THE English Mountebank CASTING The Sickly Water OF THE STATE: Opening the several causes of her desperate Disease, and prescribing certain Sovereign Antidotes for the speedy Cure of all her Maladies. Dedicated to all true hearts that hearty desire Great Britain's perfect Cure.  
Printed in the Year 1647.   


The English Mountebank, etc.  
Romes' poison Spain's complots, the French designs,  
My skill foresees discovers undermines,  
And Scotland's too; that for our guodes or Gold;  
Kings, States, Laws, Religion's bought and sold.  
Why Saintlike Sacrilege doth impropriate,  
And calm Oppression swallows Church and State?  
Why close Hypocrisy bends his Courtly knee,  
Though (wanting all faith) would have all faiths free.  
I cure blind Eyes, Ears deaf, Tongues dumb, and tell  
What duller Spirits in the flack Nerves dwell:  
And by my Learning, and deep skill can show  
How humorous and irregular vices flow,  
And why the liver boyles with lust still blood;  
What makes the Stomach brook no meat that's good;  
Why the lose Palsy makes the Hands to tremble,  
Whether for love they spoke, or they dissemble,  
Why that the gouty Knees so stiffly bend,  
And Feet are swift for blood, but no good end.  
I cure all these and more, and seldom fail  
To draw all Humours through the guts or tail.   

My Antidote.  
TAke in the declining of the Sun, of the precious Herb called Christian Obedience, a good quantity: Of Uniformity in Religion, as much: Of Allegiance to Sovereignity; with a little of an herb called Supremacy, pick them 〈◊〉 than put them into the Chaffer of a good Conscience, clean scoured from the Rust of Ambition, Rebellion, Sacrilege, Perjury, Hypocrisy and covetousness, etc. Then put into them some few drops sliding from the Crystal fountain of and obedient and 〈…〉 the clear fire of fervent love; keep them stirring and in perpetual motion, till they become a Sovereign Salve; then take it off, and cool it with the breath of a sanctified Spirit; then treasure it up carefully in a vessel made of the pure clay of English Honour; apply it every Morning to your queasy stomaches, it undoubtedly cures you of the bloody issue, the King's Evil, the frenzy in your Heads, the aching of your hearts, and the Consumptions of your (lately lost) Liberties, and Estates; and make you as healthful as ever you were in all your lives, and your Land once more happier than ever, by dispelling all the Contagious vapours, and misty fogs that have so infected you with a deep Lethargy, and robe you of the sense of all your former happiness: Apply this Antidote, it will cost you little, considering the preciousness thereof.  

