✚ Lord have Mercy upon us, OR THE VISITATION AT OXFORD: Begun april the 11. 1648.  
Printed at pembroke and Mongomery, 1648.   

✚ Lord have mercy upon us, &c.  
Sir:  
THE Scene is Oxford, and now sound Trumpets, my Lord enters; Tuesday was the Day, Wellcomes folly( well fare all good Tokens) the place where his Honour entred; but he was fain to stay an hour on Hinksy Hill for company to bring him in, and when they came all together it was as pitiful a Pageant as ever was presented, but would have been much better, if mad smith of Magdalens could have borrowed an ass( as he was very earnest to do) to have given his Lordship a meeting withall: You may guess his Attendants, gown Seekers, and Military Seekers; If ever people went to see a reed shaken with the wind, certainly it was april 11. 48. The Bells did their Office, for they rang as if the town had been on fire; the Squires of the Rope knew he loved no Church music, and therefore were resolved he he should have none: But I had almost left out the mayor( so called) out of the Solemnity, even Nixon Ruff and all, with his Gizzards the Bailiffs, and the most monstrous heads of the town, there are not larger breed on the downs, as they had been a Wiltshire driven, just such. Now suppose his Lordship come to Sr. Naths college; where( I trow) were a yoke of Speeches slain for his Lordships entertainment: The one in bald latin by Button( the designed Proctor) and the other in English by Cheynell, and both equally understood, and admired by his Lordship. To the English( quoth Cheynell) I will speak English; What the other said matters not a Button: After this you must suppose they supped, prayed for themselves and slept.  
Tis Wednesday, that Wednesday which was now made as infamous by the undue Election of Proctors, and Vicechancelor( he is so humble that he will forgive me for misplacing him) as the Ancestors of that day were sacred for their statuetable Inauguration of those Officers. Langley( the new made Yeoman Bedell of Divinity) with Paper, Spectacles, and Nose proclaimed a convocation, which ( ut Juniores intelligerent) that his Lordship might understand, was held in their Mother Tongue: The appearance was very thin, insomuch that they were fain to call in two Country Parsons to make up nine, yet there were Apostates, Doctor Zlouch, doctor Pellham, Mr. Williamson,( Mag. Col.) and old John Rous Library keeper: here they made Reynolds first Doctor, then Vic●chancellor, and after him Corbet, who made a speech there as Orator; In which he said, that House had been the Granary of Rebellion, but now they came to reform it, Explicit— not like Doctor Corbet, but plain, civill, modest Mr. Corbet, Sir Naths none son in Law, person of Hasely, which was once the learned Dr. Sheldons, and Sub-deane and Canon of Christ-Church which was the famous Dr. Hammonds, is not this a good Orator? a very taking man. cross and Button were by there Omnipotencyaryships created Proctors: For his Lordship cited a learned apothegm from his Grandfather by the Mothers side, my Ancestors( saith he) my Grandfather, my sons great Grandfather here,( the very copy of mine own countenance) said that a Parliament might do any thing but make a man a woman, or a woman a man, or bray a fool in a Mortar till he is wise; this last was Solomons, from whence his Grandfather was not descended.  
If you would know what Officers were attendant, truly of the staff there were none, alas the old Gentleman had so much of the switch formerly, he hath loved the staff the worse for it ever since! No there were five bare heads( some of them bald ones) which did most solemnly walk before the Pageant, viz. One Blagrave an Al●-Brewer, which is put into an honest Gentleman, one Mr. Gaytons place- Thus honest men are turned out, and Knaves in grain put in: Also one Mr. hoard into Mat Crosses place; he is gone a simpling, for theres no news of him; and indeed both of them by the favour of his Lordship of poor Squires are made Knight Errants: As for Jacobs staff, it must be employed to take the height of the Star upon his Lordships cloak. Langley the tailor( before mentioned) with two other of the same cut are designed for Yeoman; now( God bless us!) they are five staffs of the worst English metre that ever were in Congregation. O but John French! wot you not what of him? truly Jack is the Index Expurgatorius of his own Register book: He is to writ backward all that he hath wrote these five yeeres, and all the Paper-acts, which he hath drawn up to be sacrificed by way of expiation upon his Nose.  
