealth, nor birth, nor aught to make me prize  
Her naked love; her visage was uncomely,  
Her fortunes poor; her breeding, blunt and homely;  
I loved her for herself, and the direction  
To that dear love, was my own dear affection:  
In sacred bands of contract, we both tied  
Our folded hands, and she became my Bride:  
I made her supreme Queen of all my Vows,  
And set a crown of gold upon her brows;  
I made her sole commandress of my keys,  
To shut and open, where, and when she please:  
I made her Mistress of my Flocks, and gave  
What I could give, or what her soul could crave;  
She had what favours Bounty could confer;  
My life was but a Trifle, weighed with her:  
But she forsook me; Her false heart did prove  
Disloyal; took a surfeit of my love;  
She slighted all my favours; falsely broke  
Her plighted Faith, and scorned my easy yoke;  
My dearest love she answered with disdain,  
Cast amorous eyes on every vnder-swain;  
I loved, she scorned, and what I gave, she slighted;  
Was never love so true, so ill requited.  GENT. 
But stay, dear shepherd, shall my sister's crimes,  
Or shall th' unjust Rebellions of her times  
Be plagued in me? Or shall thy lips demand  
The debts of Judabell at Gentilla's hand?  
Stands it with justice, that those Vows which she  
Hath falsely broke, should be revenged on me?  PAN. 
Thou know'st Gentilla, when thy sister's breast  
Grew too obdurate for my dear request,  
When fair entreaties, and more hard Commands  
Found disrespect at her respectless hands,  
I left my vain attempt, called home my heart,  
And placed it (as I thought) on more desert;  
Those dear affections, and the love that she  
unworthily despised, I fixed on thee:  
The self same privilege, the self same power,  
Those very favours, and the self same dower,  
That was assured hers, while she was mine,  
Were by a second Contract, all made thine:  
What she hath left, thy Fortunes have engrossed;  
Gentilla found what Judabell has lost:  
But o Gentilla, thou hast failed to prove  
A worthy object of so fair a Love;  
Thou hast thy sister's frailty; Thou hast all  
Her Fortunes with her Faults, though not her Fall.  GENT. 
Tell me, dear shepherd, that I may amend them,  
I will acknowledge them, or not defend them.  PAN. 
Did not I trust, Gentilla, to thy hand  
My Flocks, my substance, under whose command  
I left them charged? Say did I not submit  
My shepherds to thy service, and commit  
My Sheep to their protection, to be  
Fodered by them, and overseen by thee?  
Were not those Pastures fair enough, to keep  
My weaned Lambs, and to maintain my Sheep?  
Were they not sweet enough, and well sufficing  
Without that mixture, of your swains devising?  
Unwholesome stuff! whose very taste did rot,  
Or breed diseases where it poisoned not;  
That insomuch, where e'er I turned my head,  
I saw some Flocks a-dying; and some, dead.  GENT. 
True, gentle shepherd, thus in former times  
We did; if Ignorance may salve our crimes,  
We have enough to plead: I bent my knee  
To a false Master then, and not to Thee.  PAN. 
I thought, that Pan had had supreme Command;  
I thought, my Rules might had the grace to stand  
In full authority, and power; I thought,  
Those georgics which I writ, as well as taught  
By word of mouth, had been a full direction  
Both for my Flocks good diet, and protection:  
But you, and your disloyal swains (it's said)  
Have joined in serious council, and have made  
Another Head, whose self-conceited ways  
I never knew; and Him your wisdoms raise  
Into a height above the height of Man,  
And placed Him in a Throne, which never Pan,  
When he kept earth, and governed here below,  
Had ere the Honour to be called into:  
Him ye advance with reverence and renown,  
His brows adorning with a triple Crown,  
When as a wreath of Willow, or of thorn  
(For want of high prized metal) rudely torn  
From the next hedge, must serve my turn, and be  
A crown, thought fit, and good enough for me;  
Him ye observe, and, like a thing Divine,  
Him ye adore: His words must pass, not Mine;  
His words are Oracles, and his Commands  
Are Laws, or Death; the power of his hands  
(Which he pretends to be derived from me)  
Can reach from Peasants, to the high degree  
Of Princes, whom, by virtue of his keys,  
He can discrown, and murder when he please:  
My sacred Book, wherein these fingers writ  
The shepherd's laws, his nature-pleasing wit  
Has interlined with his own bold devices,  
And made it now a starting-hole for Vices:  
His holy finger can put out, put in;  
Change, and on second thoughts, rechange again:  
He can correct, distinguish, reconcile;  
And where a Gap stands fair, can make a Style:  
His lips can bless, where I have cursed; and curse,  
Whom I have blessed, according as the Purse  
Feels light or heavy; if the Tides but flow,  
What is't, he can? what is't, he cannot do?  
This is that Head which your false hearts allow;  
This is that golden Calf, to whom ye bow  
Your sacrilegious knees; Him, him ye crown  
With honour, whilst ye pull my Honour down:  
Him ye corrupt; His open fist ye grease,  
And make your Oracle speak what you please:  
Thus are my poor abused Flocks beguiled  
By your disguised Impostures; thus despoiled  
Of their dear lives, whilst you grow plump and full,  
Fed with their Flesh, and clothed in their wool.  GENT. 
Ah dearest shepherd, in those bloody days,  
I was but young, and childish; and my ways  
Were ill devised; alas, my tender years  
Were too too credulous; My abused ears  
Were open long before my judgement had  
Strength to know truth from falsehood, good from bad;  
I knew no difference twixt my Friend and Foe,  
Thought all was Gold, that made a golden show:  
I thought, those swains, to whose experienced care  
Thou left thy Flocks, had knowledge to prepare  
Convenient food; and judgement how to keep  
With most advantage, thy reposed Sheep.  PAN. 
Ay, so they had, Gentilla, they could read  
A Book, could teach them how, and when to feed;  
The Book was fair, and penned without a blot:  
They knew there Masters Will, but did it not.  GENT. 
I trusted them; but they abused mine ear,  
Told me fair tales, which youth was apt to hear:  
That little Book thou gav'st me, (when Pan wooed  
His poor Gentilla, first) writ with thy blood,  
They pilfered from me; told me 'twas unfit  
To be the object of a woman's wit:  
Sometimes, by snatches, they perused the Book;  
As once they read, my lingering eyeballs took  
A view, by stealth; and my deluded ear  
Was filled; with what? With nothing written there:  
O, thus they wronged my too-beleeving ears;  
And taking vantage of my easy years,  
They kept me dark, for fear mine eyes behold  
Their gilded Trash, that's current now for Gold:  
Nay more, they knowing that the weaker sex  
By nature's apt to lose their servile necks  
From man's imperious yoke, and so to fly  
Aloft into the pitch of sovereignty,  
They did not blush, to weigh, at least to join  
Thy sacred Oracles, with poor words of mine;  
Whose later boldness ventured to debase  
Thy words authority, and give mine the place:  
All this my bolder swains presumed to do;  
All this my prouder weakness yielded to.  
True, gentle shepherd, 'tis confessed, that we  
Made a new Power, but no Head but Thee;  
Our first intention was not simply evil,  
But accidental; all things were unlevell,  
And rude disorder crept into our State:  
Swain would contest with swain, and fierce debate  
Increased among us: Every hand would feed  
His own devised way, which was the seed,  
The pregnant seed of Ruin, and Confusion  
To our green Government; till, in conclusion,  
We picked the ablest swains from out the rest,  
And made them chief, by whose discreeter breast,  
Next under Thee our Head, we did annorme  
Our Government, and made it uniform:  
Thus, for a while, our State was well redressed;  
They were good shepherds, and our State had rest:  
They were good shepherds, and they scorned to keep  
Their lives upon the rescue of their sheep:  
But days grew worse and worse, and after times  
As they increased in age, increased in Crimes:  
These powers grew proud, heretical, did hold  
New-broached Opinions; Law was bought and sold,  
And gospel too; new orders were erected:  
The shepherds sought themselves; their Flocks neglected;  
Thus each succeeding Power at last, did add,  
A worse unto his Predecessors bad:  
Thus were my tender years, and trust abused;  
T'avoid confusion, thus we grew confused:  
O, they that follow a misguided Head,  
The farther go, the more they are misled:  
But now my sad experience (Dearly bought)  
Hath called me off, and made me see my fault;  
My soul abhors the deeds of former times,  
They, they are past, but present are my Crimes:  
Let not my dearest shepherd search my ways  
With too severe an eye: As the old days  
Are swallowed with the new, and passed away,  
So let my faults be past as well as they:  
Close, chose thine eyes, or if thou needs must see,  
Look, look upon thy goodness, and not me;  
Or if thine eyes will look on such a shame,  
Behold not what I was, but what I am.  PAN. 
My dear Gentilla, dearer than my soul,  
Thy wounds are cured, thy Faith has made thee whole:  
Thy tears have scoured thy trespass; witness Heaven,  
Thou hast not done what Pan has not forgiven:  
Come, come into mine arms, my greedy breast  
Longs, longs to entertain so fair a Guest:  
The poorest tear that wets thy lovely cheek  
Has washed a world of faults; thou shalt not seek  
What thy prevailing language cannot find.  GENT. 
O let me weep, until I weep me blind!  
How can my frozen Gutters choose but run,  
And feel the beams of such a melting Sun!  PAN. 
Enough, my sweet Gentilla, O forbear  
To gall my wounded heart! each pearly tear  
That trickles from thine eye, does make rebound  
Upon my heart, and gives my heart the wound:  
What means my dearest Love to overflow  
My curious Garden, on whose banks do grow  
Those flowers, whose sweetness does as far exceed  
Arabian scents, as they the foulest weed.  GENT. 
No, no, my dearest dear; these slubbered cheeks  
Call for more water; 'tis the work of weeks,  
To purge the Morphew from so foul a face;  
'Tis not the labour of an hour's space  
Can do the deed.  PAN. 
No leprosy can find  
So clear a cure, but that some scurf behind  
Will yet remain, Gentill● may be sure,  
The worse being past, time will perfect the cure.  GENT. 
My dearest Pan, such desperate sores as these  
Requier fresh supplies: O! my disease  
Enjoins me to go wash nine times, at least,  
In Jordan's streams till it be quite redressed.  PAN. 
Be not deluded with traditious dreams;  
'Tis Pan that cures thee, and not Jordan-streames:  
Let not thy Morphew plunge thy soul too far  
In needless grief; deep wounds will leave a scar:  
Vex not thyself, and let no chill despair  
Perplex thy troubled heart; Thou art as fair,  
As earth will suffer: My contented eyes  
Take pleasure in thy beauty, which I prize  
Above the world: and when the time shall come,  
Wherein thy shepherd shall conduct thee home  
Into my father's Palace, where I dwell,  
I'll give thee water, (water shall excel  
The streams of Jordan) whose diviner power  
Shall cleanse thy stains, and in a moment soower  
Thy Morphew so, that heaven's Meridian eye  
Shall veil, to see thy greater Glory by:  
Till then, my dearest, let these chaste embraces  
Twine us a while, then to our several places  
Depart we both.  GENT. 
Then let Gentilla die,  
If aught can part my dearest Pan and I:  
These twined arms shall hold thee; if thou go,  
My Pan shall draw his own Gentilla too.  PAN. 
Forbear Gentilla, for I must be gone,  
I have a Father to attend upon,  
And thou a Flock; the time will come, wherein  
We shall remeet, and never part again.  GENT. 
I'll drive my Flocks, whilst we walk hand in hand;  
And I will feed them on thy father's land.  PAN. 
Not so Gentilla, when thy Flocks are thriven  
In fat and fleece, then, than they shall be driven  
Unto my father's Court; where, on thy knee,  
Thou shalt present them as a gift from thee;  
And at that day thy shepherd shall come hither,  
And hand in hand conduct Gentilla thither.  GENT. 
If needs we must, Farewell▪ But see thou keep▪  
Thy promised word.  PAN. 
Farewell; and feed my Sheep.   

Eclogue iv.  

