MOST CURIOUS MERCURIUS BRITTANICUS, ALIAS, SATHANICUS, answered, cuffed, cudgelled, and Clapper-claude.  
Han Gupak Navem Ercu Rius,  
Quar Teratray Torb Ritan Nicus.  
By Interpretation.  
Hang up a Knave Mercurius, Quarter a traitor Britannicus.  
BRittanicus, have at thee, look to thyself, for good faith I am John TAYLOR, and let it not make thee proud, that I am pleased to descend so low as to write either to thee or of thee. Your prophetic writings, (with Booker's conjunction) and delicate foisted Declarations, and Relations (being all Nothings) of their worthy Orders, Acts, and Votes, with their Don Quixotticall, Amadis de Galldicall Battles and airy Victories, which being with judgement and discretion weighed and considered are Nothing, nor ever will be any thing to any purpose.  
And if the round jobbernoll of Brittanicus were but capable of the capacity of owley-glass, he might see that all the great Somethings which he so dignifies, falsifies and magnifies, are nothing, have done Nothing (but mischief) which is worse than Nothing.  
You are merrily pleased to call Aulicus the Scripe, or Register to the Junto, whereby I perceive that you can break jests better than make them, and that you have a Foolish Rogueish desire to jeer your betters, but that your plentiful want of Wit is your great impediment.  
Then you fall a Scoffing the Nobility here (which is no news as you promised a Relation of news in your lying title) but sure it is no new thing (though worth nothing) It is your weekly custom to promise the People news, and pay them with nonsense, your infamous works have titles of Relations, and the frothy substance within is nothing, but your own inventions, fopperies, and fictions, for what knowledge of the affairs of great Britain can the people pick out of your Ignorant and Ridiculous railing and reviling His Majesty, His royal Queen, Honourable Counsellors, and all our Nobility, Gentry or others, with the Reverend Clergy, calling them Papists, Jesuits, Priests; are these things new intelligences, no, all the World knows those damnable designs to be no news from you. But it were news worth the hearing, to hear any truth at all from you, and it is supposed that you writ purposely to make yourself merry, and for some other Trencher Respects, to delight as wise men as yourself in reading and laughing at your fooleries.  
What knowledge of intelligence, or what profit have the people for their money and time spent, in buying and reading your scoffing scandals & calumnies, you are pleased to bestow fine epithets upon them, as fantastical Heads and hides, and the grave and Reverend judges your wickedness is pleased to trench upon Rastal's Abridgements, and to call them rascals, neither can the sergeant at law's Quoyfe, or judge's nightcap scape the flout of your fool's cap, the Quoyfes (you say) are Quoifes of injustice, and the nightcaps of false Judgement; Then you boast of your (an none but yours) Parliaments late success, and your Scottish brethren's advance, It is well known, that your Parliament hath the Art to Create, make, form, fashion and frame success into what shape they please, and be it either good, bad, or indifferent, they can metamorphose it into fears, jealousies, public thanksgivings, and these ingredients being melted with zeal in the secret Chrusible of the public-faith, and so with hey pass and repass legerdemain it is Transformed into money, and that money into Rebellion. For your brethren (the Scots) advance, I will give you leave to brag of their success.  
Then you seem to be displeased at Aulicus, for speaking truth when he called you rebels, I do heartily wish that you might truly give him the lie, but if you be not rebels, I shall suppose Faux, and Ravilltack to be Honest men, and that Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, Hackett, Penrye, John a Leiden, and Knipperdolling died true Martyrs.  
