SOBER REFLECTIONS, OR, A Solid Confutation Of Mr. Andrew Marvel's WORKS, In a Letter Ab IGNOTO ad IGNOTUM.  
Por un Ruin Ruin y Medio.  
LONDON, Printed for H. H. Ann. Dom. 1674.   

SOBER REFLECTIONS, OR, A Solid Confutation of Mr. A. M's late WORKS.  
In a Letter, Ab Ignoto ad Ignotum.  
MArvel of Marvels, for that is the Character given you by a certain sort of Impertinent People who love mischief; Mischief your Minion Medium, which like a rich vein runs through the heart of all your Syllogisms, to the utter impoverishing of their Consequences; for, from a vicious medium (as unfledged a Logician as you are) you may Cocksure, infer, there must necessarily follow a vile consequence.  
But, how defective soever you are in your Syllogisms, you make ample satisfaction; nay, you supererrogate in your Dilemmas, they are as surprising as a Welsh-hook, with Pull her to her, push, her from her; of like a Rope and Butter, if th'one slip, t'other will be sure to hold. Your Similitudes are most apposite and unparallelled, V. G. even as a Wheel-barrow goes rumble-dee, rumble-dee, so my Lord Mayor owes me Five hundred pounds. Your Examples are without example; for Quibbles you are the very word-pecker of word-peckers, and for Rhetorical flourishes (like a Whistler before a Morris-dance) you carry it away from them all with flyingcolours, your Works being most artificially set forth and beautified with choice pieces of Poetry, like a Cow-turd stuck with Gillyflowers, most dexterously inter-woven with Natural Experiments; most richly embroidered with Theological Notions; most magnificently Tapestryed with Reasons of State, hanging down in Clusters like bunches of Grapes; and most prodigiously stuffed with Witty Conceits, thicker than Cloves in a Gammon of Bacon at Easter. Your Style is for the most part smooth and insinuating, yet happily diversified here and there with Jirks and short Girds, as if you had a spice of the String-halt: although in your Clauses and Parentheses you are as unhoopable as if you stood with one leg at Dover and the other at Calais.  
But, to make up more roundly to you, and to enumerate your Metaphysical parts, were not comparisons Odoriferous, I would play you off, for Cases of Conscience and Knotty points of Divinity, to Hugh Peter's himself: Yea, you have with the same Pharisaical Devotion, as liberally communicated your Spiritual Talon, yet I would not advise you to follow the Precedent too far, left you fall again into the Clutches of Father Gregory, etc. Mum's the Word, you understand me. As for your Morality I am unwilling to harp too much on that string; thou Man of Morals seek severity elsewhere, I dare not be thy caution. I must confess it is enough to throw any man into a Fit of the Staggers to reflect upon your Confidence: that you who have been yourself first Graduated at Billingsgate, and afterwards Civilised in Barbary (your own Writings are sufficient Evidence:) that you, to whom railing is as natural as habitual, a property belonging to you (quarto modo) should have so cauterised a Conscience as to brand your Adversary without having the least regard to his Function, with Petulancy, want of Humanity, etc. and this you modestly term only a competent stock of Ill-Nature, which you always carry about you, as absolutely necessary to self-preservation, left you should be found felo de se; risum teneatis Amici? Is not this a pleasant companion?  
How it tickles my fancy to think what a general Jubilee there would be, and how unmercifully it would edify with your Party to see you set Doctor- Cathedraticus in a Cucking-stool, Lording it over your Female-Auditory, the Water- Nymphs of Wapping, Magisterially maintaining your polemical Arguments and Debates, & tanquam ex Tripod, pronouncing your Oracles concerning the Power of Princes; the Liberty of the Subject; the Authority of the Magistrate; the Obedience of the People; the Duty of the Prelates and Pastors unto their Flock; cum multis aliis: And, when you have tired your Auditors as well as your Readers, with your frequent Tautologies upon the same subject, 'tis but shifting your leg in your Gallop (left you fall into a Dog-trot) and changing your Text, all will do well I'll warrant you.  