Nullifidius.  
Pseudo-catholicus.   NULL. 
HO, shepherd ho! What ail thine eyes to take  
Such early slumbers? Shepherd, ho, awake:  
Ho, shepherd, ho! Lord how secure he lies!  
What, not a word? For shame, for shame, arise:  
Ho, shepherd, ho! I think, his drowsy head  
Is nailed to th' ground, I think our shepherd's dead:  
Ho, shepherd, ho!  PSEUD. 
I prithee leave thy hoing.  NULL. 
Then leave this sleeping, shepherd, cease thy blowing,  
Shake off dull slumb●r, and disclose thine eyes:  
Ho, shepherd, ho! 'Tis time, 'tis time to rise:  
Till thou leave snorting swain, I'll ne'er leave calling;  
Ho, shepherd, ho!  PSEUD. 
I prithee leave thy bawling.  NULL. 
Then shepherd wake, there is a Wolf broke in  
Among thy sheep; what fallen asleep again?  
Ho, shepherd, ho!  PSEUD. 
I prithee, let me sleep,  
P'sh, what care I for either Wolf or Sheep?  NULL. 
Look, Shepheard, look, here flows a curious Cup  
Of dainty sparkling Nectar, full charged up  
To th' brim; see how her sprightly dancing bubbles  
Defy degenerous fears, and the dull troubles  
Of poor afflicted hearts; look how they swell  
In proud disdain, as if they threatened Hell  
With bold defiance, or would undertake  
A prosperous duel with th' infernal Lake:  
See how she mantles; see with what a grace  
She looks upon thee; smiles upon thy face:  
Ho, shepherd, ho!  PSEUD. 
Ay, there's a voice, would raise  
A dying soul, and give the dead new days;  
I, there's a Rapture! what blessed angel's tongue  
Has broke my slumbers with so sweet a song?  
What Nullifidius! O, the sweetest strain,  
That e'er was sung! But, where's the Nectar, swain?  
Sure jolly shepherd, Pan will turn my friend;  
I never dream, but still my dreams portend  
Some good or other; As I lay asleep  
Beneath this shrub, me thought my thirsty Sheep  
Demanded water; in my troubled dreams,  
Me thought I sent them to the flowing streams,  
To drink their fill; with that, they made reply,  
There is no water, for the streams are dry:  
So having said, me thought that one among  
The flock unstopped my Bottle, whence there sprung  
Clear cry stall streams, that water did abound;  
Me thought those streams no sooner felt the ground  
But turned to blood; whereat being sore afraid,  
Me thought, I crossed myself, and after said  
Three Ave Mary's, and three Creeds; and then,  
The blood turned water, and grew clear again:  
And there I waked, as I was e'en about  
To dream the rest: And now my dream is out.  NULL. 
Faith, so's my Nectar, swain; my Nectar's ended;  
Look, here's the Shrine, but the sweet Saint's ascended:  
Seeest thou this empty bottle? Hence did flow  
Those rare, those precious streams of late; but now  
Dried up; I sipped, and called, and sipped again;  
I told thee that a Wolf was broken in,  
Among thy flocks, and yet no art could rate  
Thee from thy slumbers, till it grew too late;  
At last I roused thee with a potent charm;  
Advanced my voice as stoutly as my arm,  
I raised both arm and voice to th' height, and so  
Thy slumber's ended, and my Nectar too.  PSEUD. 
The Cramp, the murr, for ever bless such arms  
And tongues, that can attempt no earlier charms.  NULL. 
Sure Pan's no friend of thine, that gives no themes  
But Blood and Water to thy empty dreams:  
Hadst thou but dreamed of Wine—. But shepherd swain,  
I have a project to re-entertaine  
Thy next attempt; lie down and dream again;  
Mean while, these hands shall be employed to fill  
My bottle at the foot of yonder hill;  
I'll brim my bottle with those crystal streams;  
(Second thoughts thrive, & why not second dreams?)  
Perchance (Dear Swain) those second dreams of thine,  
May Transubstantiate Water into Wine.  PSEUD. 
I prithee do, and swill it for thy pains:  
'Twill wring thy bowels, ere it wrong thy brains.  NULL. 
You Roman shepherds have prodigious dreams:  
Can change your Bread to Flesh; your Wine to streams  
Of purest Blood: You can convert a dish  
Of steaks to Roots; Surloines to Joules of Fish;  
Your full cramed Capons, on your Friday table  
(As shepherds sane, and shepherds will not fable)  
Forget their fleshly natures; their smooth skins  
Turn to rough scales, their wings and legs to fins:  
Plump Partridge turns to Pike; your smaller dishes  
Of quails and costly Knots, to lesser fishes:  
But tell me, swain, what mean your learned Schools  
To tell such tales?  PSEUD. 
To make you shepherds fools.  NULL. 
That's not the mark ye level at, you glance  
Your shafts but there, ye hit but there by chance;  
Come tell me, swain, this shady place is free  
From ill-digesting ears; here's none but we:  
I have an Ewe, now grazing on my plain,  
Whose bounteous Bags, thrice every day I strain,  
Well struck in flesh, and of a noble race;  
She has more white about her then her face:  
Black is her fleece, but silk is not so soft,  
she's th' only glory of my fruitful croft:  
Repose this secret in my breast, and thou  
Shalt be the owner of this dainty Ewe.  PSEUD. 
I know the Ewe; how fortune made her thine,  
I know not; but, I'm sure, that Ewe was mine:  
But come, my swain, I know thy peaceful breast  
Is slow to strife; thou carest not to contest  
Of shepherd's laws; I know thou art none of those  
That will maintain an argument with blows:  
I know, th' indifferent Faith does not rely  
On stiff opinion; That man's No, or I  
Are both alike to thee; thou carest not whether  
It rain or shine, thy tongue keeps temperate wether:  
And to say troth, but that that pretty thing,  
Called Profit, lends a little fleeter wing  
To our desires, no doubt but we should join  
In that good, honest, harmless way of thine:  
I tell thee, swain, these darker clouds of ours  
Are full of storms, but send down golden showers:  
Thou know'st, the vulgar sort are apt to admire  
Things strange; what's most unlikely, they desire  
Most to believe, and only that applaud:  
Now what we whisper they divulge abroad:  
(For they are fools, and Women most) whereby,  
If ought be found i'th' Suburbs of a lie,  
'Tis shuffled off from us, from whence it came,  
And laid upon the common breath of Fame:  
But seldomed comes to that; such fools as they  
(Bound to believe, not question what we say)  
Ne'er sift our Tales too near, but make them good  
(In spite of Reason) with their dearest blood:  
All such, for fear lest wisdom should, by chance,  
Get th' upperhand, we train in Ignorance:  
There's none must read a book, but only he  
That's able to corrupt as well as we:  
But shepherd, know, that these we keep so short,  
Are but the women and the simpler sort;  
These are our new-milch-cowes', that do maintain  
Our house, these bring but slow, yet constant gain:  
Now, there's a wiser sort; but they attend  
In higher regions; some their worths commend  
(And some their fortunes) to superior powers;  
Some stand on their own legs, and some on ours:  
These are our greater Pillars; men of action,  
And stout maintainers of our prosperous faction:  
These are our Plush attorneys; these befriend  
Our desperate suits; these day and night attend  
Our thriving Causes, whilst we sleep secure;  
Nay, when ourself made wounds, implore a cure,  
These are our Surgeons too; these stand our bail,  
If need require, and drag us from the jail.  NULL. 
But dearest swain, methinks such high degrees  
Of brave attorneys should expect high fees:  
Gamesters say, Nothing draw, if nothing stake,  
And men of Plush are friends but where they take:  
Sure, such attorneys labour not for pleasure;  
Tell me what pennyworths does their friendship measure?  PSEUD. 
Some, as I told thee, are of higher blood;  
Some creatures of our own, whom we thought good  
To recommend; To those we crouch the knee,  
And make a Catholic face; these ask no fee.  NULL. 
But tell me, swain, how come you to engage  
Such great ones to your faction?  PSEUD. 
In this age,  
The price of Pleasure's raised to a high pitch;  
'Tis a fair traffic, now a days, and rich  
To those that sell; no gold is held too dear  
To purchase but a Licence for a year,  
To sin securely, or to swim in pleasure  
But twice six months; the very height of treasure  
Will stoop to this; our everlasting trade  
Will ne'er be dead, till Sin and Pleasure fade.  NULL. 
But tell me swain, does any such fool dwell  
Within our pale, that thinks you swains can sell  
Such privilege? Can any mortal heart  
Be so befooled?  PSEUD. 
Why, shepherd, there's the art,  
The depth of all our trade; whereon depends  
The whole design; whereby we work our ends:  
When silly birds have touched the twigs, who is't  
That cannot hand and take them as they lift?  
Wherein t'acquaint thee fully, thou shalt know  
Not only what is done, but how we do;  
I'll lay some grounds, and when those grounds be laid  
Practice will make thee master in our trade:  
Two sort of Birds do use to make resort  
Into our cage; A wise, a simpler sort;  
To those we teach Obedience; to these  
Dark Ignorance, and Charity, when we please:  
The simpler sort, are hatched, and bred our own,  
We climb their nests, and take them in their down:  
We feed them, and we bring them up by hand,  
And make them infant Slaves to our Command;  
We discipline them, teach them how to prate,  
Like Parakitoes, words they know not what;  
We keep them close, we never let them know,  
The airy freedom they were borne unto;  
We teach them to forget their wilder note  
They have b'instinct, and tune our songs by rote:  
We only keep them dark, and then, with ease  
We make them sing what notes soe'er we please:  
They feed on Rape-seed, or the crumbs that fall  
From off our trenchers at a festival.  
But there's a wiser sort; and such are they  
That spread their stronger wings, and use to prey  
For their own selves; that can behold the Sun,  
Like Jove's own bird, and when the day is done,  
Can roost themselves; these kind of birds are wary  
Where they frequent, their haggard eyes are chary  
Near whom th' approach: for these the Shepherd plants  
His close-laid Gins; their common food are Wants,  
And fucking leu'rets; often time they stoop  
At their own shades, fly thousands in a troop:  
We bait our Gins with fleshly Recreations,  
Larded with Pardons, dressed with Dispensations:  
Oft times we take; but taken, there's the skill,  
How to reclaim their wildness to our will:  
At first, they'll strive and struggle out of breath;  
If we use force, they'll beat themselves to death:  
They will not brook the dark, whose Eagle eyes  
Have viewed the Sun; Here, Swain, we must be wise;  
They must have freedom, shepherd, yet not so  
But that their freedom may appear to grow  
From our permission; then they must be fed  
With dainties, whereunto they ne'er were bred;  
And 'tis the nature of these birds to feed  
So long, till their dull wings can find no speed,  
Nor they, their wings; howe'er, put case, they try  
Their wings are clipped, unknown; they cannot fly;  
Thus kept with feeding, and with gentle hand,  
And made familiar with our wanton dandling,  
They'll make themselves our Slaves; & in strong bands  
Will yield themselves close prisoners to our hands;  
They'll fall before thee, and like water spilled,  
Mayst draw them with a finger where thou wilt:  
Now we begin to work, our smother brow  
Grows more severe; our wanton favours, now,  
Wax more reserved; they that before we dandled  
Like looser Minions, they must now be handled  
Like servile stuff; they now must know their distance;  
Where we command, there must be no resistance:  
They must not question now; and what we say,  
They must believe; what we enjoin, obey:  
These are the Hawks we fly with; and our Game  
Is Gold and Glory, and an honoured name:  
These are the generous Spaniels that retrieve  
Imperial crowns, and swallow Kings alive:  
The simpler sort maintain us plump and fat,  
But these advance the Glory of our State:  
The Eyas Faulcon's not so fierce in Game,  
As th' high pitched haggard, whom our hands reclaim:  
These are brave days; and these brave days we live:  
This is the trade that Roman shepherds drive.  NULL. 
But tell me, swain, what busy eyes attend  
Thy flocks the while? What courses do they bend?  PSEUD. 
Graze where they please; if they will feed, they may;  
Our music twangs upon a higher key:  
They do but merely serve to draw men's eyes  
From spying where our greater profit lies;  
They are like Switches in a beggar's hand,  
To counterfeit a Calling; No, we stand  
On higher terms; The habit of a swain  
Seems holy; gives advantage to obtain  
Those glorious ends, that we pursue so fast;  
They must been chary, swain, that be not chaste;  
This russet threadbare weed, that now I wear,  
Can startle Monarchs, bow a Prince's ear:  
These very Hems be kissed, and skirts adored:  
And every Button shall command a Lord.  NULL. 
Farewell my Flocks; go seek another Swain:  
Farewell my Office, and my glorious gain  
Of twenty Marks per annum; I'll go wash  
More thriving cattle; leave to haberdash  
In such small peddling wares; come jolly Swain,  
I'll trade with thee, and try another strain:  
We'll fish for kingdoms, and imperial powers;  
Come gentle swain, the Gold of Ophir's ours.  PSEUD. 
No more, good shepherd; It grows dark and late:  
At th' popes-head-tavern, there's a postern gate  
Will give us way; where flowing cups of wine  
Shall reconfirme thy Brotherhood, and mine.   

Eclogue V.  