Britanicus says, the ensign is yet unhanged, that said he would kill the King, 'tis very likely, for I am sure you have hanged, Imprisoned, murdered, plundered or beggared as many as you could lay hold on, of such as were either ecclesiastical or temporal Protestants, as would spend their livelihoods and dearest blood in defence of their true Religion, and service of their sovereign. But your evasion is, that your traitorous ensign did not mean King Charles, But general King is the man he meant to kill, in this you are a jesuited Equivocater in general, and a lying Knave in particular; you brag what a brave Cornelius Burgess you have, he is a very wholesome Purified and Repurified man, for the Records of the spiritual Court doth keep an account, that he hath been twice purged in that court, for two female servants of his, who by his joining of Jyblets were both great with child in his own house. But these spiritual Court purgings, was to weak physic to work upon him, so that he (relapsing) fell to the old trade again, for which he was to be let blood, purged, dieted, and disciplined in the High-Commission; But that he and his friends so laboured the dissolution of that Court, that it was abolished, and Cornelius (by that means) was left uncured, and I doubt uncurable, and I have heard of Cornelius his Tub, which is the fittest Pulpit for him and his Rebellious doctrine, he is no Cornelius Tacitus, (as you say) but it were better for the peace of the Church and State, if he were Tacitus, with all the Rabble of his Tribe of Sectaries; Tacitus was a Roman Historian, and wrote the lives of some wicked Heathen Emperors, but your Loquatious Burges (whose discretion had more appeared had he been Tacitus) hath with the Vollubillity of his seditious verbosity, omitted Suetonius and destroyed Tranquillius; In a word, he hath talked so much strife and mischief, that thereby our former blessed Peace and Tranquillity is as rare to be found as Truth and Loyalty is either in him, or in his Imposture Scribe Mercurius Britanicus.  
Next; he pursues the Bishops (in the old Beaten way of railing) which is as common as the barking of dogs, and therefore I hold him not worthy of an Answer. His Ridiculous scoffs of the Earl of Bristol, the Lord Cottiugton, and Sir Francis Windebank, calling them Spanish figs and Reisins, is such poor silly Rogish stuff, that the folly of Will Summer, or John Dorye were profound wisdom in respect of it.  
Then Sir, (to show your love to Learning (like the rest of your sweet Master's Magnificoes, Clarissimoes' Committee and common-council men) you jeer at the schools, which is a place renowned for a famous library through more Kingdoms Provinces and Nations, then are in the Christian World, and the ever renowned founder (Sir Tho. Bodley, will for ever stand in the Records of fame, when the memory of the Calumniators of that Magnificent fabric shall Rot, Stink, and be justly held odious to God and Man.  
The Archbishop of Armaugh falls next into the rolling stream or Railing strain of your Aspersions, and indeed your commendations and approbation either of him, or any other man, is one of the greatest disparagements to blur and blemish a good Reputation, on the other side, the Ridiculous and malicious scandals which you are pleased to bluster against. Virtue, doth illustrate the brightness of it, and make it shine more Gloriously perspicuous, (for mine own part I had Rather Brittanicus, and all his friends were hanged then that either he or they should be at the charges to bestow a good Report on me, for every honest man would take me to be a Brownist or Anuabaptist, a rascal, a rebel and a traitor.  
The profound learning, the sincerity of the Protestant Religion, the Loyalty to his sovereign, the extraordinary pains of his studying, the manner, Method, and Elegancy of his frequent Preaching, his Charity, Affability and carriage of his Exemplary life and conversation; all these virtues, being the unquestionable practice of this most Reverend Bishop, cannot escape the snapping and snarling of Brittanicus, whereby the danger of a Knaves good Report is most plainly manifested.  
Brittanicus, you do Amplify, and seem to stellify the Rebellious Lord Denbigh, and some others, with the Attainted and Outlawed Say and seal, and if there were no other proofs of their Delinquency, your justification were sufficient Testimony. dear-ring (you brag is come to you, I pray you make much of him, he is an excellent jewel to hang in the ear of a gallows, at which time a turned shirt of Holland may serve him for a Winding sheet (if the crows be not cozened.) You say you look for Hopton next, (you may look for him, but I think you dare neither look or see him where he is, if you look for him in Imitation of deering, you may look your Eyes out, and if you and your Masters and Members had the grace to be good Subjects till Hopton turn rebel, the miseries of this Kingdom would quickly have a happy period; in the mean space look to Hopton, for Hopton looks for you.  