This passeth our Elixir, or the Stone  
Sought for by many, but obtained by none:  
Th' obstruction of the Liver, or the Spleen,  
This opens, mollifies, and purges clean:  
A secret 'tis assured for madness, folly,  
Wild jealousy, or cloudy Melancholy:  
It cures the Gout, it qualifies the Cause,  
Supplies the Commons Purse like th' oil o'th' Laws:  
This dries up Humours, Humours that abound,  
And our weak bodies this makes safe and sound.  
Buy then this Antidote at any Rate,  
It cures the sad disease of your sick State.   
Next (dear Countrymen) my man Jack Pudding shall show you a new fashioned Looking-glass, which once belonged to one Janus, wherein you may see backward at your former happiness, and forward to your ensuing misery: I am feign to show it you first in the dark, because you may see how each Meteor, or Ignis fatuus seems a Sun; but in the day coming near the Sun, they cannot be seen: Next in one of the new Lights (called Reformation) wherein you may perceive that some aspiring too high, have presumed too far. All persons are not fit for all places: Fools mistake, and overdo; wise men warm themselves at the fire, where children burn their fingers. Our Age sees many of these Babel's, whose Ruins will seem greater a far off then at hand: But to the matter:  
First (without the help of State-Spectacles) behold a King selected, whose Royal and Christian Reputation, Envy itself could not, nor dared to sully, enthroned in the hearts of a numerous and Loyal People, thrice happy in his Royal Consort, and 〈◊〉 pledges of their mutual loves, and our succeeding peace in their assured Succession; stored with crowded Magazines of Military provisions; at Sea powerful above his Ancestors, by a formidable Navy; governing his people in peace and prosperity; a King altogether worthy of such a Kingdom.  
Next cast your eye upon a Church so full of Lustre, Order, and Discipline, so garnished and enriched with Learning and Piety, so pure a form, as any Story or observation can attribute to any since Christianity became a profession. Next look upon a lustrious Nobility, a flourishing Gentry, plentifully sharing dignities and trusts in the Military, and Civil Magistracy, an obedient, peaceful, and contented Commonalty. The few opposers or interrupters of the peace of both Governments, being so few, that they scarce justified the name of a number: our Cities envied by our neighbours for their Government, opulency in present enjoyments, and assured growth of an increasing Trade; a Land populous, plenteous, and at unity with itself, admitting of no means, or diminution, but Miracle or War to bring it to misery and confusion, and the means how to beget such a War, so soon to ruin all this happiness, being of no less extent than a Miracle. Now how unhappy we are, look backward at so much blessing, and to say it was; let the Ingenious Reader judge.  
But now let us look forward to our own present Reformed condition of all this happiness; See a King rejected in his good name of King, and Christian, blasphemed: made poor by the loss of the poor deceived, and seduced hearts of an abused and seduced people; divorced from his Royal Consort, (a crime cursed upon Record) kept from the sight of his dear and Princely Issue; dispersed like a scattered Couvie; His succession become disputable, and though a King, yet trucked for, bought and sold, and now reduced to far less power than the Master of a private Family; A new Modelled Court, having not so much as the footsteps left of its former Beauty and Civility; A Church shuffled to indistinction; degrees unadmitted; Sects, Schisms, and Blasphemies, in this time, and Kingdom, vying with all those of past Ages, and Foreign Nations: Behold a Nobility clouded by the promilenous fogs arising from their inferiors, their Honours made Arbitrary, and no longer to continue then the Common Rout shall think convenient; A Gentry discountenanced by an introduced Party, awed by Tenants, and Servants, impoverished by long Sequestrations, and second purchases of their own lawful Inheritance; A giddy Communality, tumultuous, desiring something, but as yet they know not what, nor bound to discover till they know themselves: Their freedoms, liberty of person, property of Estates given away, and become mere Notions, and not vindicable, nor preservable by Law; Cities dispeopled, untraded, and impoverished by reason of extorting Committees, and Excises, etc. and as much confusion of Government, as diversity of opinions; All able proficients in Divinity and Law, upon the refusal of a not understood (or too well understood) Covenant, outed their free holds, and Lawful Rights, and in their places a supply of men would persuade the world there were a design to increase and propagate Devotion by an Introduction of Ignorance, which appears by Lawyers pleading, and Ministers Preaching; Ordinances against the known Laws of God and the Nation; A Land overwhelmed with inundations of Blood, harrassed and worn out by pays and quarterings, and almost grown wild for want of husbandry: And all this by a War raised by ourselves for Reformations sake, acted and prosecuted by and upon ourselves, as if we had in Cimmerian darkness lost the Spirits of sober Christians, and groped out the fury of inflamed Bacchinalls, and could find no place to scour our long rustied Swords, other than our own natural Bowels.  
It is a heightened and Superiative affliction to a diseased person, so only to be made to understand his defects, as to know them to be irreparable.  
To close up all, I have annexed a Moral Table worthy the perusal, Entitled Gryps.   

GRYPS.  