Vigilius.  
Evangelus.   VIG. 
WHat strange affrights are these, that thus arrest  
My labouring soul, and spoil me of my rest?  
Before my meeting eyelids can conclude  
A long desired league, the war's renewed:  
I cannot rest; sometimes methinks I hear  
Loud whoops of Triumphs, sounding in mine ear:  
Sometimes the music of celestial numbers  
Sweetens my thoughts, and casts my soul in slumbers;  
And then the discords of infernal cries  
And horrid shrieks awake my closing eyes:  
Me thinks my trembling Cot does not allow  
Such restful ease, as it was wont to do:  
Pray God my Flocks be safe: My dreams foretell  
Some strange designs; pray God, that all be well:  
I'll up (for sure the wasted night grows old)  
And, if that need require, secure my Fold:  
Lord how the heavens be spangled! How each spark  
Contends for greater brightness, to undark  
The shades of night; and in a silent story,  
Declare the greatness of their maker's glory!  
But hark! am I deceived? or does mine ear  
Perceive a noise of footsteps, drawing near?  
What midnight-wanderer is grown so bold  
At such a seas'n, to ramble near my Fold?  
Sure, 'tis some pilgrim, burdened with the grief  
Of a lost way, or else some nightly Thief:  
Or else, perchance, some shepherd that doth fly  
From his affrighted Rest, as well as I:  
No, 'tis some Friend; Or else my dog had ne'er  
Been silent half so long; Hoe! who goes there?  EVANG. 
Vigilius? Is the Swain I sought so nigh?  
Fear not Vigilius; it is none but I.  VIG. 
Evangelus? What business has divided  
Thy steps this way? Or been thy steps misguided?  EVANG. 
O, my Vigilius, I am come to bring  
A true relation of the strangest thing;  
The sweetest Tidings, and the rarest wonder  
This night brought forth, as ever broke in sunder  
The lips of panting Fame: I had no power  
To keep it undisclosed another hour.  VIG. 
What is't? Speak, speak; Vigilius ears are mad  
To know the news: Say, is it good, or bad?  EVANG. 
O my Vigilius, 'tis as good as true;  
True, true as heaven itself; and good to you:  
'Tis good to wise and simple; rich and poor;  
'Tis good to me; 'tis good to thousands more;  
The greatest good that ever fell to man  
Since earth had being, since the world began.  VIG. 
Speak, welcome shepherd; let thy tongue proceed  
To make thy tidings sweeter by thy speed:  
Break open thy lips, and let thy tongue diffuse  
Her welcome errand: shepherd, what's the news?  EVANG. 
Thou know'st, Vigilius, David's Bethlem, now,  
Swarms with much people, and does overflow  
With tides of strangers, that attend the pleasure  
And sovereign will of sole-commanding Cesar:  
In this concourse, there's one, among the rest,  
A Galilean Maid, a Virgin guest,  
Whose radiant beauty (if we may rely  
On fame's report) strikes every gazing eye  
stark blind, and keeps th' amazed beholder under  
The stupid tyranny of Love and wonder:  
And (what does more embellish so divine,  
So rare a creature) she draws out the line  
Of princely David longer by her birth,  
And keeps his blood alive upon the earth;  
Nay, what completes both lineage and complexion,  
And heaps perfection more upon perfection,  
Mounting her Glory to the upper stair,  
She is as perfect chaste, as perfect fair;  
So pure a soul inflames her Virgin breast,  
That most conceive, she is an Angel dressed  
In flesh and blood; at least some Saint revived;  
Some say, (if their report may pass believed)  
She hath no sins at all; at most, so few,  
That very Scriptures are but barely true;  
Her name is Mary; and if every one  
May own their right, right heir to David's Throne:  
She's now at Bethlem (where being newly come)  
This very night, her pregnant Virgin-womb,  
Without the throws of childbed or the groan  
Of the sick chair, has borne, brought forth a Son.  VIG. 
A Virgin bear a Son? What busy tongue  
Has done thine ears, and easy faith that wrong?  
Born without pain? And of a virgin's womb?  
Thou art befooled: where heardest thou this? of whom?  EVANG. 
Shepherd; It is the common voiced report  
Of every tongue, and sent to Caesar's Court;  
I come from Bethlem, where the dead of night  
Is waked in every Corner, with th' affright  
Of sudden voices, and the hasty feet  
Of wondering people, trampling in the street;  
Wind-blazing Tapours hurry to and fro,  
And every Window's turned a lantern too;  
The streets are filled; Some ramble up and down  
To know the news; and some to make it known:  
Here one man trudges; There another tramples;  
Some whoop for joy; and some, by their Examples:  
Some softly whisper: Others stand and muse,  
Some bawl aloud; no need to ask the news:  
One while, the multitude is fallen at strife;  
Some say, she is a Virgin; some, a wife;  
Some neither; Others, that best know, aver  
She is espoused to a Carpenter,  
Who finding her too great before her Day,  
Brought her to Bethlem, secretly to lay  
The Charge upon the Town, and steal away.  VIG. 
All this may be, and yet no Virgin, Swain;  
Can Virgins bear? Or births be freed from pain?  EVANG. 
Know, faithless shepherd, then, that there appeared  
An Angel to me, from whose lips I heard  
The news I tell thee; Swain, he did unfold  
Not only this, but what remains untold:  
Nor was't to me alone, the news was brought,  
For then my slow belief might well have thought  
Mine ears had been abused; The thing was told  
To many shepherds more, that dare be bold  
To call it Truth; to shepherds, that were by,  
That heard, and saw, and shook as well as I.  
His face was like the visage of a child,  
Round, smooth, and plump, and oftentimes it smiled;  
It glowed like fire, and his rolling eyes  
Cast flames, like Lightning darted from the skies;  
His hair was long, and curled, and did enfold  
Like knots of wire, composed of burnished Gold;  
His body was unclothed; His skin did show  
More white than livery, or the new-fallen snow,  
Whose perfect whiteness made a circling light,  
That where it stood, it silvered o'er the night;  
And, as he spoke, his wings would now and then  
Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again;  
This news he brought; 'Twas neither Fame, nor I  
That forged it, Swain; Good Angels cannot lie:  
Canst thou believe it? If thy faith be strong,  
My greater Tidings shall enlarge my tongue.  VIG. 
I do Evangelus, though for a season,  
My faith was tiding on the streams of reason:  
Yet now, the gale of thy report shall drive  
Her sails another course; my thoughts shall strive  
Against that stream; and what I cannot understand  
with my heart, I will believe and wonder:  
But tell me, swain, what happiness accrues  
From this? Or else, relate thy better news.  EVANG. 
Then know Vigilius, whilst the angel spoke,  
My spirits trembled, and my loins did ache;  
Horror and heart-amazing fears possessed  
The fainting powers of my troubled breast,  
And struck my frighted soul into a swound,  
That I lay senseless prostrate on the ground;  
With that he stretched his life-restoring arm,  
He raised me up and bid me fear no harm;  
Fear not, said he; I come not to affright  
Thy gastered soul with terrors of the night;  
My errand (Shepherd) is not to abuse  
Thine eyes with horrid shapes; I bring thee news,  
Tidings of joy, and everlasting peace:  
Stand up and let thy faithless trembling cease;  
Collect thy scattered senses, swain, and hear  
The happiest news that ever begged an ear;  
Such news, whereat th' harmonious choir of heaven,  
Archangels, Angels, and the other seven  
" Of those celestial Hierarchies, the troop  
Of glorious Saints, and souls of Prophets stoop  
Their joyful ears, and being fully fraught  
With joys, sing forth hosannas to the height:  
This night a Virgin hath brought forth a Son,  
A perfect God, though clad in flesh and bone,  
Like mortal man, th' eternal Prince of Rest,  
And Peace, in whom all nations shall be blessed:  
This night a Virgin hath brought forth a Child,  
A perfect Man, but pure, and undefiled  
With guilt of sin; like you in shape and fashion,  
And for your sakes, as subject to your passion:  
A perfect God, whose self-subsisting nature  
Required not the help of a Creator:  
A perfect man, conceived by the power  
Of th' holy Ghost, and borne this very hour:  
A perfect God; beyond the comprehending  
Of man; and infinite, without an ending:  
A perfect man; objected to the eye,  
And touch of Flesh and Blood; and borne to die:  
Like God, eternal; yet his life a span,  
Like yours; a perfect God, a perfect man:  
To you a Son is given; the heir of glory,  
Whose kingdom's endless and untransitory:  
To you a child is borne, that shall succeed  
That princely David, and of David's seed:  
A Son is given, whose name redeemed the earth  
A world of days before his mother's birth:  
A Child is borne, whose last expiring breath  
Shall give new days; and dying, conquer death:  
A Son, a Child; composed of Earth, and Heaven;  
To you a Child is borne, a Son is given:  
" We blessed Angels have no need at all  
Of such a Saviour, for we cannot fall:  
The damned spirits of th' infernal Throne  
Receive no profit by this child, this Son;  
To you the glory of so great a gain  
Belongs; To you these tidings appertain;  
To you, thrice happy sons of men, we bring  
This welcome errand from th' eternal King  
Of endless mercy, the great Lord of Heaven;  
To you this child is born; this Son is given.  
Go, shepherds, go to Bethlem, and your eyes  
Shall see the Babe; The blessed Infant lies  
In a poor Stable, swaddled in a Manger;  
Go, Swains, and entertain this heavenly Stranger,  
Upon your bended knees; See, yonder star  
Shall be your Pilot, where these wonders are;  
And as he spoke that word, (not fully ended)  
Ten thousand Angels in a Troop descended;  
But here my tongue must fail, not having might  
To tell the glory of that glorious sight:  
Nay, had I power, thine ears would prove as weak  
To apprehend, as my poor tongue's to speak.  
They joined their warbling notes, and in a height  
Beyond the curious frailty of conceit,  
Their voices sweetened our delighted fears,  
And with this carol blessed our ravished ears.  
GLory to God on high; and jolly mirth  
Twixt man and man; and peace on earth:  
This night a child is born;  
This night a Son is given;  
This Son, this child  
Hath reconciled  
Poor man that was forlorn,  
And th' angry God of heaven:  
Hosanna, sing Hosanna.  
Now, now that joyful Day,  
That blessed hour is come,  
That was foretold  
In days of old,  
Wherein all nations may  
Bless, bless the virgin's womb:  
Hosanna, sing Hosanna.  
Let heaven triumph above,  
Let earth rejoice below,  
Let heaven and earth  
Be filled with mirth;  
For peace and lasting love  
Atones your God, and you:  
Hosanna, sing Hosanna.  
With that, their Air-dividing plumes they spread,  
And, with Hosanna, in their mouths, they fled:  
But, shepherd, ah how far does my report,  
Ah how extremely my poor words come short  
To blaze such glory! How have I transgressed,  
T'express such Raptures, not to be expressed!  VIG. 
O, Swain, how could I lose myself to hear  
Thy blessed discourse! O how my greedy ear  
Clings to thy cordial lips, whose sovereign breath  
Brings Antidotes against the fangs of death!  
How happy are these times! How blessed are we  
Above all ages, that are born to see  
This joyful day, whose glory was denied  
To Kings and holy Prophets, that relied  
Upon the selfsame hopes! How more than they  
Are we poor shepherds blessed to see this day!  EVANG. 
O shepherd, had our Princely David seen  
This happy hour, how had his spirit been  
Inflamed with Joy, and Zeal! What heavenly skill  
Had passion lent to his diviner Quill!  
What Odes! what lyric Raptures had inspired  
His ravished soul, that was already fired  
With hopes alone; that these rare things should be  
In after days, which now his eyes should see!  VIG. 
No question, but an infinite delight  
Had easily sprung from so divine a sight:  
It had been Joy sufficient, that a son  
Was born to sit upon his Princely Throne;  
O, but that Son, to be a Saviour too,  
Able to conquer death, and overthrow  
The very Gates of Hell, and by his breath,  
To drag his soul from the deep jail of death,  
Had been a Joy too high to be expressed  
By tongues, or trusted to a common breast:  
But hold! whilst we endeavour to make known  
Another's Joy, we o'er neglect our own:  
The day is broke; The Eastern Lamps begin  
To fail, and draw their nightly glory in:  
Let's up to Bethlem; though our happy eyes  
But see the Building where our Saviour lies;  
Perchance our prosperous Journey may find grace  
To kiss his hand, or see his lovely face.  EVANG. 
Come, haste we then, Vigilius, let's away,  
And gain th' advantage of the early day.  VIG. 
Come, shepherd; O how blessed are thee and I,  
That may behold our Saviour ere we die!   

Eclogue VI.  

Arminius.  
Philamnus.   ARMIN. 
Shepherd, well met; Our loss hath made me bold  
To search thy Dounes: Five weathers of our Fold  
Have straggled from our Pastures, and have strayed.  PHILAM. 
'Twas soundly watched the whilst: But have you made  
Search nowhere else?  ARMIN. 
My hopes first led me hither;  
His way lies everywhere that ken not whither;  
Small moment, shepherd, guides a doubtful breast;  
Our sheep oft turn their faces to the East,  
Which led my hopeful fears (perchance too bold)  
To make enquiry in your Eastern Fold.  PHILAM. 
And welcome: But methinks the Roman Swains  
Should tell you news: It had been lesser pains  
And to more purpose, (if my thoughts be clear)  
For you t' have made your first enquiry there:  
There's but a slender ruinous hedge that bounds  
And slightly limits your contiguous Grounds;  
So poor a fence, young Swain, that 'tis supposed  
Ye feed in Common, though ye seem enclosed:  
Go make a speedy trial, and search there.  ARMIN. 
My hopes renew.  PHILAM. 
And I renew my fear.  ARMINIUS. 
But gentle shepherd, Here a second thought  
Puzzles my quickening hopes, and I am brought  
Into a greater doubt: The Roman Brand  
Is so, so like to ours; nay, even doth stand  
In th' self same place, that my unskilful tongue  
Dare make no Challenge: I am yet but young  
And too too green to judge, and yet not made  
Acquainted with the secrets of our Trade:  
I'm doubtful what to do: It is all one  
Not to make search, as seek, and find unknown.  PHILAM. 
Then, Swain, take my advice; If what I say  
Please not thy fancy, try a better way.  ARMIN. 
Thanks, gentle shepherd; you shall much endear  
Your thankful servant, and command his ear.  PHILAM. 
But Swain, acquaint me first (for it appears  
Thou art as yet no shepherd by thy years)  
How often doth thy Master shepherd feed  
His numerous Flocks; They are a jolly Breed,  
And well come on; How often do they stand  
Before his eye, and numbered by his hand?  ARMIN. 
Once in seven days, his food-providing care  
Gives them a full Repast of dainty fare,  
But for their daily diet, his command  
Refers their welfare to my careful hand.  PHILAM. 
Which of the seven may his grave wisdom keep  
For this Repast? Or do his ready sheep  
Expect his Call, and wholly leave the day  
To his wise pleasure?  ARMIN. 
What he will, he may:  
The day is alterable; power is given  
To him, to choose, so he choose one in seven:  
But yet his wisdom for the fashion sake  
And his own quiet, hath been pleased to make  
Choice of the first.  PHILAM. 
Feeds he for by-respect?  
Folds he for fashion? Better, quite neglect:  
But does he totally devote that day  
To his fair Flock?  ARMIN. 
He sends them pleased away,  
Full fed with dainties, mingled with delight:  
All day, they feed, and when the drooping Light  
Begins to treble the increasing shades,  
The music of the Oaten Reeds persuades  
Their hearts to mirth; His wanton Rams grow brisk;  
His Ewes begin to trip; his Lambs to frisk;  
And whilst they sport and dance, the Love-sick Swains  
Compose Rush-rings and Myrtleberry Chains,  
And stuck with glorious King-cups, and their Bonnets  
Adorned with laurel slips, chant their Love-sonnets  
To stir the fires, and to increase the flames  
In the cold hearts of their beloved Dames.  PHILAM. 
Your shepherd takes great pains; but his Reward  
Will prove as heavy as his pains are hard:  
But tell me, Swain, what dainty food is that  
That makes your thriving flocks, so plump, so fat?  
They make rich shepherds, and increase their stock;  
Pan grant, your shepherd make as rich a flock:  
But what's that dainty food? here's none but we,  
I am no sieve: I prithee Swain, be free.  ARMINIUS. 
I know not, why; but I stand full possessed,  
My secrets find a closet in thy breast;  
Where I'll repose them: Know then, shepherd, know,  
There is a glorious Plant, that once did grow  
In Priestly Aaron's Garden, in the days  
Of legal worship; this fair Plant did raise  
A swelling Husk, in whose rich womb there lay  
Large Grains of Orient Pearl, which (as they say)  
Rip'ned, but ne'er disclosed till that blessed morn  
Wherein our good, our great God Pan was born;  
Just than it opened; and th' enclosed Grain  
Unknownly vanished; and then, closed again:  
This wondrous Plant still flourished, and her strength  
Maintained her empty Husks, until at length,  
Ah me! our great Pan died, and then it drooped;  
And had not brain-dissolved mortals stooped  
And watered her dry Roots with floods of tears,  
'T had died, a fable to our faithless ears;  
Which blessed Plant, whom these salt showers repair,  
Was by a Roman-Shepheards holy prayer  
And some days Fast, transplanted to the Lay  
Of Roman shepherds, fruitful to this day.  PHILAM. 
But have those prayers restored the Pearl again?  ARMIN. 
The Husks are plump; but yet they bear no Grain:  PHILAM. 
Those Husk-like prayers, which vain devotion swells,  
Come short for things of price, but home for shells.  
But tell me, Swain, to what prodigious end  
May these miraculous discourses tend?  ARMIN. 
Shepherd, I'll now perform (as you require)  
My faithful promise, and your fair desire:  
These swellings Husks, which heretofore retained  
This vanished Pearl, for many years remained  
Useless and vain, until an after Age  
More wisely curious, and maturely sage,  
Made further search, and by experience found  
Their vast and wide extended wombs abound  
With precious oil, whose aromatic sent,  
Like fattening Amber, nourished where it went:  
This odoriferous, this unctuous Juice  
Our Roman shepherds husband to their use  
A thousand ways: with this their sacred hands  
Varnish their painted Folds, manure their lands,  
Sweeten their putrid Fodder, and improve  
Their well-contented Flocks in fear, and love:  
Now gentle shepherd; we, whose bordering bounds  
Are even contiguous with those Roman grounds,  
Have secret traffic, and a fair commerce;  
Though seeming foes, we under hand converse:  
We plot, contrive, consult, we interchange  
Both wares and hearts, and yet are seeming strange;  
This precious oil, (the hint of our discourse)  
We hold in Common, without prayer, or purse:  
With this, our thriving shepherds every day  
Anoint their formal Temples, which display  
Their glorious frowns, at whose severer brow  
Their croutching Flocks do tremble, fawn, and bow  
Their curved bodies, and with reverence, stand  
Creating Idols at their strict command:  
With this restoring oil, they dulcifye  
The meanest trash that ever shepherd's eye  
Disdained; nay, oftentimes their flocks do fare  
No better than Chameleons in the air:  
Not having substance; but with forced content,  
Making their Maundy with an empty sent.  PHILAM. 
But Swain, methinks, such kind of food should keep  
The thriving shepherd fatter than his sheep.  ARMIN. 
True, shepherd; they seem lusty, though not full;  
But what they want in flesh, they find in wool.  PHILAM. 
But Swain, I wonder much they make not bold,  
Sometimes to straggle to another Fold,  
To mend so mean a diet?  ARMIN. 
Every day,  
If not well watched, some one or other stray  
To your rich Plains: where if by chance ere found  
They rue it dearly, though they scape the Pound.  PHILAM. 
We are poor Tenants, Swain; the Pound's not ours,  
The Pound belongs to you; The Lordship's yours.  ARMIN. 
But shepherd, when our rambling flocks oppress  
Your valley pastures, they as well transgress  
Our Mountain laws, which when our Swains present,  
Our righteous scales weighs out the punishment  
Companion to th' offence; Sometimes we fine,  
Sometimes impound, and sometimes discipline  
With sharper Censures: But what wrong is made  
To you, our Lordship's sure to see you paid.  PHILAM. 
W'are paid indeed! your Lordship is so just  
That smooth-faced mercy oftentimes is thrust  
From your too just Assemblies; But young Swain,  
What if some stragglers in your fleecy train  
Should chance to wander to the Roman Fold?  ARMIN. 
As oft they do: Why, shepherd, we still hold  
A fair compliance there; Alas, we stand  
On equal terms, not diff●ring much in Brand,  
Nor soil, nor bone, nor number; Our proud Rams  
Oft tup their Ewes, and then we share their Lambs;  
And theirs, by stealth, sometimes tup ours; and thus  
As we did share their Lambs, they share with us;  
That insomuch, not twice two Moons full past,  
Unseen, I heard some conference at last,  
It was their mutual vote, That that slight fence  
Which parts their neighbouring hills were taken thence  
By some indifferent hand; at length, concluded  
That swift winged Time (whose crooked scythe intruded  
Into the state of transitory things)  
Would do the deed.  PHILAM. 
Heaven close or clip his wings.  
But tell me Swain, (since thine own fair desert  
Hath taught thee so much trust as to impart  
Thy treasured secrets in my faithful ear)  
What are thy shepherd's ways? Are they severe,  
Reserved, and strict? Or gives he free'r rains  
To mirth and sports, as on our frolic plains  
We shepherds use?  ARMIN. 
Shepherd, the early days  
Of my life's calendar can hardly raise  
So high a reckoning to inform your ear  
What his first ways and new-launched courses were;  
Nor can my credit warrant the report  
Of doubtful Fame, which oftentimes comes short,  
And oft exceeds the letter of the Truth;  
But here 'tis voiced that his ingenious youth  
Was tutored first, and trained up in sweet  
And sacred Learning at Gamaliel's feet  
Under that famous chapel, (which they say  
Was since repaired, whose memory to this day  
Is fresh in our Records) where twice at least  
In every twice twelve hours he came and blessed  
His hopeful fortunes; led a temperate life,  
As far from idleness, as factious strife;  
He was a painful shepherd, strict, severe,  
And by report, a little too austere  
Against those harmless sports and pastoral songs  
And ceremonious Quintils, that belongs  
To shepherd's rural mirth; nay, more than so,  
If same be true, he was a zealot too.  
But since promotion raised him from the plains  
To Mountain service, where his flock remains  
Committed to my charge, his zeal abates,  
And richly clothed with Lordly silks he waits  
In Courts of Princes, revelling out his days  
In lavish feasts and frolic roundelays,  
Carousing liberal healths to the dear name  
Of this rare Beauty, or that Courtly Dame;  
Commands, controls, usurps a power unknown,  
Makes Laws, and puffs, and Lords it up and down:  
That insomuch the Course he first began  
Is quite forgot, and he another man.  PHILAM. 
O Swain, methinks these rufflings ill befit  
A shepherd's cloth; The Riots they commit,  
Methinks should bring a scandal, and defame  
Their public callings, and their private name.  ARMINIUS. 
Ah shepherd, were their glory not too bright  
For scandal to eclipse, 'twould soon be night  
With their Profession; but the Clouds that rise  
Upon their darkened names so blur the eyes  
Of their repute, that neighbouring Swains deride  
The bubbling folly of their babbling Pride,  
Whilst passers by cry shame, when they behold  
Such burly shepherds and so bare a Fold.  
Ah gentle shepherd, how it gripes and wounds  
My bleeding soul to see our mossy grounds  
Parched up and burnt, for want of timely showers,  
Bought with our painful shepherd's prayers, whilst yours  
Flourish and prosper, watered with the dew  
Of pleased heavens that bless both them and you!  PHILAM. 
True Swain, the gracious hand of heaven hath blessed  
Our fruitful Plains; my thriving flocks have rest  
And downright feeding; what we gain we spend  
With thankful hearts, and what we spare we lend:  
Roots are our food, and Russet is our clothing;  
We have but little, and we want for nothing:  
Streams quench our thirst, nor taste we what's delicious;  
Our brain's not busy; nor our breasts ambitious,  
We charm our cares, and chant away, our sorrow,  
We live to day, and care not for to morrow:  
Thrice blessed be our great God Pan, that takes  
A gracious pleasure in our pains, and makes  
Our labours prosperous, and with sparing hand  
Lends us enough, and courage to withstand  
The gripes of fortune, and her frowns, for which  
Our lowly hearts shall fly as high a pitch,  
As they that imp their more ambitious wings  
With eagle's plumes, and mount to Thrones of Kings.  
But Swain, I am transported, and I fear  
Too long delay hath wronged your patient ear;  
My promise hath engaged me as your guide  
To search your stragglers that have strayed aside.  ARMIN. 
Your blessed example hath prescribed a way  
To find myself that am the greater stray,  
For which fair shepherd, may the heavens increase  
Your perfect welfare in eternal peace.  PHILAM. 
Thanks gentle Swain; And if our homely Plains  
May give you pleasure, purchased by our pains,  
Enjoy it freely: But the evening damp  
Begins to fall, and heavens declining Lamp  
Bespeaks the doubtful Twilight: Day (grown old)  
Invites the fowls to Roost; my Sheep to Fold.   