You extol the Lord Gray of Warke and your Speaker (nine yards London measure above Ursa minor,) prophesying that they with the Common-Counsell-men shall fill Chronicles; in this you are believed, for there are many men chronicled for disloyalty to their Princes, and setting of Kingdoms in combustious contention, and why not they. And then you (victoriously) do jeer our victories, you say we took certain prisoners, one was a Trooper with five shllings 3ᵈ in his pocket, three men in scarlet breeches, and one dragoon in an old plush doublet, in this you keep your promise with your chapmen, in letting them have some news for their money, and no doubt but some of them have so much wit as to believe you.  
But you prize your general's blood at an inestimable value, that every drop of it is a Ruby or an emerald, It is wonder that his exceeding Excellency doth not beat thee for thy gross flattery, for he knows himself to be scarcely worth a pebble, and his Loyalty to his King were overvalued at the rate of a Saint martin's pearl.  
You tax us that all our letters are falsities, and we know that though they be written with all grounds of real truths, yet you have the art to falsify them, either by new transcribing, misinterpreted and prejudicate constructions, or forged counterfeit Letters of your own devising and writing, which Letters have been often interpreted by yourselves, sometimes at Sea, out of a Catch or an Oysterboate, by your victorious and unmatchable, Admirable admiral, and others have been secretly conveyed to your generals and Commanders, who have easily taken the poor papers, and sent them to London, by speedy order they have been Printed, (as full of your own lies, as your malice and the devil could thrust into so small rooms) than they have been dispersed as dangerous plots and conspiracies, plotted by Papists, Royalists, and Cavaliers; and public thanksgivings commanded to be given in all Churches for great and extraordinary deliverances from fabulous dangers of your own devising.  
Prinne you are pleased to entitle, your Protomartyr, in the Worst times, and a Champion in the Best, Prinne hath heard of me lately in a larger tract, in my Answer to his traitorous Pamphlet of the Power of Parliaments; and Vindication of the new Counterfeit great-seal, Pennrye and Prinne are somewhat near in an anagram, they are nearer in their Treasons, and no doubt they will be nearest, when Prinne suffers as Pennry did at Tyburn (for less Treason) in Queen Elizabeth's time.  
The truth is, you do make bold with the names of some, who have been so bold to beat you squarely, and made you run away Roundly, for which causes I will tolerate you to be angry, and revenge your Master's cause and your own with railing and playing the fool, that's another full point.  
It is your profitable and safest way to keep your distance in staying at London or Westminister, & abuse his Majesty, and as many as do Love Serve and Honour Him at Oxford, But your lies are not limited only hither, for their universality flees all over Great Britain, by the false name of news: and because the Gentleman is so exquisite and exact in taxing names in stead of news, the name of Mercurius Britanicus, (as I am Certified) is James Hudson, which in an anagram is the Sphinx, which the Oedipus of my Pericranion makes a true signification, of, for it opens the Riddle of the Matter, the Marrow, and the very intrincicall secrets of your name and Pamphlets. As thus, James Hudson, anagram, O, HIS madness,  
Thus your very name includes the nature of your weekly Relations, the madnues of James Hudson, hath made abundance of fools, and knaves as mad as himself, he is mad in writing, and they are out of their Wits, with countenancing, buying, Reading, and believing his madness, which doth blow the coals that Inflames this Mad Rebellion. But himself and his damnable lies and Labours, are more Really described in another anagram, of Mercurius Brittanicus, with his own name mixed with it; As thus. Mercurius Brittanicus, James Hudsonne, Annagramma, burn MI NONSENSE, why, IT IS accursed DREAMS. You see Sir, that your own name, with your accurst Pamphlets Title, doth most plainly demonstrate the lewdness, badness, and madness of your pestiferous news, and the reason is, you acknowledge it worthy to be Burnt, as being your nonsense, the Question Why it should be Burnt is, because it is accursed Dreams.  
Thus you see that tailor the Waterman (whose name you abused and scoffed amongst his betters) hath fiddled a little with your name for this once.  