I'faith never leave them so (like Sir Martin Marral) when ones hand's once in there's no giving over, one Lesson more on the Lute, and then let them ring the Bell, vociferat, and proclaim unto them, with Mouth as wide as Oyster-womens', who stand gaping at you like their Oysters, that now they are to expect Prodigies. Preach unto them the Wonders of the Deep, and in Confirmation of your Doctrine, let them see that you can at the very first plunge descend Doctor- Dodypole, and rise up again soused Gurnet: This Metamorphose will doubtlessly work with them like the shave of an Elder stick scraped upwards and downwards. Yet, for all that, before you can have shaked your ears, they will have resettled their stomaches, and then they will set out their Throats afresh, and be bawling for a new Frolic, gratify them once more with a Cast of your Office, convince them that you can out-dive Gretorix, play me the Didapper featly, dive me below Bridge, and rise up again visa vis de Lambeth, that your Adversary may see, mal-gre all his endeavours, you still bear your head above water; nor can all the water in the Thames, though at springtide cool your courage, no more than it can wash your foul-mouth clean; dico hoc sobria tristitia: I must unbutton my bosom, it is a very foul Mouth indeed, I speak not in the least to flatter, but as it is really my opinion.  
Mais a la Guerre, a la Guerre, Summon forth the Foe to a Sea-fight, let him know you came not thither to fish for Tadpoles, Allons courage de Tripas Corazon; he shall find you per Mare per terras semper idem, in utrumque paratus. What though you are neither Flesh nor Fish, nor good Red-herring, your Adversary is not used to Otter-hunting, never fear him Man, let him come if he dare: Oh happy if he come not, he shall soon be taught what it is to meddle with any of the Race of Dametus hereafter.  
Thus may you, by these heroical achievements, dub yourself Metropolitan Knight-Errant of this Age, sileant Miracula Memphis; no more let the fabulous relations of Monstrous Whales be read, their coming up the River will seem to portend little, when so stupendious a Codshead as yours has been seen as high as Lambeth; 'Tis you will be the stupor mundi, and swell our Almanacs with strange Prognostics.  
And now, Marinated Sir, having thus generously maintained your Amphibious valour, Hixius Doxius reconveigh yourself ('tis done in the twinkling of a Bedstaff) unto the sweet Society of the Sisters of the Scolding Sodality the Countess of Puddle-dock, they will receive you with this cheerful Antyphon,  
Welcome Cloris to the Shore,  
Thou shalt go to Sea no more.  
You'll find them so tenderly officious, that both the fore and hinder part of a Shift shall be at your service, for the rubbing your Politic Pragmatical Pate. But, what think you now of a comfortable importance? I am afraid in this, critical minute you would be found minus habens, and when once a man pleads none solvent, it is high time to put up his Pipes and go to sleep: And so for a while I will leave you to your rest; but, when you have been well rubbed and scrubbed, and subed, my dainty fine Don, we'll play t'other party at Tennis, or Bandy a Ball or two and part fairly.  