Eclogue VII.  

Schismaticus.  
Adelphus.   SCHIS. 
HOw fare thy Flocks, Adelphus? Do they stand  
All sound? And do they prosper in thy hand▪  ADEL. 
I hope they do; their Pasture's green and fresh;  
They're of good bone, and meetly struck in flesh:  
They bring fair Lambs, and fleeces white as snow,  
Their Lambs are fair ones, and their fleeces too.  SCHIS. 
What makes thee then so sad? Thy flocks so fair  
And fleeces too, what makes thy fleece so bare?  
Thy cheeks so hollow, and thy sides so thin,  
As if thy girdle had been taken in  
By famine, for the want of Belly stuff  
To fill them up?  ADEL. 
The shepherd's fat enough  
That owes the flock; I do but dress his vine,  
And tread the press; 'tis he that drinks the wine.  SCHIS. 
Art thou his Lad? Or dost thou serve for Fee?  
Wert ever bound to th'trade? Or art thou free?  ADEL. 
Seven years complete, I served a jolly dame  
Yclept Cantabria, whose illustrious name  
Has filled the world, whose memorable Glory  
Is made the subject of all shepherd's story:  
For frolic roundelays, and pastoral Songs,  
And all those quaint devices that belongs  
To shepherd's mirth, she bore the bell away;  
Had Thracian Orpheus lived to seen her day,  
How had the glory of his Art been dim!  
Sure, he had followed her, as beasts did him:  
Seven years I served this jolly Dame, and she  
At seven years' end was pleased to set me free:  
Ere since I fished in troubled streams, to get  
Some poor employment, as she thought me fit  
(After my seven years' bonds) to entertain;  
Out fished my patience, and yet fished again:  
My float lay still, whilst other anglers took:  
Indeed, I fished not with a golden hook,  
As others did; whereby I was compelled  
To flag my sails, which late ambition swelled  
Above the power of my purse, and serve,  
Like a poor hireling: better stoop then starve.  SCHIS. 
'Tis true, Adelphus; times are grown so bad,  
Without that hook, there's nothing to be had;  
But say, young swain, what stipend does reward  
Thy yearly pains? I know thy pains are hard.  ADEL. 
There's nothing cheaper now, then poor men's sweat;  
Indeed my pains are not esteemed too great  
For twice ten yearly royals to requite,  
And yet I ward all day, and watch all night.  SCHIS. 
Gold, dearly purchased! Does thy pains obtain  
No by-commendaes, no collateral gain,  
To raise and heighten up the slender wall  
Of thy low fortunes?  ADEL. 
Shepherd, none at all;  
And that which grieves me most, my straggling sheep  
Are apt to roam abroad; they will not keep  
Their own appointed limits; But they stray,  
Rambling some one; and some, another way:  
They love to change, & wander, God knows whither,  
Like other flocks, they seldom feed together;  
Whereby, to my great grief, they neither show their  
Good will to me, nor loves to one another.  SCHIS. 
Thou art but green, Adelphus, and as yet  
A very Novice in the trade of wit:  
Time was, Adelphus, that my wants would whine  
And whimper in poor rags as well as thine;  
As small a girdle circled, and embraced  
The empty casket of my hidebound wast;  
My visage was as thin, my hollow cheeks  
As faithful almanacs of Emberweeks;  
But wise Experience, the beloved child  
Of Time and Observation, soon exiled  
My green wit folly, and endued my heart  
With the true knowledge of the shepherd's art;  
She taught me new devices, to enrich  
My flocks and me; (Ways far above the pitch  
Of plain, and trivial wits, and far exceeding  
The downright discipline of common feeding)  
I tell thee, swain; before I learned this way,  
My rambling flocks would never fadge to stay  
Within my pastures; every thorn would bear  
A costly witness that they had been there;  
I sought about, but often sought in vain;  
Some would be lost, and ne'er come home again:  
Others, unsought for, would perchance return  
With bags new strained, and fleeces newly shorn;  
Some hanged on crooked briers, where, unfed,  
Some were discovered dying, others dead:  
Thus being a fool, like thee, I lost my sheep;  
They could not keep me, that I could not keep:  
But when as wise Experience had schooled me,  
And purged that common error that befooled me,  
My flocks could love their feed, and leave to roam;  
In stead of straying, there would thousands come  
From other folds, that daily su'd to be  
Accounted mine; and owned no swain, but me:  
That in short time, my fold was grown so full  
That lamb was held no dainty; and my wool  
Waxed so abundant, that one moiety filled  
A spacious room, which t'other half did build.  ADEL. 
I envy not not thy well-deserved store,  
Ingenious shepherd; I admire more  
The secret of thy art, which if it be  
To be reposed, repose the trust in me:  
My bettered fortunes, shall have cause to pay  
Their vows, and bless thy soul another day.  SCHIS. 
Come then, sit down, Adelphus, and attend;  
Thou hast desired, thou hast obtained a friend,  
Who, in a word, shall give thee brief direction,  
Wherein, thy practice must produce perfection:  
There is a glorious Island, called by name,  
The Isle of Man, a place of noted fame  
For Merchants trading, rich and fairly stored  
With all that foreign kingdoms can afford;  
Upon that Island is a City called  
By th' name of Kephalon, round, richly walled  
With polished Ivory, wherein does stand  
The beauty and the strength of all the land;  
At th' upper end of Microcosmos strait,  
Near to the Palace, where the Muses meet  
In counsel, (as the heathenish Poets fain)  
There dwells, (Well known to many a shepherd swain)  
A man, by trade a gardener, hight by name  
Phantasmus; one, whose curious hand can frame  
Rare knots, and quaint devices; that can make  
Confounding Labyrinths; will undertake  
To carve the lively shapes of foul or beast  
In running streams; nay, what exceeds the rest,  
Will make ye gardens full of dainty flowers,  
Of strawberry banks, and sun-resisting bowers,  
Like cobwebs flying in the flitting air;  
There is no seed of any thing that's rare,  
Foreign or native, which by sea or land,  
Is not conveyed to his enquiring hand:  
Among the rest, (to draw a step more near  
To what suspends thy long expecting ear)  
This gardener has a seed, which scholars call  
Idea; sweet in taste, and very small;  
It is a seed well known, and much despised  
By vulgar judgements, but as highly prized  
By men of art; a seed of wondrous might,  
And sovereign virtue, being used aright;  
But most of all to shepherds, that have care  
T'increase their flocks, and keep their pastures fair.  ADEL. 
Neglect of what is good, is goods abuse:  
But tell me how it makes for shepherd's use?  SCHIS. 
This seed being scattered on the barest grounds,  
Shoots up a sudden leaf, which leaf abounds  
With precious moisture; 'Tis, at first, but slender,  
Like spiney grass of nature soft and tender,  
And apt to chill with every blast of air,  
Unless the skilful swain take special care  
To keep it close, and covered from the blast  
Of Eastern winds; and than it thrives so fast,  
And spreads abroad so rank, that frost nor fire  
Can make it fade; and trod, it mounts the higher;  
'Tis called Opinion; 'Tis a curious feed  
That sheep do most delight in, and indeed,  
Is so delicious pleasing to the taste,  
That they account it but a second fast  
To feed, or graze on any food but that;  
It makes them in a fortnight's space as fat,  
As full of thriving moisture, and appear  
As fair, as those that pasture all the year:  
It is so fragrant, that the scent provokes  
The lingering appetite of neighbouring flocks  
To prove unknown delight; nor hedge, nor ditch,  
Can be a fence sufficient to the Itch  
Of their invited stomachs; they will come  
From other folds, and make thy fold their home.  ADEL. 
But where's the profit, shepherd, where's the gains?  
He feeds but ill, that finds no price, but pains.  SCHIS. 
He's but a silly Cook that wits not how  
To lick his fingers; she deserves no Cow  
That ken not how to milk; nor he, a fold,  
That cannot shear; he that complains of cold,  
And has a liberal woodstack in his yard,  
May freeze, unpitied; and lament, unheard.  ADEL. 
True, gentle shepherd; but ill gotten wealth  
Ill thrives; better be cold then warm by stealth.  SCHIS. 
Thou art a novice, swain, thou needest not take  
Vngiven; nor yet, with humble suits awake  
Their charity; when they have found the smack  
Of thy delicious pasture, thou shalt lack  
No good, that they can give; one every briar  
They'll hang their fleeces for thee; they'll conspire  
To yeane their jolly lambs within thy cot,  
To make them thine; In brief, what will they not?  ADEL. 
But tell me, shepherd, will this dainty feed  
Make them but seeming fat, or fat indeed?  SCHIS. 
What's that to us, if they appear but so?  
Their Lambs are fair; their Fleeces white as snow;  
They thrive; are fruitful, and increase our store;  
What need a curious shepherd question more?  
What, if their skins be puffed? no eye can see't;  
What, if their flesh be rank? Their Lambs are sweet:  
If plump and fruitful, whether bloat, or fat,  
We take no care; let Butchers look to that:  
They bear nor fleece, nor lamkin being flayed;  
Swain, 'tis the quick we live by, not the dead.  ADELPH. 
But I have heard some learned shepherds say,  
There is a statute, that forbids this way  
Of feeding sheep: there dwells, not far from hence,  
A shepherd, lately questioned for th' offence.  SCHIS. 
Let timorous fools fear statutes; Swain, I know  
The worst that Statutes have the power to do;  
They speak big words, will threaten to deprive,  
Imprison, fine, and then perchance connive:  
Twice have I stared the stern-browed high Commission  
In th' open face, in level opposition;  
The first time they deprived me of my Crook;  
Despoiled me of my fruitful flocks; they took  
My thriving pastures from me; even proceeding  
To the height of law, to bind my hands from feeding;  
But 'twas no high Commission cords could tie  
My hands so fast, in public, but that I  
Could slip the knot in private; I did keep  
No flocks abroad; but, then, I housed my sheep;  
I fed in Corners; slipped my wether's Bell  
From off his lofty crest, that none could tell  
Our secret meetings; There, my flocks would come,  
Sometimes, perchance, and toll an Ewe from home,  
T'enrich my Fold; and now my gains were more,  
Being thus deprived; then ere they were before:  
But soon my private practice was descried  
By a false-hearted brother, who envied  
My prosperous state; and, underhand did call  
My yielding cause to try a second fall  
With th' high Commission, whose tempestuous blast  
Confined me, fined me, and severely past,  
Next market day, betwixt mine ears and me,  
A firm divorce perpetually to be.  ADELP. 
Gain dearly bought! In my opinion, Swain,  
The profit counterpoises not the pain:  
I hold more sweetness in a poor estate,  
Then treasure, purchased at so dear a rate:  
The day was fair, till the foul evening soiled it;  
The Play was good, until the last Act spoiled it:  
'Tis a false Trade, that flatters at the first  
With peace, and wealth, and makes last days the worst.  SCHIS. 
Be not deceived, Adelphus; bolts and chains  
Make shepherds prisoners, but enlarge their gains:  
Where wealth comes trowling, pains are princely sports;  
Bands are but golden bracelets; Jails, but Courts;  
I tell thee, Swain, (I speak it to the praise  
Of Charity) I never breathed such days,  
As when the voice of law enjoined my feet  
To tread the curious labyrinth of the Fleet;  
Full diet came, unsought; my bounteous dish  
Denied no delicates, that flesh or fish  
Could yield; the sporting Lamb, the frisking Kid,  
The tripping Fawn, the sucking Leu'ret did  
Present themselves before my smiling eyes,  
A morning, or an evening sacrifice:  
The Sea-born Sturgeon, and the broadside Bream,  
The wary Trout, that thrives against the stream;  
The well-grown Carp, full laden with her spawn;  
The scarlet Lobster, and the pricknosed Prawn;  
Oil-steeped Anchovis, landed from his brine,  
Came freely swimming in red seas of wine;  
The brawny Capon, and the full egged Hen,  
The stream-fed Swan, the Malard of the Fen,  
The coasting Plover, and the mounting Lark,  
Furnished my Table like an other Ark:  
Come, come, Adelphus, prisons are no more  
Than scare-bugs to fright children from the door  
Of their preferment; Linits in the Cage  
Sit warm, and full, when Flyers feel the rage  
Of Frost, and Famine; They can sit, and sing  
Whilst others droop, and hang the feeble wing:  
Besides, the name of Prison breeds remorse  
In such as merely know it by discourse;  
It moves compassion from the tender City,  
When we deserve their envy, more than pity.  ADELPH. 
Ay, but methinks, such bulk-improving ease,  
Joined with such pamp'ring delicates as these,  
Should bolster up thy brawny cheeks, and place  
Such lusty characters upon the face  
Of prosperous welfare, that an easy eye  
Could find no object for her charity.  SCHIS. 
Who cannot force complaint without a grief,  
May grieve in earnest, and pine without relief:  
When gentle Novices bring their bounties in,  
We suck our cheeks, to make our cheeks look thin;  
Put on our fustian nightcaps, and compose  
Strange rueful faces; whimper in the nose;  
Turn up the eye, and justify our Cause  
Against the strictness of severer laws;  
O, how these tender-hearted fools partake  
In our distress! how sadly they will shake  
Their sorrow-palsied heads, and sigh and whine,  
To see poor hunger-bitten Christians pine  
In the sad jail! whereas we spend the day  
As frolic, feast, and sleep as soft as they.  ADELP. 
If Prisons be so gainful, what offence  
Took thy discretion to remove thee thence?  SCHIS. 
Fair hopes of fairer fortunes; which, in short,  
My tongue shall take the freedom to report;  
There was a hopeful voyage (late intended  
For new Plantation) to a place commended  
By common voice, and blazed above all other  
For fat, and fruitful soil (the joyful mother  
Of fair and peaceful plenty) called by name  
Nov' Anglia; If the partial blast of fame  
Be not too vainly lavish, and out-blowes  
The truth too much, it is a Land that flows  
With milk and honey, and (Conceived of some)  
By good manuring, may, in time, become  
A second Land of Canaan; to which end  
There is a holy people, that intend  
To sell entire estates, and to remove  
Their faithful households thither, to improve  
Their bettered fortunes, being resolved to keep  
(As our forefathers did in Canaan) sheep;  
This hopeful voyage was the cord, that drew me  
From Prison; but this voyage overthrew me:  
I thought that my delicious kind of feed  
Had been a dainty there; I thought, my seed  
Had been unknown in that unplanted clime;  
I hoped, that in the small extent of time,  
(Being out of reach of Law, and uncontrolled  
By high Commissions) my frequented Fold  
Might soon engrossed the flocks of every soil,  
And made me supreme Lord of all the Isle;  
But when I came to practice, every Swain  
Was master of my Art, and every Plain  
Brought forth my secret; now, the common Pasture  
Of all the Land; and every Hind's a Master.  ADELPH. 
Thanks, gentle shepherd, for thy fair discourse;  
The fiery Chariot now declines her course,  
And hot-mouthed Phlegon bows his Crest, to cool  
His flaming nostrils in the Western pool:  
My closed lips must plead a debt, and pray  
Your courteous patience till another day;  
I fear, my flocks will think their Swain too bold  
To keep them longer from their quiet Fold.   

