A full and complete Answer against the Writer of a late Volume set forth, entitled A Tale in a Tub, or A Tub-Lecture: with a Vindication of that ridiculous name called roundheads.  
Together with some excellent verses on the defacing of Cheapside cross.  
Also proving that it is far better to preach in a Boat than in a Tub.  
By THORNY AILO, anagram.  
LONDON, Printed for F. Cowles, T. Bates, and T. Banks. 1642.   

First, The Complaint of the abused most ridiculous roundheads.  

COme, brethren, let's deplore our woeful state,  
Since all we have done is almost undone:  
Our pains and charges both betimes and late  
Is like the battery of an Eld●● Gun;  
We back again unto our trade must fall,  
Nor shall we be allowed to preach at all.   

And we from Sylla to Charybdis cast  
And from Chrybdis back to Sylla hurled,  
From wrong to injury, from grief that's past,  
To woe that's present, we rub through the world,  
twixt hawk and Buzzard, we seem Planet-struck,  
'Midst Chance and Fate, bad Fortune and ill Luck.   

'Tis manifest that we have done our best,  
To bring all wit and learning in disgrace;  
Tho Church and churchmen we do still molest,  
In hope we each might have a Preachers Place:  
Our zeal hath still the House of Prayer denied,  
And many a barn and Stable sanctified.   

What have we not done? we have raved and railed,  
Vn●ail'd, reviled, exclaimed, and made a noise,  
Broke windows down, left nothing unassailed,  
And wanting men (to clamour) borrowed boys:  
We have most stoutly played the beasts like men,  
In hope to be all beneficed, (But when?)   

'Tis said, that they which China dishes make,  
Do bury them in the earth an hundred years:  
Their maker's being dead, their heirs do take  
Those dishes from the earth, and all our fears  
Is, that do what we can with works and wishes,  
Our labours will be like to China dishes.   

For now again the wicked 'gin to rise,  
And call us roundheads, and such scurvy names,  
And do our pure profession scandalize  
With Libels, Pamphlets, and most true exclaims:  
So that we gape like pining Tantalus,  
For all we have done is wroth seant a louse.   

But why do I thus toll our griefs in metre, Prose is meeter for our capacities by half, hang Poets and Poetry, we could never endure them, no verse is more sweet than a man's neck-verse (if it be said in season) and as for rhyme, it is as much distasteful to us as Reason, Yet I would needs know by what Reason we have the name of roundheads put upon us; methinks our heads are no rounder than our forefathers: Some say they call us so, because our tongues do troll more roundly than our ancestors did, and that they did use honest Square dealing, and we only profess and practise Round Talking or speaking. Others say, that we are so termed, because we do cut our hair shorter than our ears; and the reason is, because long hair hinders the sound of the Word from entering into the heart: and (truly) it is no shame for a man to wear his own ears. Yet in the 19 Chapter of Leviticus, and the 27 verse, we are forbid to cut round the corners of our heads, or to mar the tufts of our beards; but those words were spoken to the Jews by Moses, and all the world knows that we are Gentiles, we have nothing to do with Jews or ceremonies, I can eat Pork and Pig (which was forbidden to the Jews) and I love a good Sow or a Bore next my wife and myself.  
Others there be that say we are called roundheads, in regard that by our heads we are more like Globes than those that wear their hair long, and man being a little world, is by the roundness of the head a figure or emblem of the greater.  
Morgan Llewellin (that grave Greek Author) saith in the ninth Chapter of his Litigious aphorisms, That Bias the Philosopher was borne in an Haven town of Jonia, called P●i●ne: This Bias had a Round Running head, and he devised (from the mould of his head) the first Round bowls, in memory whereof they are called Bias bowls to this day; but the world is too full of rubs now, and most heads run like bowls, contrary to the Bias, that an honest man can hardly win a good game all his life time.  
There are some that report, that we are called roundheads, and Ovall-heads, by reason of the similitude of an egg, I mused why that comparison was, but at last I perceived, that the a●lusion was not to the oval for me of the Egg, but to the addleness of the brains in the head, which I hold to be very significant.  
There was a fellow lately did set forth a Pamphlet, entitled A Tale in a Tub, or A Tub Lecture; The speaker of it he saith was one My heel mend sole, an inspired Brownist, and a most upright Translator: The house (where it is said to be spoken) was near Bedlam; the time when, the 21 of December last, and the writer's name of it, is only under the two threadbare letters of I. T.  
I could almost persuade myself, that those letters of I. T. should stand for John Taylor the aquatical Poet, and yet methinks he should have preferred a boat before a tub to make a pulpit of, for a boat is more primitive to preach out of, than a Tub or a Kinderkin. A fisher's boat once served the best Preacher that ever was, for a canonical Pulpit; but let that business alone, and return to the Tub. It is not impossible, but a cobbler may draw or vent a Firkin of small wit out of a hogshead, and (verily) methinks it was a rare business, that the hogshead did not leak when the man ran over amain; But it is the property and policy of a Learned man to barrel up more than he can broach. There was such virtue once in Tub, that a grave and wise Philosopher made choice of one for his study, which tub he valued so highly, that he would not change it for the Place of Alexander the Great, (or Alexander of St. Magnus') and that may be the reason that our brother (the cobbler) made choice of a Tub, (he that is offended at it, I wish him in Cornelius his Tub, and that is a pocky Tub, as a French Gentleman told me the other day) but to return to our purpose, I have read of a people inhabiting somewhere beyond the unknown Southern World (or Terra Australis Incognita) these people do once a year offer their old shoes and boots to their Heathen Gods, O what a mighty trade might a preaching cobbler drive there being able alone of himself, to prepare and offer the Sacrifice, and so preach the oblation Sermon too, I know a worthy member fit to be an Assistant to him, one that is originally a heel-maker, but now he is an inspired expounder, there are so many of us now a days in England, that some may be well spared into other countries.  
In the history of Spain in the City of Salamanca, there dwelled a most heroical and Magnificent cobbler named Signior Laza●illo Bobadilla de Tormes, this brave spark (at his death) and on his deathbed called his eldest son to him, and after he had given his last blessing, he gave him this counsel. My son (quoth he) I must leave thee, thou knowest that my father (and thy Grandfather) was a famous Cordwainer in civil, thy mother a miller's daughter of Toledo, they and I here live in fame and reputation, and I die a man renowned for my Art. And therefore I charge thee (on my blessing) that thou do thy best endeavour to retain the dignity of the Majesty of so great a family. Truly, a man of such mighty spirit was too good to be a Spaniard, a Papist or a cobbler, had he been inspired as some of our Brethren are, he would have proved that Simon called Simon Magus was at Rome once, (welfare all good tokens he broke his neck there) but as concerning Simon Peter, many wise men will never believe that, he was there, though the Papists say to the contrary and with Tooth and nail defend their furious asseverations. Also he would have proved Pope Jone to have been both literally and mystically the Arrant whore of Babylon.  
It is devoutly acknowledged that we have had many Worthy and zealous Brethren that have stiffly stood for the cause, (as the Sisters can testify if they please) as namely the reverend Mr. How the cobbler, The most industrious Mr. Walker the Ironmonger, the zealous Mr. Greene the feltmaker, the painful Mr. Spencer the Stablegroome, the pavior of Monmouth, the Sowgelder of Wallingford, the Barber and Baker of Abingdon, and many hundreds more of true religious miller's Weavers, I had almost for got tailors, but that one Mr. Squire, a Gentleman of that function at Roderhith beinga double yarded man, because he hath two, but neither of them London measure, he is a mighty painestaker for us all in the true w●y of railing down Learning, wit, order and decency, what though he fail now and then in stretching silver lace on a petticoat, that he can frugally save out of 4. yards' compass one yard; I say a tailor may stretch lace and conscience, and his bill too, but all is one for that, he is a true zealot & so forth, but though these have the honour to be named in our catalogue of remembrance, yet one of our chief props and pillars, is ingratefully forgotten, he being a man of such a vast merit, that it is a shame he should be buried alive (in his fame I mean) the first letter of his name is a brewer's clerk, he is a man that hath more in him then all the world is worthy to see or know, he hath some pith or weight in him & had he but courageously attempted the downfall of the Babel cross in Cheapside, if he had been but valiantly seconded he would would have laid it level with the pavement, for he fears not the Hangman, and is able to keep a Quarter as big as half a year with any man.  
But I am afraid that our cake is but dough baked, (though our zeal was warm enough to heat the Oven as hot as a furnace) for we are crossed, and the cross stands to baffle and brave us, and further an unhappy pated fellow did lately write these following Verses, in the behalf of the cross, & disgrace of us.    