This for the University in general, for particular Christ-Church, being nearest allied unto the King, shall have the Prerogative in suffering. Mrs. Fell, whom his Lordship could by no means persuade to leave the lodging, though he  told her she should do God and her Country service in so doing, his rhetoric failing, was carried out by force in a chair by Souldiers, and her children after her upon boards, as if they were going like so many pies to the Oven. From thence he went to Christ-Church Hall, which he found shut against him: Dr. Wall,( and he onely of the whole House) appeared before him: Did the weakest go to the Wall? or the Wall to the weakest? Next in turn was Corpus Christi, where,( as at Christ Church) they broken open the lodgings, and some other doors and chests, in hope to have found the ensigns of the University, but failed in the designs Indeed the University Stock was aimed at to pay his worships entertainment, and there was an Iron Chest bound to serve him, but as empty as his Lordship: Pray Heaven John Rous sell not the Fa●h rs for their Provender! Now have at Magdalen college, which was then possessed with more then 7 devils, for doctor Oliver was gone out of town, and swept his Lodgings, and these entred: His man also( not the strong man, for he was too weak for these spirits) was sent away Prisoner for defending the Right of his Master. Here Dr. Wilkinson is set to rule the Roast, and Kate( good old Kate) must be Mrs. and Maudlin her Handmaid.  
Now you may see them and their guard of Saints marching up street as an Epitome of the Church Militant: And that you m●y know they neither spare soul nor Body, Dr. Sheldon must be cited before their tribunal: You are( says his Lordship) Dr. Sheldon a good Scholar, and a Civill man( two great faults, but yet me thinks you are not very civill, you were wont when you come home out of the Country to have the great gates set ope for you, and you make me creep in at the Wicket: I am no Scholar; I have no logic I tell you, but for sense and reason I know it as well as any of you all, and for Civility I think I have reason to know it, I have been breed at Court: under two Kings, and one would think I should have learned Civility and Allegiance; but my memory is short, and much more of this nature, which because I would not have my letter like his Lordship, too long, I let alone: But when he had ended, the Dr. replied with a great deal of Resolution and strength of reason, but was confuted by a file of Musketeers, and sent Prisoner to the Majors Quarters, and one Palmer who hath hitherto practised upon Bodies hath the cure of All S●ules committed to him. Trinity must be next, where gripping Harris takes that as a small addition to his Leash of Steeples.  
Next St. Johns head must be taken off, and a new one set on. Cheynell who carries more ruin in his face then a Comet makes the Students there, dream of nothing but a general Conflagration? Dr. Bayley behaved himself very courageously, and rationally. My Lord and his Prompter Prinne,( to whom he gave ear, as was meet) were not a little put to it, wherefore seeing the grand fault of disobeying the Houses was laid unto his charge, he professed that he conceived two things were demanded of him; the first that he should submit to the present Visitation of the University, and of his college by the present Visitors; the second that upon sight of their Paper he should remove from his college. To the first he replied that his corporal Oath taken to the University and college would not suffer him to yield submission, and being the injunction involved him in Perjury, he neither could, nor would submit unto it. To the second he replied, that it enjoined him to admit his own ruin, and he trusted they would not think it reasonable, that he did neither lend an arm or a knife to cut his own Throat: So they would have proceeded to the old confutation; but how it came about we know not, a moneths time is given for his removal; But Sir Nath. opened his mouth and spake( having shooke the bottle) If my Lord of Canterbury had sent down the Commission would you not have obeied it? Who was jeered most in that think you? But wee will not heap coals! The President answered quick and resolutely; no, he would not. What( quoth pruned Mr. Prinne) if the King should visit your college, would you not then? The Reply was modest, he knew the King would not; however no man should commi a force upon his conscience. At Wadham( the World in th moon) Wilkins the man is put in, and at brazen nose Green wood a fellow that cannot see the Stars, nor his own nose  
His Lordships farewell was at Christ-Church, where calling for the college buttery book he dashed the dean and Chapters names out, and put in with his own hand( you would have thought them made earls rather then Canons, had you seen the Character) Reynolds dean, and he set down for his Chapter: Corbet the Sub-Deane, Cornish for Wall, Rogers for gardener, Mylls for pain, Langly for Morley, Wilkinson for Iles, Pocooke for Morris, Sande-son the doctor of the chair is not yet out: They cannot vote a Divinity Lecture so fast as other Offices: So the fool went out without a Plaudite.  
Thus I have given you a full account of the Reformation of that once Renowned University, now filled up with a company of Harpys and stinking Fellows, defilers of their own nests, and the nasty batners in the dung; so that you who intend to have your Children tutored in disobedience to Princes, And brought up in schisms, contrary to the apostolic practices, and to the very Canon of Scripture, come to Oxford, and matriculate yourselves schismatics, and proceed heretics.   

Postscript.  
SInce the writing hereof, Wilkinson and Cheynell road like mad to London, no doubt with the History of their faire and plausable admittance into the Government, which is according to the truth they use to speak, and now hey for thanksgiving Sermons, and Suasories to the City Dames to sand their Ichabobs( the children of the departure of the glory of our Israel) to be Successors in the rooms of the proscribed Scholars, for they must make a new Plantation, and that learned world must recuit from less then the drowned, from four Apostates at most.   
FINIS.