Eclogue VIII.  

Anarchus.  
Canonicus.   ANAR. 
GRaze on my sheep; and let your souls defy  
The food of common shepherds; Come not nigh  
The Babylonish Pastures of this Nation;  
They are all heathenish; all abomination:  
Their Pastors are profane, and they have trod  
The steps of Belial, not the ways of God.  
You are a chosen, a peculiar crew,  
That blessed handful, that selected few  
That shall have entrance; set apart and gifted  
For holy exercises, cleansed and sifted,  
Like flower from Bran, and separated from the Coats  
Of the unsanctified, like sheep from goats.  
But who comes here? My Lambs, why gaze ye thus?  
Why stand ye frighted? 'Tis Canonicus.  CAN. 
Godmorrow, Swain; God keep thee from the sorrow  
Of a sad day; What speechless? Swain, godmorrow:  
What, shepherd, not a word to entertain  
The wishes of a friend? God morrow, Swain:  
Not yet? What mean these silent Common-places  
Of strange aspects? what mean these antic faces?  
I fear, his costive words, too great for vent,  
Stick in his throat; how like a Jack-a-lent  
He stands, for boys to spend their shrovetide throws,  
Or like a puppet, made to frighten Crows!  ANAR. 
Thou art a limb of Satan; and thy throat  
A sink of poison; thy canonical coat  
Is nothing but a livery of the Beast;  
Thy language is profane, and I detest  
Thy sinful greetings, and that heath'nish fashion  
Of this your Antichristian salutation;  
In brief, God keep me from the greater sorrow  
Of thee; and from the curse of thy good-morrow.  CAN. 
How now, Anarchus? Has thy hungry zeal  
Devoured all thy manners at a meal?  
No Scraps remain? Or has th' unfruitful year  
Made charity so scarce, and love so dear,  
That none's allowed, upon the slight occasion  
Of interview, or civil salutation?  
Is thy store hoarded up? or is it spent?  
Wilt thou vent none? or hast thou none to vent?  
The curse of my good-morrow? 'tis most true,  
God's blessing proves a curse to such as you.  ANAR. 
To such as we? Go, save your breath, to blow  
Your vain cathedral Bagpipes▪ and bestow  
Your trivial prayers on those that cannot pray  
Without their spectacles; that cannot say  
Their unregarded prayers, unless they hold  
The Let'ny, or the charms of Sorrocold  
Before their purblind eyes; that disinherit  
Their souls of freedom, and renounce the Spirit;  
Perchance, your idle prayers may find an ear  
With them; Go spend your vain God-morrows there.  CAN. 
Art thou thyself, Anarchus? Is thy heart  
Acquainted with that tongue, that does impart  
This brainsick language? Could thy passion lend  
No slighter subject, for thy breath to spend  
Her aspen venom at, but that, alone,  
That shuts and opens the eternal Throne  
Of the eternal God? Is prayer become  
So poor a guest, to be denied a room  
In thy opinion? To be scorned, contemned,  
Like schoolboys themes, whose errors have condemned  
The guilty Truant to the Master's Rod?  
Can that displease thee, that delights thy God?  ANAR. 
Thou child of wrath, and firebrand of Hell,  
Flows wholesome water from a tainted Well?  
Or can those prayers be pleasing, that proceed  
From unregen'rate breasts? Can a foul weed  
Delight the smell? or ugly shapes, the view?  
I say, your prayers are all profane, like you;  
They're like that heathenish ruff of thine, that perks  
Upon thy stiffnecked collar, pranked with Ferks  
Of studied wit, startcht with strong lines, and put  
In a set Form, of th' Antichristian Cut.  CAN. 
Consult with Reason, Shepheard, and advise;  
Call home thy Senses; and cast back thine eyes  
On former days; No doubt, but there were they  
That lived as sanctimonious, that could pray,  
Lift up as holy hands, and did inherit  
As great a share, and freedom of the Spirit,  
As you; and these could count it no disgrace  
To their profession, in a public place,  
To use set Forms; did not their wisdoms do  
What you contemn, nay more prescribe it too,  
(Yet neither quenched, nor wronged the sacred motion  
Of the prompt Spirit) as helps to dull devotion?  
Nay, more; Has not th' unanimous consent  
Of all reformed Churches (to prevent  
Confused babbling, and to disenorm  
Prepost'rous Service) bred us to a Form  
Of Common Prayer; Prayers so divinely penned,  
That human Eloquence does even contend  
With heavenly Majesty, whilst both conspire  
To kindle zeal, and to inflame desire?  ANAR. 
The Book of Common Prayer? what tellest thou me  
Of that? My soul defies both that and thee:  
Thou art Baal's Priest; and that vain Book's no more  
Than a mere relic of the Roman Whore:  
Me thinks a Christian tongue should be ashamed  
To name such trash; I spit to hear it named:  
Tell me of Common Prayers? The midnight yelp  
Of Bal my Bandog is as great a help  
To raise devotion in a Christians breast,  
As that; the very language of the Beast;  
That old worn mass-book of the new Edition;  
That Romish rabble, full of Superstition;  
That paper Idol; that enchanting Spell;  
That printed Image, sent from Rome, from Hell;  
That broad-faced owl, upon a carved Perch;  
That Bel and Dragon of the English Church.  CAN. 
Be not too lavish, shepherd; half this stuff  
Will make a Coat, to prove thee fool enough:  
Hold, hold: thy brainsick language does bewray  
The selfsame spirit, whether rail or pray:  
For fools that rave, and rage, not knowing, why,  
A scourge is far more fit, than a reply:  
But say, Anarchus, (If it be not treason  
Against discretion, to demand a reason  
From frantic tongues) resolve me, shepherd, why  
This book is grown so odious in thine eye?  ANAR. 
Because it is an idol, whereunto  
You bend your idle knees, as Papists do  
To their lewd Images.  CAN. 
I; but we pray  
Not to, but by it;  ANAR. 
Just so, Papists say:  
Say, in what place th' Apostles ever did  
Command Set form?  CAN. 
Where was Set form forbid?  
What Text commanded you to exercise  
Your Function over Tables? Or baptise  
In basins? What Apostle taught your tongue  
To gibe at Bishops? Or to vex and wrong  
Your Mother Church? Who taught ye to oppose  
Your Rulers? Or to whimper in the nose?  
But since you call for Precedents, (although  
'Tis more than our safe practice need to show)  
Read, to what Blessing that blessed Saint commends  
The holy Church, saluted at the ends  
Of all his sweet Epistles; Or if these  
Suffice not, may your greater wisdoms please  
To step into the Law, and read th' express  
Commanded 
* Numb. 6.23.  Form, wherein the Priest must bless  
The parting people; Can thy brazen brow  
Deny all this? What refuge have ye now?  
Y' are gone by Law and Gospel; They both used  
Set form; What Scripture now must be abused?  ANAR. 
Well, if the Lord be pleased to allow  
Set forms to Prophets, are they set to you?  
Or have ye so much boldness to compare  
A prelates prattling, to a prophet's prayer?  CAN. 
O, that some equal hearer now were by  
To laugh his treble share, as well as I!  
Examples are demanded; which, being given,  
We must not follow: Giddy brains! bereaven  
Of common sense! Where heaven does make no mention,  
You style it with the term of man's invention:  
Where heaven commandeth, and is pleased to hallow  
With blessed Examples, there we must not follow.  ANAR. 
So heaven (by blessed Examples) did enjoin,  
Your bended knees to worship Bread, and Wine?  CAN. 
When your cross-gartered knees fall down before  
Your Parlour-Table, what do you adore?  ANAR. 
So heaven commands, by conjuring words to bring  
Vowed hands together, with a hallowed Ring?  CAN. 
'Tis true; your fiery zeals cannot abide  
Long circumstance; your doctrine's, up and Ride.  ANAR. 
So heaven commanded, that religious praise  
Be given to Saints, and worship to their days?  CAN. 
Whom you contemn, because they did not preach  
Those Doctrines, that your Western Parlours teach.  ANAR. 
So heaven commanded Bishops, and the rest  
Of that lewd Rank, rank members of the Beast?  CAN. 
Ay, heaven commanded such, and gave them power  
To scourge, and check suchill-paced Beasts as you are:  ANAR. 
So heaven commanded, that the high Commission  
Should plague poor Christians, like the Inquisition?  CAN. 
Your plagues are what your own behaviours urge;  
None, but the guilty, rail against the Scourge.  ANAR. 
So heaven commands your prayers, that buried dust  
Of Whores and thieves should triumph with the Just?  CAN. 
Man may not censure by external view;  
Forbear; we, sometimes, pray for some of you.  ANAR. 
So heaven commands your Paintings, Pipes, & Copes,  
Used in your Churches, and ordained by Popes?  CAN. 
Where Popish hands have raised in every Town  
A Parish Church, shall we pull Churches down?  
But come, Anarchus, let us leave to play  
At childish push-pin; Come, let not the day  
Be lost in Trifles, to a fruitless end;  
Let's fall to hotter service, and contend  
By more substantial argument, whose weight  
May vindicate the truth from light conceit;  
Let's try a syllogism; (Art infuses  
Spirit into the children of the Muses)  
Whereby, stout error shall be forced to yield,  
And Truth shall sit sole Mistress of the Field.  ANAR. 
Art me no Arts; That which the spirit infuses  
Shall edge my tongue: What tellest thou me of Muses,  
Those Pagan Gods; the authors of your schisms?  
P'sh! tell not me of Arts, and silisism;  
I care not for your Quirks, and new devices  
Of studied wit: We use to play our prizes,  
With common weapons; and, with downright knocks,  
We beat down sin, and error, like an ox;  
And cut the throat of heathenish Popery too,  
Like Calves, prepared for slaughter; so we do:  
We rash in sunder heresy, like an Ell  
Of Sarc'net, then convey it down to Hell:  
We take just measure of a Christians heart,  
By th' yard of Judgement; then, by dextrous Art,  
We cut out doctrines, and from notch, to notch  
We fit our holy stuff, (we do not botch  
Like you; but make it jump, that it be neither  
Too wide nor straight) then stitch it up together,  
And make a Robe of Sanctity, to fit  
The child of Grace; we meddle not with wit:  
These be the means that overthrow our schisms,  
And build Religion, without sigilism.  CAN. 
A rare device! But tell me, wert thou made  
A Butcher, or a tailor by thy trade?  
I looked for scholarship; but it appears,  
Hoods make no Monks; nor Beards, Philosophers.  ANAR. 
Surely, I was, at first, by Occupation,  
A Merchant tailor, till that lender fashion  
Of Spanish Cassocks grew into request;  
When having left that Calling, I professed  
A Chaunler, where I was enforced to vent  
That hellish smoke, whose most unsavoury scent  
Perfumed my garments so, that I began  
To be conceived an Unregenerate man:  
Which called me from that course of life, to trade  
In tape and inkle; ere I yeared and dayed  
This new employment, O a strange mischance  
O'er threw my dealings, which did disadvance  
My mean estate; and whereupon, I fled  
To Amsterdam; where being trencher-fed  
By holy Brethren, lived in great respect,  
Sir reverence, footing stockings for th' Elect:  
Surely the savour of the brethren's feet,  
Perfumed with comings in, is very sweet:  
There, twice six months I had not led my life,  
But I became an Husband to an Wife,  
The widow of an Elder; in whose stead,  
I was, (though I could neither write, nor read)  
Accounted worthy (though I say't) and able  
To preach the Gospel at our holy Table.  CAN. 
But say, what strange mischance was that, did move thee  
To flee thy native soil? What mischief drove thee?  
What dire disaster urged thy skilful hand  
To find employment in a foreign Land?  ANAR. 
Surely, I was, when that mischance befell,  
But poor in purse, and was constrained to sell  
Cadice and inkle; now because my trade  
Required an help, I entertained a maid;  
An able Christian; (though I say't) Begot  
Of holy Parents; (though the nuptial knot  
Of ceremonious marriage never tied  
Their joined hands) She was a Sanctified  
And undefiled vessel; She would pray,  
When others slept; and work when others play:  
She was of excellent knowledge; and, indeed,  
She could expound, and preach too, for a need:  
She was my servant, and set up my trade  
With her own hands; her skilful fingers made  
The Tape and inkle, where withal she stored  
My thriving shop; whereby, I did afford  
My Brethren better pennyworths; nay, more,  
She had a gift, (was all the City o'er  
Well known) in making Puddings, whose mere view  
Would make a Proselyte, and convert a Jew;  
Whose new Religion would proclaim our Hogs  
As clean and holy as their Synagogues;  
These would she bear from house to house, and sell  
To holy Brethren, who would please her well;  
For under that pretence, she oft repeated  
Some close preached Sermon; oftentimes entreated  
Of holy Discipline; sometimes gave warning  
Of some rare Lecture held next Thursday morning:  
I know not how, (Frail flesh and blood ye know  
Can do no more than flesh and blood can do)  
But to be short, she would so often fig  
From place to place, that she was grown too big  
To be concealed from wicked neighbouring eyes;  
T'avoid the scandal, I thought good t'arise,  
And flee to Amsterdam, till I could gather,  
By information, the reputed Father.  CAN. 
A wholesome history! able to transform  
Abused Religions sunshine to a storm  
Of direful Thunderbolts, to overthrow  
All Christian Rulers, that dare longer owe  
Confusion to the Varlets, and not grind them  
To dust, and send them to the place designed them:  
Hadst thou that impudence, that brazen face,  
In the fag end of thy unsau'ry, base,  
Triobular trades (Foul beast;) nay, piping hot  
From thy close Strumpet, thus to soil, and blot  
The beauty of Religion, and to wrong  
The gospel's name with thy illiterate tongue?  ANAR. 
Were not th' Apostles Fishers, and not fly  
Their trades, and preached the word as well as I?  CAN. 
Avoid, presumptuous Varlet; urge no more  
My tired patience; go, seek out thy Whore,  
Thy fit compeer, and exercise thy trade  
Upon her ruined stockings, much decayed  
With long pursuit, and trudging all about  
To find the Father of her Bastard out;  
Whilst I remove my Zenith, and go hence,  
To wail this fruitless hour's misexpence,  
And pray to heaven, that heaven would please to keep  
Such Goats still separated from my sheep.   