I could play with some of your Master's Memberships such as have gotten too good estates in being bad servants to His Majesty, As, 
Henry Vane Senior, anagram, ruins any Honer,  
Henry Vane junior, anagram, I honor vain Ruyn,  Or, 
William Fines, anagram, I am Sinful Evil.   
I could fool with the quondam Grooms name, and tell him, there was a time when he was Rich and very poor at once, till by his majesty's Grace, he was Rich in Honour and estate, and now by his Ingratitude, he is turned poor again, scarce worth a Clout or rag of Holland.  
Then you tell us that Denmark and France are puzzled by the Sweadish design; indeed it behooves all the Kings of the Earth, to take it into serious consideration how dangerous it is for monarchy, to be Assaulted by a Rebellious anarchy. And (Arrogantly) you spend your judgement, that nothing can help but Spain, and the pawn of Ireland, yes Sir, there is one that you know not, (or scarcely ever think on) that both can and will help, without the help of man or foreign Nations, or pawn of a Kingdom. If you would but take God in your mind, you would quickly guess who it is that will help, but your cause is so bad, that you are fain to buy and beg help of your Brethren, (some Rebellious Scots) for the payment of whom, you have pawned more than Kingdoms, for you have mortgaged your souls to the devil, by your execrable perjury, oaths, vows, Protestations and Covenants.  
You hear that Holland is about to set forth some Declaration at this time, if it be of his own writing, I shall do him the Honour to Laugh at it. You call Warwick, your unmatchable admiral, a brave man by Sea and Land, It is true that he is unmatchable in this Rebellion, and his marks of a Brave man, is his wicked constancy in an accurst cause. Sir Tho. Fairfax, and Sir William Brereton are to high (you say) for any title that you can give them, they are not so high as they deserve, by ten steps at least.  
Then you tell us, that you had forgot one piece of news, you may do well, to let us have some small piece for our money, for you have told us of no news yet, But what is your piece of news, some good stuff no doubt, like the rest before; But stand a side and be uncovered, this news is an humble wish, that (for the Edification of the Ignorant people) their two thin houses of Lower uppermost, and upper lowermost (which he calls the Estates) would be pleased, beneath and above, to annex to their commands, for the Reading them in all Churches, for the city knows enough already, and the Country to little, And is it not fit that seeing all Order, Decency, and Doctrine of Christianity is (irreligiously) and Blasphemously thrust out of the Churches with you, that in the Room thereof, the Railings and Revilings of this Weekly Rabshekah may be brought in, which may in future ages make Mercurius Brittanicus, as famous for his Madnewes and Accurst nonsense Dreams, as Mahomet is for his Koran.  
Then you say, that the Parliament were in the worst condition, if it could not command all other Courts in punishing Delinquents, but if your Thing at Westminster, were a Parliament, they would have punished you for traitorous libels, against the sacred Majesties of the King and Queen, the royal posterity, the Reverend Clergy, the faithful Nobility and Gentry, the true hearted Commonalty, and finally, against the Peace of all His majesty's Kingdoms, these are such delinquencies, that they deserve less then to be dreamt a Parliament, that gives them encouragement and Rewards, these are no Acts, or Symptoms of a Parliament.  
Lastly your words are, That you do not take arms against the King, but against those about Him, Cod is about Him, and I hope ever will be, and environ him with his all saving protection, the blessed success he hath had in being still preserved from dangers, might make you believe that God is about him, if you mean his trusty servants that are about him, that's no news, it is their Honour to be hated for their Master's sake. And if he will needs involve himself into their ruin (Than belike you mean utterly to ruin them and the King together) you can but only pray and sigh for the misfortune of the King, with a public thanksgiving, Doing still our duty to the King. We thank you for your manners, I know none you have.  
Thus monster Mercurius Brittanicus, I have traced, tracked and truly answered all your madness for one week, which is as much as if I had confuted all that you have done, can, or will do, but if you meddle with me again. I shall make so bold, to bung up your Chaps with a Gravesend Toast.  
FINIS.