THe Griffon well allied, and great in power,  
Made challenge to be general Emperor  
Of beasts, and birds; whose title to decide,  
A general Council was proclaimed wide  
Through all the world, and every bird and beast  
Together met, the greatest, and the least.  
'Mongst these some crawling serpents, some with feet,  
And some with wings did at this Council meet,  
And claimed the place of piece, and did allege  
Full many ancient Laws of privilege  
For their high honour; but the chief was this;  
They proved themselves beasts out of Genesis.  
But when that Law was read, and it was found,  
Their treason brought a curse upon the ground;  
That ever since their poison did annoy  
Both birds and beasts, and oft did both destroy;  
Cloaking their fraud, guilding their villainy  
With ancient universal unity;  
Betraying truth with dark ambiguous lies,  
And cozening man of blessed Paradise:  
Adulterating, purging of the sense  
Of holy Writ under a good pretence:  
They had by general voice, strict banishment  
From coming near this Court of Parliament:  
And now the rest proceed; but by the way  
Arose another cause of some delay:  
Coming to choose a Speaker, bold Jack-daw  
Would interpose his skill, and vouch a Law,  
(The Law of Parasites) that each one might  
Speak what him list, 'gainst reason, or 'gainst right,  
And that no speaker needed, aught to be,  
Where such a mixture was; for if quoth he,  
We choose a bird, the beasts will all dissent  
If they a beast, we shall be discontent.  
This speech, though true in part, did all off end,  
Because they saw his busy tongue did bend  
To cross all business, and his wit devise  
To change the firmest knots to nullities.  
So they agreed together in this sort,  
To cut his nimble tongue a little short;  
For saucy tattling, where he should not teach.  
And being silent where he ought to preach.  
But he avoids this sentence with a quirk,  
Pleading of old he longed to the Kirke,  
Though seldom he came there; and each one took  
Him for no Clerk, until he claimed his book.  
Then they perceived his skill, and soon discerned  
How he to flatter and backbite was learned;  
Can mount a steeples top, and with the wind  
Turn like the weathercock his ready mind,  
Serving the time: therefore they onward pass  
To choose a Speaker; some would have the Ass,  
Because he could diminish nought nor add,  
But truth deliver, were it good or bad:  
Yet most misliked that choice, and those pronounce  
The Parrot fit, and some the nimble Ounce;  
Some the sweet Nighting all, and some the Dog,  
And some the Fox, the Baboon, some the Hog;  
Some Robin redbreast, or the speckled Thrush;  
Some Chantecleere, and some the Woodcock flush;  
Some chose the Ape, and some mislike his voice,  
So sundry factions rise from this hard choice.  
At last the Elephant persuades withal  
To take an equal course, and man to call  
As speaker, Judge, and umpire in this thing,  
Being by nature the world's general King.  
And he most fit t' appoint and to depute  
His own Imperial bird-beast substitute.  
To this they all consent, and to this end  
In humble wise to Man this message send:  
That he their Patron, Governor, and Lord,  
Would deign this mighty difference to accord  
With reason and authority. His consent  
Is soon obtained: now 'gins the Parliament,  
In which the Griffon thus gins his plea:  
Grand Emperor of Air, Earth, and Sea;  
I challenge by prerogative and birth,  
To be your Vicar general on th' Earth,  
O'er birds and beasts: The beasts I ought command,  
Because upon four feet like them I stand.  
The birds I ought to rule, cause I can fly  
With these my wings like them, and soar as high:  
I do surpass the beasts in having wings,  
The birds in legs, in tail, and other things:  
My force doth match the Lions, and my heart  
The Eagle, or excels them in each part.  
Your doom I therefore claim, that I may be  
Placed equal to my worth in sovereignty:  
And next yourself the Emperor be of Earth,  
According to the privilege of my birth.  
Then spoke the Elephant, and said, that he  
Ought over beasts the only Lord to be:  
His strength was great, & more than others far,  
His Honours more purchased in manly war:  
His learning more, the letter's understanding,  
And aptly doing all, wise man commanding.  
'Gainst him up risen the Sire of Banks his horse,  
And challenged him to try wit, worth, & force.  
This grew to heat, but then the mighty Rucke  
Soon parts the fray, each did from other pluck;  
Desires she might be heard, her challenge was  
To rule all birds, since she all birds did pass.  
The Wren strait hoped about, & said, his name  
Did show from what a royal stock he came.  
And every bird and beast, the great and small,  
Had his ambitious aim to govern all.  
Which having made, in silence all sat down,  
Being overawed with man's Imperial frown.  
Each feared, each hoped, until at length the Man  
Risen up, and to determine thus began:  
I was your Master made, you made for me,  
And whatsoever in the Globe there be,  
Hid or revealed, 'tis mine. And I alone  
Sole Emperor am, under that only One.  
Nor doubt you this; the question now in hand  
Is for the under Kingship of my land;  
For 'tis not fit that I should troubled be  
With every toy, when subjects disagree:  
But that my Precedent should still be nigh,  
Your doubts and jars t'appease and rectify.  
It only rests to show what parts are fit  
For government: That's courage, strength & wit:  
Mercy and justice, and the guard to those,  
Awe to command, dexterity to dispose.  
If any part of these be separate,  
The rule is most imperfect, and the State  
Falls to contempt, the laws are trodden down,  
The sceptre broken, and despised the Crown.  
This shows how many here have vainly sought  
For one good part, the wreath that many aught.  
That nor the Ruck, the Elephant nor Horse,  
Are fit to govern for their matchless force:  
Nor for their wit alone; for then the Ox  
Might make his claim too, and the subtle Fox  
Much less the silly Wren for honoured house,  
Nor the cat-fearing, Elephant-frighting-Mouse  
For these would breed contempt, & Athens owl  
Might challenge so night rule of every soul.  
Nor is it meet this Griffon should obtain,  
What by pretence of right he seeks to gain,  
Because his title halts on either side,  
Except in halves, he will himself divide.  
He is no beast: his talents, wings, and head  
Conclude against his challenge in my stead.  
Nor yet a bird: his body, leg's, and tail  
With evidence his arguments do quail.  
But if where proof lies hid, we may proceed  
By probabilities; from spurious seed  
He took his being, and would neither love,  
Being like to neither, but a Tyrant prove.  
And where he boasts his wondrous strength and hart  
It's false he doth pretend, because that part  
Which shows him Lion-like in shape, hid, hair,  
Doth of the Kingly-Lyon stand in fear.  
And that birds part which he from th' Eagle took,  
On the sky-towring Eagle dares not look.  
The Lion therefore I ordain and make  
The King of beasts; his awful voice shall shalt  
The proudest spirit. And the Eagle shall  
Be King of Birds, and overlook them all.  
This sentence past, the Parliament arose,  
And with these rules of truth the Sessions close.   

Epimythium.  
Who seeks two swords to sway, hath right to none,  
Who seeks two offices is not fit for one:  
Who seeks two callings, takes too much in hand:  
Who hath two faiths, doth true to neither stand.  
One sword, one office, Calling, and one faith  
Is fit for one Man; so this story saith.    
FINIS.