Eclogue ix..  

Iudex.  
Romastix.  
Flambello.   JUD. 
THis is the place, the hour; this the tree,  
Beneath whose hospitable shades, must be  
This challenged combat; But the champions stay  
Exceeds their limits; 'Tis an equal lay  
That neither come: they were so hot last night,  
'Tis like their quarrel ended with the light:  
But who comes yonder? Look, methinksed should be,  
By's gate, Romastix; No, 'tis not; 'tis he:  
Me thinks his posture prophecies of palms  
Before th' encounter; see, how sweat imbalmes  
His varnished Temples! How each envious pace  
vieth to be first, and eches for the place!  
He's near at hand; Champion let fair applause  
Crown your intended combat, let your Cause  
Thrive as it merits; let this morning jar  
Bring forth an Evening peace, the Child of war;  
Let Truth prevail, at last, and let heaven send,  
First, a fair Enemy; next, a faithful Friend.  ROM. 
Thanks, gentle Iudex; for the last, I durst  
Assure myself in thee: but where's the first?  
Where's our brave Enemy? whose very breath,  
Last night, could puff an heretic to death,  
Then by the virtue of St. Francis name,  
Could snatch a well broiled soul from the sad flame  
Of Purgatory, from the sulphurous flashes  
Of hell's hot Suburbs, and inspire his ashes  
With a new Catholic soul; whose knee shall gain  
Salvation from a puppet, for the pain  
Of twenty Pater nosters, and thrice seven  
Repeated aves to the Queen of heaven:  
But look; Am I deceived? Or do I see  
Our Boanarges coming?  JUD. 
Sure 'tis he.  ROM. 
'Tis he, Heaven grant that his discourse may trace  
A measure, but as sober as his pace:  
Lord, how his tongue last evening shot at rover!  
Sometimes, how wide it shot! How, sometimes, over!  
How like a new broke Colt, he pranced about!  
Sometimes stepped orderly; sometimes flew out:  
His hot-mouthed argument, would for a space  
strike a good stroke; then straight forsake his pace:  
How his discretion sunk, while his tongue floated!  
His wit falsegalloped, while his judgement trotted.  
But here he comes.  JUD. 
The blessings of the day  
Greets thee.  FLAM. 
And let the glory of the fray  
Crown my triumphant brows with conquest.  ROM. 
stay,  
Take my good-morrow, first, and then inherit stay,  
The Crown that shall be purchased by thy merit,  
And justness of thy well defended cause.  FLAM. 
The like to thee.  JUD. 
But let the chief applause  
Be given to Truth; which must and will prevail,  
How ever you defend, or he assail:  
She does not like a threadbare Client, sue  
For help, nor does her cause subsist by you:  
But like a Queen, sits in her Palace royal,  
To judge betwixt the Rebel and the loyal:  
Then quit yourselves, and let the day proclaim,  
Who's the true Subject: Truth is still the same:  
Romastix this your first arrival here,  
Gives you precedence: you shall truly swear,  
No private grudge; nor no malicious end  
Of base revenge did move you to contend  
In these fair lists, no itch of vain applause,  
But a true thirst, t'advance the public cause.  ROM. 
I do.  JUD. 
And you Flambello too, shall swear,  
You try this combat, with a conscience clear  
From by-respects of preadvised hate,  
Or spleen, of later, or of elder date;  
And that you aim not at a private foe,  
But at the glory of the Truth.  FLAM. 
I do.  JUD. 
Then Champions, too't; you cannot be too stern,  
In truth's behalf; 'tis best to be altern;  
For mutual language works a fair conclusion:  
Truth is the Queen of order; not confusion.  ROM. 
I here appeach Flambello, as a High-  
Traitor to the sacred Crown, and dignity  
Of sovereign Truth, a Rebel to her laws,  
A private Judas to the public Cause.  FLAM. 
Blisters o'th' tongue that speaks it! He that durst  
Proclaim, and not maintain it, be accursed.  ROM. 
They're traitors, rob their sovereign of their due;  
You do the same; and therefore such are you.  FLAM. 
You argue with less Charity, than Art;  
Your halting Minor's false as your own heart.  ROM. 
He that invests another in the Throne  
Of Truth; or owns a Prince, but Truth alone,  
Robs his own sovereign; But such are you,  
You therefore rob your sovereign of her due.  FLAM. 
You plead for Truth; and yet you speak beside  
The Text of Truth: your Minor is denied.  ROM. 
They that prefer their own brain-bred Traditions  
Before her perfect Laws; make, here, additions;  
And, there, Abstractions from her sacred hests,  
Depose the old, and a new Prince invests;  
But you prefer Traditions; therefore you  
Depose the old Prince, and invest a new.  FLAM. 
The selfsame Spirit that inspired the words  
Of holy Prophets, in old time affords  
Undoubted Truth to the most just Traditions  
Of holy counsels, whose divine Commissions  
Make it a perfect Truth, which they aver  
Confirmed by a Head that cannot err.  ROM. 
Admit all this! Can very Truth take place  
Of very Truth? Has Truth a double face?  
How can the wavering will of man be guided  
Betwixt two spirits; at least, one spirit divided?  
But say; upon what shoulders grows that Head  
That cannot err: that cannot be misled?  
What is he? Where is his abode? That I  
May bow my knees, and worship ere I die.  FLAM. 
It is our holy Father; He, that keeps  
The keys of heaven, and of th' infernal deeps;  
He that has power, with those sacred keys,  
To open heaven, and lock it when he please;  
To open hell's broad portals, and let out  
His dire anathemas to scourge the stout  
Rebellious heart; and Legions, to devour  
All such as will not prostrate to his power,  
And high Omnipotency, but rebel  
Against the Chamberlain of Heaven:  ROM. 
And Hell:  
But tell me to what sort of souls does he  
Expand the Gates of heaven?  FLAM. 
To such as be  
Obedient to his laws; whose purged hearts  
Have felt the flames of Purgatory, and smarts  
Of holy Penance, that observe and do  
All things his holiness enjoins them to:  
The Gates of Heaven stand open for such as these.  ROM. 
If he be paid for turning of the keys:  
What sort of sins unlock the gates of Hell?  FLAM. 
The disobedient hearts, that puff and swell  
Against his Government; To such as dare  
Question the counsels of our holy chair:  
To heretics; and such as plot revenge;  
These are the Cardinal sins, that grease the hinge.  ROM. 
But what betides to riotous Gluttons, then,  
Hell-tutored Sorcerers, and incestuous men?  
Unnatural Sodomites, and the brass-browed liar?  
Those that give false Commissions, nay, and higher  
Perverted subjects to dissolve their bands  
Of abjured Loyalty, and lay violent hands  
On their own Princes? Are th' infernal keys  
Less nimble to unlock hell's gate for these?  FLAM. 
These break the doors, and rend the Portals open,  
Unless the grace of our Lord God the Pope  
Give former Dispensation; or at least  
An after Pardon.  ROM. 
I conceived, the best  
Your all-sufficient Popes could do, had been,  
Godlike to pardon a forsaken sin,  
But to afford a Dispensation too  
For after crimes, is more than heaven will do:  
No wonder, then, the counsels of your chair  
Claim the right hand, and your Traditions dare  
Take place of Scripture, when that God of yours,  
That cannot err, is stronger armed, than ours.  FLAM. 
It stands not with obedience to aspire  
Unto such holy heights, as to inquire  
Into the sacred secrets of the chair;  
All Champions must lay down their weapons, there:  
Doubts cool devotion; And the good digestion  
Of Catholics faith is hindered, where we question.  ROMAST. 
Such dainty stomachs, as are daily filled  
With costly delicates, are easily chilled;  
When faith can feed upon no lower things  
Than Crowns dissolved, and drink the blood of Kings,  
Experience tells, that oftentimes digestion  
Finds strange obstructions, where Indictments question:  
But since your guilt (beneath the fair pretence  
Of filial silence) leaves ye no defence  
From your reposed weapons; breathe a space  
And take up new ones, which may plead your case  
(With the quick spirit of a keener edge)  
Against the foul reproach of sacrilege:  
That Bread of life; which, with a liberal hand,  
Heaven made a common gift, you countermand;  
And what his bounty carved to every one,  
You falsely challenge to yourselves alone;  
He gives his children loaves; where you afford  
But crumbs, being fed, like dogs, beneath your board;  
That holy draught, that sacramental Cup,  
Which heaven divides among them, you drink up:  
You are Impostors, and delude poor souls,  
And what your pampered Prelates swill in bowls,  
Like fools, you send them to exhaust from dead  
And pallid veins of your Incarnate Bread.  FLAM. 
First, for the Bread, which your false tongues aver  
We ravish from the children's lips, you err:  
Your censures misinterpret our intent;  
We do but dress the Grist, that heaven hath sent;  
And, by our mixture, raise a sweeter Paste,  
To add a pleasure to the children's taste:  
Next; for that sacred Blood, you grossly term,  
By th' name of Wine; which, rudely you affirm,  
Our pampered Prelates swill in lusty bowls,  
And after, send our poor deluded souls  
To suck; to suck in vain from out the dead  
And pallid veins of our Incarnate Bread;  
You show your wisdoms: It is living Flesh,  
Wherein are living Streams, that do refresh  
The drooping soul; A perfect Sacrifice  
Of perfect Flesh and Blood, in Breads disguise.  ROM. 
Your double answer wants a single force:  
And is the Grist of heaven become so course  
To need your sifting? Can your mixtures add  
A sweetness to it, which it never had?  
Your chair (whose brow hath brass enough, to call  
Saint Paul's Epistles, Heresies, and Saint Paul  
A harebrained schismatic, and once projected,  
To have his Errors purged, and Text corrected)  
May easily tax, and censure all the rest,  
Being all indicted by the selfsame breast:  
But is that Body living, that ye tear  
With your rank teeth? How worse do you appear  
Then cannibals, to be an undertaker  
In that foul act, to eat, to grind your Maker!  
Your double answer does abridge the story  
Of the true Passion of the Lord of glory;  
Your first condemns him; and, (the sentence past)  
You boldly crucify him, in your last:  
But is it real Flesh, ye thus devour;  
Timbered with bones; and like this flesh of our?  
Say; do you eat, and grind it, Flesh and Bone?  
Or like an unchewed Pill, but swallow't down?  
If only swallow; Champion, you complete not  
Your work: You take the Body, but you eat not:  
If eat; you falsify what heaven hath spoken;  
Can you eat bones, and yet a bone not broken?  
But tell me, tell me, what was he that first  
Did make so bold, to make himself accursed,  
To rob the Decalogue, and to withdraw  
The second Statute from the moral law?  
Why was that Statute thought a worse offence  
Than all the rest? Could not your Chair dispense  
With that as safely as with all the rest?  
What has that Statute done? wherein transgressed,  
That you have made the Tables too too hot  
To hold it? Champion, speak; why speak'st thou not?  FLAM. 
Superior powers, that have large Commission  
To judge, conceive it but a repetition  
Of the first Statute, and thought fit to take  
It thence for brevity, for corruption sake.  ROM. 
Corruption sake? Did never word disclose  
From Roman lips more true: what tongue ere chose  
A term more proper, that more full expressed  
Th' Idea of a well-composed breast?  
I wish no greater Conquest, or Concession  
Of a fair truth, then from a foes Confession.  FLAM. 
You boast too soon: Take heed your vain conceit  
Befools you not with a false antedate:  
Ill-grounded triumphs are but breathes expense;  
Fools catch at words; but wise men at the sense.  ROM. 
Content thee, Champion; every gamester knows,  
That Falsifies are Play, as well as blows:  
But tell me now; If each Abstraction draws  
A curse upon th' Abstractor from those laws,  
How can your counsels scape this judgement then,  
That have exiled the Second from the Ten?  FLAM. 
Their number's ne'er the less; for where we smother  
One Statute, we dichotomize another.  ROM. 
Then, Champion; there's a double curse, you know:  
One, for abstracting; one, for adding to:  
But to proceed; what law of God denies  
The bands of marriage? What exceptionties  
That undefiled, that honourable life  
From Priestly Orders? Aaron had his wife;  
And he, from whom ye claim (but claim amiss)  
The free succession of your keys, had his.  
Heaven's Statute qualifies all sorts of men;  
How came ye to repeal that Statute then?  FLAM. 
Marriage is but an Antidote for lust,  
It is ordained for such as dare not trust  
The frailty of their bodies, or want art  
To quench the roving tempters fiery dart:  
But such, whose vessels Prayer, and Fasting keeps  
Unsoild and pure, where idle blood ne'er creeps  
Into their wanton veins; that can restrain  
Base lust; to such, this Antidote is vain:  
Such be our sacred Priests, whose horned knees  
Are seldom straight, but pay their hourly fees  
To the worn ground, whose Emb'ring lips send up  
Perpetual vows; whose wine-abjuring Cup  
Yields no delight; whose stomachs are content  
To celebrate an everlasting Lent.  ROM. 
Say, Champion then, for what respects? for whom,  
Are Brothels licenc'd by the laws of Rome?  
Laymen may wed; there, licence is unjust,  
Where Law allows a remedy for lust:  
But if your Priesthood be so undefiled  
How came that pampered Pope, (the only child  
Of his long since deceased sire) to own  
So many jolly nephews, whose unknown  
And doubtful Parentage, truth feared to blaze,  
Until the next succeeding Prelates days?  
How is't such vaulted Entries have been found,  
Affording secret passage, under ground,  
(With paths deluding Argus thousand eyes)  
Betwixt your abbeys, and your Nunneries?  
How come the depths of your deep throated Wells,  
(Where utter shades, and empty horror dwells)  
To yield such relics; and in stead of stones,  
To be impaved with newborn Infants bones?  FLAM. 
Plagues, Horror, madness, and th' infernal troops  
Of hell's anathemas; the schreeching whoops  
Of damned souls; this present world's disdain,  
And that worse world to comes's eternal pain;  
Our holy urbans execrable curse,  
Or (if unthought on) any plague be worse,  
Confound these base, these upstart Luth'ran tongues,  
That spit such poison, and project these wrongs  
Against our Church.  ROM. 
A Curse sufficient! hold,  
And lend my tongue your patience, to unfold  
Your Catholic Church; & when my words shall end,  
Speak you your pleasure, while mine ears attend:  
Your Church is like a Market; where, for Gold,  
Both sins and Pardons, may be bought and sold:  
It is a juggler's shop, whose Master shows  
Fine tricks at Fast and Loose, with oaths and vows:  
It is a Mill; wherein, the Laity grind  
For the fat Clergy, being still kept blind:  
It is a school, whose scholars, ill directed,  
Are once a year, by their own hands corrected:  
It is a Magazine, wherein are laid  
More choice of Scriptures, than their Maker made:  
It is a Church, depraves the Text; and then,  
Pins the Authority on the sleeves of men:  
It is a slaughter-house, where Butchers bring 〈…〉  
All sorts of men; and now and then, a King:  
It is a sort of people, do unthrone  
The living God, and deify a stone:  
It is a Woman, that in youth, has been  
A Whore; and now in age, a bawd to sin:  
It damns poor Infants, to eternal fire,  
For want of what they lived not to desire:  
It dare assure us sound before the cure,  
And bids despair, where we should most assure:  
It leads poor Women captive, does contrary  
The lawful use of Meats; forbids to marry.  JUD. 
Hold, Champions, hold; 'Tis needless to renew  
Your fight; The day grows hot, as well as you:  
It is against the course of martial laws  
To deal a blow in a decided Cause:  
Sheath up your sanguine blades; These wars have cost  
Much blood and sweat: The field is won and lost;  
And we adjudge the Palms triumphant Bow  
Of Conquest to renowned Romastix brow;  
And, with our shrill-mouthed Trumpet we proclaim  
Eternal honour to his honoured name,  
Who shall be styled, to his perpetual praise,  
Truths faithful Champion till the last of days:  
Queen Truth shall prosper, when her Pleader fails:  
Great is the Truth; and that great Truth prevails.   