Verses upon the defacing of Cheapside cross, with the Pictures of Christ and Saint Peter.  
HOw? steal the lead from Cheapside-cross (O base)  
I'll take my oath on't 'tis a hoavy case:  
Some say the devil did it, and I grant  
The devil is a mighty Puritan.  
He never could endure the cross because  
Man (on the cross) was ransomed from his claws;  
But whosoever 'twas, Brownist, Punk or Pimp:  
If not the devil, 'twas the devil's imp,  
What e'er he may pretend, he is a gross  
Dambed Jew, that tortures Christ upon the cross?  
I wonder why the watchmen did not scare umh,  
Sure 'twas some sleeping watch that lacked a 'larum  
And so St. Peter (whom our Saviour chose)  
One of his twelve Apostles, had his Nose,  
And both his arms knocked of, were was the Cock  
That did not wake S. Peter at that knock?  
Christ made him an Apostle, now who can  
Without his Arms make him 〈…〉  
Some crop-ear did it in revenge I fear,  
Because St. Peter cut off Malchus ear.  
What did the babe, what did our Lady do?  
Poor Innocents alas, they suffered too.  
This shows the devil's brood, like th'Irish willed,  
Will spare no man or woman, maid or child:  
Now my opinion of the cross is this,  
It is amiss to such as make't amiss.  
To such as reverence it, or adore it,  
Or say their prayers to it, or before it.  
Such do pervert it from its proper use,  
And turn an Ornament to an abuse.  
Turks, Infidels, moors, Pagans, Heathen, Jews,  
They know not Christ, therefore no Crosses use.  
And no true Christian justly can repine,  
To let a cross stand as a Christian sign.  
Knaves may deface it, fools may worship it,  
All which may be for want of grace or wit,  
To those that wronged the cross this is my curse,  
They never may have crosses in their purse.  
And thus Brethren you may perceive and see, how these jigmaking jeering Poets, do with their pestiferous rhymes (or Verses) support and prop up that Golden-Leaden nest of Idols and Images, but for a conclusion, if I cannot have it overthrown, demolished, cast down, razed, confounded, overturned, defaced, delapidated, destroyed, laid waste, ruinated, subverted, or call it what you will, (so it be taken away) and the lead melted into bullets to kill Irish Rebels; I say if I cannot have it so, I will wish it so, and there is an end before Finis.  
FINIS.