Bonjour, bonjour Monsieur; What, infected with your Adversaries disease, a dull lazy distemper? a Cheval, a Cheval, I hope I have not waked you too early, you'll be froward all the day after, Naturam expellas furca licet; well now we are upon Terra firma again, What shall we be at next? not Controversy I beseech you, Pruritus disputandi scabies Ecclesiae. Besides, I believe you are no more a slave to Principles of Religion (here I confess myself a Plagiary) than you are to the Venetian Galleys: and, when once such mushroom Monsieurs as you (I speak only as to your Politic Capacity) for I know you are a Gentleman descended from the Stand-ups by your Father, and the straddlings by your Mother: When such Mountebanks shall Pirk up upon the Stage, and pretend to impose upon Church and State, we need not consult Mr. Conjurer Lily; there would be no star I'faith for the Gentry and Nobility of England, no more than there would be for the Clergy. That Parish must needs be well Governed where the Devil is Constable, I confess myself as to the Politics 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: Yet, it may be worth your observation, that though by the Act of Oblivion our sins were forgiven us, yet we are not warranted by it to forget ourselves: The Parish-Priest ought to remember that once he was a Clerk. It is not now as when Andreas lived. Is it possible you should be such a Goliath as you make yourself? that, like a Fly in a Dung cart you raise such clouds of dust, that to allay them there must be summoned in the whole posse Archidiaconatus of a Province. Is it side dignum that the whole posse-Comitatus of the County should be on foot, and that there should not be one Man found who dare cry Boo to a Goose. Aotos Perros con essos huessos. If you impose at this rate, you will come to put false Ninepins upon us at last. Sure you imagine that in this Iron Age men have Ostrich stomaches, and can digest any thing, otherwise you would not hold forth such bold Paradoxes, as that there can be a Calumny-Office erected, and you not the sole Monopolist; or, that to be your Antagonist is the most dexterous, cheap, and legal way of Simony. These are, I profess, Mysteries not calculated for my Meridian, they leave me grovelling in the dark. I am so thick-sculled I cannot apprehend, that to be your Antagonist, should qualify a man for a Paritor, much less advance him to a fat Benefice. 'Tis luck is all, Winter or Summer, should it rain Benefices, 'twere a Noble to Nine pence, not one would fall on my head; yet, give me leave to tell you, it has been broken before now (by some Gifted with your Principles) and so has many an honest Man's besides for the same sin, viz. taking Unsanctityed courses, straying from the ways of Righteousness, this was the Doctrine of that Age) and treading in the forbidden paths of Allegiance; but let's be merry and wise, let's hear no more of those stories; you will tell us you have had new Lights enough to lead us out of that Cimmaerian-darkness, had we had but so much Grace as you to follow our late Reformers; Ho Ball ho, I thank you for your love, there's Money for your Mutton. I hold it as dangerous to follow an ignis fatuus, as to Dance the Cushion-Dance, a man may break his shins before he is aware; Play with me but hurt me not, via trita, via tuta. Well, plain deal's a Jewel, whoever denies you to have a great share of Wit, may celebrate his own Festival on Innocents-day, and would be shrewdly suspected to want Pig sauce himself (Brains and Sage:) But, that a man may have Wit, and yet a Fool have the keeping of it, is no Modern Philosophy, verbum sapienti: Ergo this concerns not you Mr. M. However, let me hint thus much unto you by the way, when ever Nokes, You or I undertake to Act a serious part, should we be so jocund to dance the Hay after it, 'twere as demonstrable as the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, there would be a Galli-crista always in the middle; but, 'tis too late to think of dancing now, let me re-mind you, Friend, you have had your Nap already, and I begin to feel sand in my Eyes; wherefore, you will tie me to you with the Cables of intolerable toughness, if you will give me leave to rest,  
MERRY ANDREW, Yours in Masquerade Theophilus Thorowthistle. Dated at my Manor of No-land in the Isle of Silly.   

Postscript  
IF this Modicum quid should peep forth in Print now, we should have you at it, Resolute Bat; the Licence Numps, the Licence, Where's the Licence, Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? Besides, to your certain knowledge, Licentia omnes deteriores sumus: But, since this contains nothing against God nor the King, unless it be Blasphemy to speak against your Person, I am no more afraid than he who hid his head in a Bush, Non timeo circumspicio tantum. Although the Woodcock hide his Bill, he is to be found by a white feather in his tail: Tirar la piedra, y nasconder la Mano, curries too much of the Poltroon along with it; wherefore, when ever you command the Curtain to be drawn, you may see the Effigies of your humble servant; and then, if you have skill in Palmistry, look on my Forehead and tell me my Fortune.  
FINIS.