Eclogue X.  

Orthodoxus.  
Catholicus.  
Nuncius.   ORTH. 
WHat news, Catholicus? You lately came  
From the great City: what's the voice of Fame?  CATH. 
The greatest part of what my sense receives,  
Is the least part of what my Faith believes:  
I search for none: If aught, perchance, I hear  
Unasked, it often dies within my ear,  
Untold; What this man, or what that man saith,  
Can hardly make a Packhorse on my Faith:  
But, now I think on't; There's great talk about  
A strange predictious Star, long since, found out  
By learned Ticho-brachy, whose portents  
Reach, to these Times, they say, and tells th' events  
Of strange adventures, whose success shall bring  
Illustrious fame, to a victorious King,  
Born in Northern parts; whose glorious arm  
Shall draw a sword, a sword that shall be warm  
With Austrian blood, & whose loud beaten drum  
Shall send, beyond the walls of Christendom,  
Her royall-conquering Marches, to control  
(Even from the Arctic, to th' Antarctic pole)  
The spaun of Antichrist, and to engore  
Those baldpate Panders of proud Babel's Whore.  ORTH. 
May these portents be sure, as they are great;  
And may that drum ne'er sound her faint retreat,  
Till these things take effect: But tell me, swain,  
How happed this lucky Comet to remain  
So long in silence, and, at length, to blaze  
With us, and be the rumor of our days.  CATH. 
There is a Prince, new risen from the North,  
Of mighty spirit, and renowned worth;  
Prudent and pious; for heroic deeds,  
At least a Caesar; in whose heart, the seeds  
Of true Religion were so timely sown,  
That they are sprung to height, and he is grown  
The wonder of his days; whose louder name  
Has blast enough to split the Trump of Fame:  
Hast thou beheld the heavens greater eye,  
Masked in a swarthy cloud, how, by and by,  
It breaketh forth; and, with his glorious ray,  
Gives glory to the discontented day?  
So this illustrious Prince, scarce named among  
The rank of common Princes, bravely sprung  
From his dark Throne; and with his brighter story  
Hast soiled the lustre of preceding glory:  
This is that Man, on whom the common eye  
Is turned; on his adventure does rely  
The world's discourse; this is that flame of fire  
We hope shall burn (we hope as we desire)  
Proud Babel: this, the arm that shall unhenge  
Th' incestuous gates of Sodom, and revenge  
The blood of blessed Martyrs spilled, and frying  
In flames; (blood, that has been this age a crying  
For slow-paced vengeance) this is he, whose Throne  
This blazing Prophet bent his eye upon.  ORTH. 
And well it may; The calendar, whereby  
We rural shepherds calculate, and forespy  
Things future, Good or evil, hath late descried  
That evil affected planet Mars, allied  
To temporizing Mercury, conjoined  
I'th' house of Death; whereby we shepherds find  
Strange showers of blood, arising from the North,  
And flying Southward, likely to break forth  
Upon the Austrian parts, and raise a flood,  
To overwhelm that bloody House, with Blood:  
That House; which like a Sun in this our orb,  
Whiffs up the Belgic fumes, and does absorbe  
From every soil rich vapours, and exhale  
From Sea and Land, within our Christian pale;  
A Sun, the beams of whose Meridian glory  
Fill eyes with wonder, and all tongues with story.  CATH. 
But there's a vial, to be emptied out  
Upon this glorious Planet; which, no doubt,  
Thine eye and mine shall see, within these few  
Approaching days; (if shepherds signs be true)  
No doubt, the lingering times are sliding on,  
Wherein, this House shall flame, and this bright Sun  
Shall lose his light, shall lose his light, and never  
Shine more, but be eclipsed, eclipsed for ever:  
O shepherd; If the prayers of many a Swain  
Have audience, and our hopes be not in vain,  
This is that Prince, whose conquering Drum shall beat  
Through the proud streets of Rome, and shall unseat  
The Man of sin; and, with his sword unthrone  
The Beast, and trample on his triple Crown:  
This is that Angel, whose full hand does grasp  
That threatened vial, and whose fingers clasp  
This flaming falchion, which shall hew and burn  
The limbs of Antichrist, and ne'er return  
Into his quiet sheath, till that proud Whore,  
That perks so high, lie grovelling on the enormity.  ORTH. 
Shepherd; Me thinks, when my glad ears attends  
Upon his fair success, his Actions, Ends,  
His Valour, wisdom, Piety, when I scan  
All this, methinks, I think on more than Man:  
O, how my soul lies down before the feet  
Of this brave Prince! O, how my blessings greet  
Each obvious action, whose loud breath I dare  
Not hear, unprospered with my better prayer:  
I must forget the peace of Zion, when  
I cease to honour this brave Man of men:  
Had Plutarch lived till now, to blazon forth  
His life, (as sure he would) what Prince of worth,  
Or Greek, or Roman, had his single story  
Selected out to parallel his Glory?  CATH. 
O shepherd, he, whose service is employed  
In heavens high battles, can do nothing void  
Of fame, and wonder; nothing, less than glorious:  
Heavens Champion must prevail; must be victorious:  
But, O, what hap! what happiness have we,  
The last, and dregs of Ages, thus to see  
These hopeful Times; nay more, of sit beneath,  
Beneath our quiet Vines, and think of death  
By leisure, when springtides of blood overwhelms  
The interrupted peace of foreign Realms!  
Our painful Oxen plough our peaceful grounds;  
Our quiet streets ne'er startle at the sounds  
Of Drums or Trumpets; neither Wolf, nor Fox  
Disturb the Folds of our increasing Flocks:  
Our Kids, and sweet-faced Lambs can frisk, and feed  
In our fresh Pastures, whilst our Oaten Reed  
Can breathe her merry strains, and voice can sing  
Her frolic Past'rals to our shepherd-king.  ORTH. 
'Tis not for our deserts; or that our ways  
Are more upright, than theirs of former days:  
We lay the Pelion of our new Transgressions  
Upon our Fathers Ossa: The Confessions  
Of our offences; nay, our very prayers  
Are more corrupt than the worst sins of theirs:  
Sure, Swain, the streams of Mercy run more clear  
Than they were wont; Her smiling eyes appear  
More gracious now, in these our Borean climes,  
Than other Nations, or in former times.  CATH. 
Shepherd; Perchance, some fifty righteous men,  
Perchance, but thirty; Peradventure, ten  
Have made our peace: Perchance, th' almighty's ear  
Has found a Moses, or some Phineas, here.  ORTH. 
Vengeance, that threatened sinful Israel's crime,  
For David's sake, ne'er stirred all David's time:  
'Twas David's piety did suspend the blow  
Of Vengeance: Have not we a David too?  
A Prince; whose worth, what our poor tongues can scatter,  
May rather wrong for want of height, then flatter;  
A pious Prince; whose very Actions preach  
Rare Doctrines; does, what others do but teach:  
A Prince; whom neither flames of youth can fire,  
Nor beauty add the least to his desire;  
Whose eyes are like the eyes of Turtles, chaste;  
Can view ten thousand dainties, and yet taste  
But one; but in that dainty, can digest  
The perfect Quintessence of all the rest:  
A Prince, that (briefly to characterise him)  
Wants nothing, but a People, how to prize him.  
Evil Princes, oft, draw plagues upon the Times,  
Whereas good Princes salve their people's Crimes.  CATH. 
Thou hast not spoken many things, but much;  
Such is our People, and our Prince is such:  
Such fierce temptations still attend upon  
The glittering pomp of the imperial Throne,  
I, either wonder Princes should be good,  
Or else conceive them not of Flesh and Blood:  
What change of pleasure can his soul command,  
And not obtain, being Lord of all the Land?  
What bold? what venturous spirit dare inquire  
Into the lawfulness of his desire?  
What Crown-controlling Nathan dare begin  
To question Vice? or call his sin, a sin?  
Who is't, that will not undertake to be  
His sins Attorney? Nay, what man is he  
That will not temporize, and fan the fire  
T' increase the flames of his unblown desire?  
What place may not be secret? or what eye  
Dare (under pain of putting out) once pry  
Into his Closet? or what season will  
Not wait upon his pleasure, to fulfil  
His royal lust? what chaste Sophronia would  
Wound her own heart, for fear her sovereign should?  
O shepherd, what a Prince have we, that can  
Continue just, and yet continue Man!  
No doubt, but vengeance would confound these times,  
Were not his goodness far above our crimes:  
Alas; Our happy Age (that has enjoyed  
The best, the best of Princes, and is cloyed  
With prosperous Plenty, and the sweet increase  
Of right-hand Blessings) in this glut of peace,  
Loathes very Quails and Manna; we are strangers  
To those hard evils, to those continual dangers  
That cleave to States, wherein poor subjects groan  
Beneath the Vices of th' imperial Throne:  
They cannot prize good Princes, that ne'er had  
The too too dear experience of a bad:  
Who knows not Pharaoh? Or the plagues, that broke  
Upon the people for hard pharoh's sake?  ORTH. 
The Acts of Princes mount with Eagle-wings:  
Few know th' Alliance between God and Kings.  CATH. 
Look, Shepheard, look! Whose hasty feet are they  
That trace the Plains so quick? They bend this way.  ORTH. 
His steps divide apace; Pray God, his haste  
Be good: Good tidings seldom come so fast.  CATH. 
I think 'tis Nuncius.  ORTH. 
Nuncius never uses  
To come unnewsed.  CATH. 
I wonder what the news is?  ORTH. 
See, how he strikes his breast!  CATH. 
Good Lord, how sad  
His countenance seems!  ORTH. 
What, Nuncius, good or bad?  CA●H. 
Bad! Worse! The worst of worsts! The heaviest news  
That lips ere broached, or language can diffuse!  
O, earth's bright Sun's eclipsed! Ah me! is drenched  
In blood! His flames are quenched, for ever quenched:  
That light, which wondering shepherds did adore,  
Is out; will never shine on shepherd more:  
Expect no Sunshine from the beams of Suede;  
Sueden, the glory of the world, is dead:  
Our strength is broke, and all our hopes are vain;  
Sueden, the glory of the world, is slain:  
Our Sun is set, and earth now wants a Sun;  
Sueden, the glory of the earth is gone:  
Gone, gone for ever to eternal night;  
Earth wants her Sueden; and the world, her light.  CATH. 
Fond hopes! why damp ye not my dull belief,  
To lend a little respite to my grief?  
What ails my passion to believe so soon  
The evil it fears? Can Phoebus, in the noon  
Of his Meridian glory, cease to shine,  
Before his Solstice leaves him to decline  
The least degree? Can brave Adolphus fall,  
And heaven not give us warning? none at all?  
There was no Comet blazed: no apparition  
Of kindled Meteors, lent the least suspicion:  
Me thinks, the heavens should flame, and earth's foundation,  
Should shake, against so great an alteration.  ORTH. 
But is it certain, Nuncius?  NUN. 
Ay, too sure:  
The wounds of death admit no hopes of cure:  ORTH. 
God knows his own designs: His sacred breast  
Knows where to propagate his glory best:  
His hidden ways agree not with our eyes:  
His wars must prosper, though his Champion dies:  
We must not question Fate: where heaven thinks fit  
To do, we must be silent, and submit:  
We must not look too near; we must not pry;  
Perhaps, young Joshuah lives, though Moses die:  
Give Suede his honour, and enrol his name  
Among the Worthies, in the book of Fame:  
Give him the honour of his double story,  
Begun in Grace, and perfected in Glory:  
But let our fond Indulgence be adviz'd,  
In hon'ring Sueden, heaven be not disprized:  
We must not languish, in a moral thirst,  
T' advance the second Cause, and slight the first;  
We must not droop, for want of Suedes Alarm,  
As if that heaven were bound to Suedens' Arm:  
That God, that hath recalled our Sueden, can  
Make a new Sueden of a common Man.  CATH. 
But see! The drooping day begins to don  
His mourning weeds; The sullen night draws on:  
'Tis time to fold our sheep; They little know,  
Or feel those sorrows, their poor shepherds do:  
Shepherds, farewell; Perchance the morrow light  
May shine forth better news:  ORTH. 
God night.  NUN. 
God night.  
FINIS.   

Eclogue XI.  

Philarchus.  
Philorthus.  
Anarchus.   PHILAR. 
Shepherd, ah shepherd, what sad days have we  
(More sad than these sad days) survived to see!  
How is the guilt of our forefather's crimes,  
Revenged on us in these distracted times!  
How is the shepherd's honour that while ere  
Shone like the morning Star; and did appear  
To all the world, like heralds to make known  
Th' approaching Glory of the rising Sun!  
How is that honour dim! how is her light  
Clouded in shades of Ignorance and night!  
How is our Calling slighted, and that power  
Our Master lent us, threatened every hour!  
How are our worried Names become the scorn  
Of every base mechanic! rent and torn  
In every vulgar mouth? reproached and made  
Delinquents judged by every trivial Trade!  
How are our persons scorned, contemned, reviled,  
Nay, even by him, whose school-instructed child  
Jeers at his ignorance; and oft by him,  
Whose sinking fortunes teaches how to swim  
With zealous Bladders, being apt to steal  
Advantage from the times, and trade in zeal!  
How are we grown the byword of the land,  
Commanded now, where late we did command!  
Pressed like a Vintage, banded like a Ball!  
Despised of many, and disprised of all!  PHILOR. 
True my Philarchus; shepherds never found  
So hard a time, Ah, fortune never frowned  
So stern till now; Presumptuous Ignorance  
Had ne'er till now the boldness to advance  
Her beetle brows; or once to tread the Stage  
Of this blessed Island in so bright an Age.  
But ah! when Lights grow dim and dull, what hand  
Can keep out darkness? who can countermand  
The melancholy shades of ugly night,  
When heaven wants Lamps, or when those Lamps want light?  
Come shepherd, come, (here's none but Thee and I)  
We tax the Times, but could the Times reply  
They'd vindicate their evils, and lay their crimes  
On us poor shepherds that thus tax the Times.  
Had we burnt bright, had our refulgent rays  
Given lustre to the world, and filled our days  
With glorious brightness, how had darkness found  
A place for entrance? where could shadows ground  
Their airy errands? or what soul could taint  
Our Sun-bright names? what evil could cause complaint?  
How blessed! how more then blessed, had shepherds been  
Had shepherds been so happy to have seen  
But their own happiness; Had the waxen wings  
Of their ambitious thoughts not aimed at things  
Beyond their pitch; Had they been wise to move  
In their own orbs, and not like Phaeton rove  
Through the wild Labyrinth of th' Olympic tower  
And searched the secrets of too vast a power,  
Their Glory had not found so short a Date,  
Nor caused combustion in so calm a State.  PHILAR. 
Admit all this Philorthus, (for who can  
Consider frailty, and not think of Man?)  
Shall some few stains in the full lamp of night  
Cry down the moon, and woo the Stars for light?  
What if thy too neglected soil abound  
With noisome Weeds? wilt thou disclaim the ground?  
Or wouldst thou dry the earth's full breast, that feeds  
Thy fragrant Flowers, because it fosters Weeds?  
Ah my Philorthus, thus the cause now stands  
With us poor swains; The power of our hands  
Entrusted there by our all-wise God Pan,  
(To whom the frailties of collapsed Man  
Was known too well) for some disorders grown  
Among us swains is cried, is voted down;  
And that fair livelihood that late maintained  
Those love-preserving Festivals which chained  
Our mutual hearts in links of love; which clad  
The naked Orphan, and relieved the sad  
Afflicted widow, and released the bands  
Of the lean Prisoner gripped with the hard hands  
Of his too just oppressor; this they say  
Is to be shortened, if not snatched away.  PHILOR. 
Ah, gentle shepherd, heaven, ah, heavens forefend,  
Those tides should ebb that flow to such an end;  
But some we fear been more corrupt than so;  
They're two things, what they should, & what they do.  PHILAR. 
True my Philorthus, some lewd Swains there be  
That have more Bags than Bowels, that can see  
Pale misery panting at their Lordly gates,  
Answered with Statutes, and repulsive Rates;  
Whose hard, whose Adamantine ear can brook  
The sad Complaints of those (who cannot look  
Beyond the Prospect of consuming Grief)  
Without Remorse at all, without Relief;  
Whose wanton tables, decked with costly fare,  
Pamper their idle bodies, and prepare  
Oil for their lust, whose craving thoughts, made poor  
With too much wealth, condemn themselves to more;  
And such they be Philorthus whose lewd fames  
And lives have poisoned the illustrious names  
Of reverend shepherds, whose ambitious pride  
Hath brought contempt, and made the world deride  
What late it honoured, now disdained, abhorred  
By whom they were as much, ere while, adored.  
Ah shepherd, these are they whose vain ambition  
Made us sad Partners in the world's derision;  
But that which wounds my soul beyond redress,  
And aggravates my grief above excess,  
Those pastoral staves wherewith those reverend Sages  
Of former times have ruled so many ages,  
And by a settled Government, exiled  
Confused disorder, the prodigious child  
Of factious anarchy, Those Rods of power  
That ruled our Swains by day, and did secure  
Their Folds by night, are threatened from our hands,  
And all our Flocks to bow to new Commands.  PHILOR. 
It cannot be, the great Assembly's wise;  
Has many Heads, and twice as many Eyes,  
Eyes bright as day, that view both things and times,  
Fast closed to persons, open to their crimes:  
Judgement, nor Fancy, moves in that bright Sphere;  
There are no Ends, no by-Respects are there:  
The care of Truth, and zeal of public Rest  
Rests in their restless, their united breast:  
Heaven be their Guide, and may their pains increase  
Heavens' glory, and this glorious Islands peace;  
Ah, thinkst thou shepherd, their heau'n-guided heart  
Will venture to decline his ways, or start  
From heaven's Example? Heaven was pleased to bear  
With very Sodom, had but ten been there  
That had been righteous; loath to mix the blood  
Of guilty thousands, with some few of good:  
No question, shepherd, but the enormous crimes  
Of our Profession, heightened with the times,  
Are foul enough; nor could such Actions lie  
Concealed and closed before so clear an Eye;  
And being seen, how could they choose but grate  
The groaning Feoffees of our tottering State?  
How could our growing greatness choose but blow  
And quicken up their zealous flames? or how  
Could our untamed Ambition hope to stand  
Against the power of so great a hand?  
But they are just and wise, and wisdom still  
Shows rather what it can, than what it will.  
When public justice threatens, it propounds  
Way for amendment, rather than confounds:  
And far less cost and damage will ensue  
To weed old Gardens, then to dig a new.  PHILAR. 
True, shepherd, But they plead for want of dressing  
Our Garden's forfeited, and they are pressing  
Hard for re-entry; They have sealed a Deed  
Upon the ground, intending to proceed  
Next term t'Ejectment, by which means they'll stand  
A new possessed and re-enjoy the Land.  PHILOR. 
Shepherd, we hold in term from great god Pan;  
His counsel drew the Lease; If wiser Man  
Can find a flaw, our weakness must appeal  
To Pan's Vicegerent; He will vouch the seal  
fair and authentic: If the Common laws  
Condemn our Right, by virtue of that Clause  
Of heedless Forfeiture, O than we fly  
To be relieved in the high Chancery,  
That uncorrupted Court that now does rest  
In the great Chamber of the Assemblies breast:  
there's judgement there, which idle heaps of gold  
Despairs to bribe, and Conscience there unsold:  
Poor shepherds, there, shall find as fair access,  
As Peers, as Princes, and as just redress.  PHILAR. 
Heaven be our great Protection, and close  
Their suits-attending ears against all those,  
Whom railing Ignorance, and frantic zeal  
Hath only taught the way to say, and seal,  
And set their marks, not having skill to shape  
A Letter; or, without a lie, to scape  
The danger of Non legit, whose profession  
Is only to scorn Lambeth, and discretion:  
These be fit men, Philorthus, to descend  
Into these Lists, sweet Champions to contend  
About these mysteries, likely to confound  
Those famous Worthies that have searched the ground  
Of sage Antiquity; wherein of old,  
The Government was wrapped, and still enroled.  PHILAR. 
Come shepherd, come, our great Assemblie's wise,  
And for a while, in policy complies  
With the rude Multitude, who must have day,  
To breathe their humours, which would else break way,  
Like earth-imprisoned air, whose sudden birth  
Startles the world, and shakes the shivering earth:  
It is the nature of the vulgar breast  
Still to mislike, and count that State the best  
Which they enjoy not; pleased with Novelties,  
They grow impatient of the old, and prize  
What's next in hope; more happy in expectation  
Then when possessed; all fire to Alteration:  
But shepherd know; our grave Assembly pries  
Where they ne'er viewed, and looks with clearer eyes;  
Their wisdoms know, what sudden Change portends:  
Things rash begun, too oft in danger ends;  
But unavoided ruin daily waits  
On sudden change of fundamental States.  PHILAR. 
Ay, but Philorthus, whilst the State complies  
With the tumultuous Vulgar, tumults rise,  
And rude disorder creeps into our plains,  
Swains will be shepherds, cobblers will be Swains;  
Flocks are disturbed, and pastures are defaced;  
Swains are despised, and shepherds are disgraced,  
Orders are laughed to scorn; and, in conclusion,  
Our kingdom's turned a Chaos of confusion.  PHILOR. 
Why shepherd, there's the Plot: the surest way  
To take the Fish, is give her leave to play,  
And yield her Line; He best can cure the Cause  
That marks th' effect; evil manners breed good Laws:  
The wise Assembly knowing well the length  
Of the rude popular foot, with what a strength  
The vulgar fancy still pursues the Toy  
That's last presented, leaves them to enjoy  
Their uncontrolled wills, until they tire  
And quickly surfeit on their own desire,  
Whose wild disorders secretly confess  
Needful support of what they'd most suppress:  
But who comes here? Anarchus?  PHILAR. 
'Tis the same;  PHILOR. 
How like a Meteor made of zeal and flame  
The man appears?  PHILAR. 
Or like a blazing Star,  
Portending change of State, or some sad War;  
Or death of some good Prince.  PHILAR. 
He is the trouble  
Of three sad kingdoms.  PHILAR. 
Even the very Bubble,  
The froth of troubled waters.  PHILOR. 
he's a Page  
Filled with erratas of the present Age;  PHILAR. 
The church's Scourge;  PHILOR. 
The devils Enchiridion.  PHILAR. 
The Squib, the Ignis fatuus of Religion:  
But he' at hànd: Anarchus what's the news?  PHILOR. 
In a brown study?  PHILAR. 
Speechless?  PHILOR. 
In a Muse?  ANAR. 
Man, if thou be'st a Babe of Grace,  
And of an holy Seed,  
I will reply incontinent,  
And in my words proceed;  
But if thou art a Child of wrath,  
And lewd in conversation,  
I will not then converse with thee,  
Nor hold communication.  PHILOR. 
I trust Anarchus, we all three inherit  
The self same Gifts, and share the self same Spirit.  ANAR. 

Know then my brethren, heaven is clear,  
And all the Clouds are gone;  
The Righteous now shall flourish, and  
Good days are coming on;  
Come then, my Brethren, and be glad,  
And eke rejoice with me;  
Lawn Sleeves and Rochets shall go down,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

we'll break the windows which the Whore  
Of Babylon hath painted,  
And when the Popish Saints are down,  
Then Barow shall be Sainted;  
There's neither Cr●sse nor crucifix  
Shall stand for men to see;  
Rome's trash and trump'ries shall go down,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

What ere the Popish hands have built  
Our Hammers shall undo;  
we'll break their Pipes & burn their Copes,  
And pull down Churches too:  
we'll exercise within the Gr●ves,  
And teach beneath a Tree;  
we'll make a Pulpit of a Cart,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

we'll down with all the Varsities,  
Where Learning is professed,  
Because they practise and maintain  
The Language of the Beast:  
we'll drive the Doctors out of doors,  
And Arts what ere they be,  
we'll cry both Arts, and Learning down,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

we'll down with Deans and Prebends too,  
But I rejoice to tell ye,  
How then we will eat Pig our fill,  
And Cap●n by the belly:  
we'll burn the father's witty Tomes,  
And make the schoolmen flee,  
we'll down with all that s●els of wit,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

If once that Antichristian crew  
Be crushed and overthrown,  
we'll teach the Nobles how to crouch,  
And keep the Gentry down;  
Good manners have an evil report,  
And turns to pride we see;  
we'll therefore cry good manners down,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

The name of Lord shall be abhorred,  
For every man's a brother,  
No reason why in Church or State,  
One man should rule another:  
But when the change of Government  
Shall set our fingers free,  
we'll make the wanton Sisters stoop,  
And, hay! then up go we.   

Our cobblers shall translate their souls  
From Caves obscure and shady,  
we'll make Tom T— as good as my Lord,  
And Joan as good as my Lady.  
we'll crush and fling the marriage ring  
Into the Roman See;  
we'll ask no bands, but even clap hands  
And, hay! then up go we.   PHILAR. 
Heaven keep such vermin hence; If sinful dust  
May boldly choose a punishment, and trust  
Their own desires, let Famine, Plague or Sword,  
A treacherous friend, or (what is more abhorred)  
A foolish, false, contentious wife, first seize  
On our sad souls, than such wild beasts as these.  ANAR. 
Surely thou art an Hypocrite,  
A lewd false-hearted Brother;  
I find thou art a child of Rome,  
And smell the whore thy Mother.  PHILOR. 
Away false varlet; come not ne'er my flocks;  
Thou taintest my pastures; Neither wolf nor Fox  
Is half so furious; They, by stealth, can prey,  
Perchance, upon a lamb, and so away;  
But thy bloodthirsty malice is so bold,  
Before my face to poison all my fold:  
I warn thee hence, come not within my list;  
Be still, what thou art thought, a Separatist.  ANAR. 
Thou art the spawn of Antichrist,  
And so is this thy Brother;  
Thou art a man of Belial,  
And he is such another:  
I say thou art a Priest of Baal,  
And surely I defy thee;  
To Satan I will leave thy soul,  
And never more come nigh thee.  PHILAR. 
A gentle riddance: O may never cross  
Fall heavier on this Land, than such a loss!  PHILOR. 
But think'st thou Swain, the great Assemblies eye  
Beholds not these base Sycophants that lie  
Close gnawing at the root, as well as those,  
That with the Romish Axe, strike downright blows  
On the main body of religion's tree?  
Think'st thou their sharp eyed Providence can see  
The Chamber counsels, and the close designs  
Of foreign Princes, and their secret Mines  
Of State Invention? Can their wisdom's room  
Through all the world, and yet be blind at home?  
No, no; Philarchus, the Assemblies hand  
Feels but, as yet, the Pulses of the Land,  
Seeks out the evil; and, with a skilful eye,  
Enquiers where the peccant humours lie;  
But when th' apparent symptoms shall disclose  
The certain griefs that vex and discompose  
Our universal Body; then, no doubt,  
Their active wisdoms soon will cast about,  
To make a glorious Cure, which shall enhance  
Heavens' greater glory, settle and advance  
The rest of groaning Zion, to th' increase  
Of their own honour, and great Britain's peace.  PHILAR. 
My bended knee shall never rise till then.  PHILOR. 
Heaven ne'er shall rest, till heaven shall say Amen.  
FINIS.