Mercurius Britanicus HIS VISION: BEING A REPLY To a Pamphlet lately printed, and termed, Britanicus his Welcome to Hell: WITH The Devills Blessing to Britanicus.  
I have been silent long; but now am come  
Abroad again: The silent Judge speaks home.  
LONDON, Printed for W. lay. 1647.   

Mercurius Britanicus his Reply TO A certain Pamphlet lately printed, and termed, Britanicus his Welcome to Hell.  

I Laugh to think, the Punies of this age  
Should be inspired with such poetic rage,  
To venture forth 'gainst me, as if that I  
Could not change prose, and whip with poesy,  
Because perhaps I too long have lain still,  
And hav'e not, as I wonted, used my quill,  
They think I sleep, and hear not of the wrongs  
Vented by their two-edged malicious tongues:  
Have I drank Laethe, think the foolish Crew,  
That they their frothy follies dare to spew  
On me, and not expect I should reply,  
And castigate them for their foolery.  
Do they not know, I quail not at pale fear,  
But when I writ, my lines are most severe:  
Should I these foundlings suffer in their ill,  
The whole world with their fopperies they'd fill.   

Come and appear, thou that didst late discuss,  
And threw'st a libel at Britanicus:  
Thy toothless satire can't eclipse my famed,  
Amongst the knowing I am still the same.  
Wert thou so mad thyself for to prefer,  
To be grim Pluto's puny counsellor?  
I guess, by the subsequence of thy story,  
Thou hast been in S. Patricks Purgatory,  
Where, through thy over-fasting, thou didst see  
Perhaps thy Father, in the shape of me:  
The Devills did delude thee, they are wise,  
And love with fancies fools for to surprise.  
Thou hoping for to get thyself renown,  
And to supply thy wants with a French crown,  
Hast ventured to declare thy mind in verse,  
Such as would shane 
* A foolish Poet.  Cherillus to rehearse.  
But this, if any, will thy glory be,  
That I do deign in print to answer thee.  
Dost thou exclaim against me, 'cause that I  
Followed my sovereign with Hue and cry?  
Because myself so loyal I did show,  
I durst so far for Englands good to go?  
If that my zeal unto the public good  
Were not by some, as others, understood,  
Must their misled misprisions light on me,  
And they include as vile a soul as thee?  
No; when the fatal Shee shall break my thread,  
And I shall be one numbered with the dead,  
When as JEHOVAH'S will shall snatch me hence,  
My credit will on earth be more immense;  
When that the sordid issue of thy brain  
The Muses sons shall look on with disdain:  
Thou thinkest, thou hast made known thy wondrous skill,  
In making Cerberus for to lye still,  
While I do enter Hell; fool, know, I ne're  
Am destinated for to enter there.  
It seems like Orpheus, my voice is sweet,  
And that with pleasant close my lines do meet,  
That sisyphus relinquisheth his ston,  
And 
* A giant who assaying to ravish Latona, was smitten with lightning by love, and thrown into hell, a vulture allotted to tyre on his heart.  Titius ceaseth for to make his moan  
When I appear; thus dost thou parallel  
Me with him fetched eurydice from hell?  
For thy perfumes and fare, and all the rabble  
Of Furies like thyself, who thou dost babble  
Shall be my waiters, all that I will say  
Is this, thou sure with some Tarantula  
Wert bit, and spewd'st thy venom all on me;  
But hark what I'll relate concerning thee.   

I know thee not, nor do desire to see,  
unless through loop-holes I could visit thee:  
Or as that famous 
* A Knight of Rome who putting on a case of crystal, went towards the Basalisk that then destroyed the Inhabitants of the City, and the Basaliske beholding itself burst in sunder.  Knight, when he beholded  
The Basalisk, and all his force repelled.  
What time Adeboran was mounted high,  
And Cynthias lustre beautified the sky,  
When all both men and beasts in silence were,  
Me thought that there before me did appear  
A Swad like Charon with huge rolling eyes,  
Like to a Goblin that babes terrifies;  
A bottle nose, and a most fiery face,  
A certain symptom he was of the race  
Of Furies, perhaps Iucubus might deal  
With fell Magera, and this biat reveal;  
And drawing nearer, with a feeble tone,  
He made to me this his relation.   

From the black Lake that runs round Erebus,  
I now am come to thee Britanicus,  
By Saturnes sons command, to crave of thee  
Remission, that my erring fantasy,  
Deluded so my sense, I durst compile  
And wrong great Pluto with my Verses vile:  
When I made known his Welcome and his Blessing,  
He stormed, because it had such mimmick dressing,  
And strait called Homer with Musaeus 
* Orpheus.  he  
That made stones move unto his melody,  
And unto them, my verses he made known,  
And did desire their approbation:  
Who angry said, this fellowes lines we see  
The very excrement of Verse to bee;  
mere crimes were never scanned, great wrong is done  
To Pluto, and his fiery Mansion.  
That this man durst the honor to impair  
Of him that rules in hell, and in the air:  
Let Minos scan his crime, and give his doom,  
Let Radamanthus also hither come,  
And denounce Judgement, we will hear the cause,  
We know that Pluto's are like Draco's laws.  
The powers of hell then strait assembled were,  
Great Dis being seated in his flaming chair,  
Minos, and Radamanthus him placed by,  
Caligula and Nero sate them nigh,  
Silla, and Marius on their right hand,  
And at their left cursed Machavell did stand,  
about whom innumerable spirits stood,  
Who had escaped from the Stygian flood:  
The charge was red, then Minos did proceed,  
And thus revealed what they had decreed.  
Since that a fellow lately did put forth  
A Pamphlet, and in lines of little worth,  
Hath beli'd Pluto in making of him free,  
When he is voided of all benignity;  
Telling the world that he is loved of us,  
Whom we do fear, and hate Britanicus,  
And that we blessed him, when he finds it so,  
That Satan doth 'gainst him his utmost do,  
He who we oft have sore Anathemiz'd  
And caused Aulicus to stigmatize  
With name of traitor, he whom we hate more  
Then he that slay the Erymanthian Bore.  
He each week roused my Agent from the sin,  
And  told them what a bed they wallowed in,  
Stuffed with Serpents, he each week made known  
Their ills, and hindered their confusion;  
So that hell's empty by his means, and we  
Want many marked for our society:  
For which hell's curse upon him, we will near  
Have him amongst us, for we well may fear,  
If he should come, he'd add unto our woe,  
And make us tremble, our own fate to know:  
But for this fool, so saucy was to writ,  
When we not wished him, for to indite  
But merely by Alecto's inspiration,  
He hath divulged to our defamation:  
Let Tarpax place him in a gloomy Cell,  
And there unto a pillar bind him well.  
Let Vulcanes flames still parch his head and brain,  
And let chill hiems put his loins to pain,  
Casting more chilly frost upon his feet  
Then e're upon Mount Caucasus do meet;  
Then let three furies ever pierce his skin,  
Let each wound heal, that he new pain may win,  
And there still dying, let him never die,  
But howl and languish to eternity.   

When I had heard, I wondered at the story,  
And said, since thou hast been so peremptory,  
Thou must reap as thou sow'dst, art thou the man  
That wrot'st Britanicus Hell's blessing wan?  
He strait replied, know thou Britanicus,  
That now before thee stands his 
* Anciently Jews, Gentiles and Christians held, that there were two Genii did attend on man, the one they called his Bonus Genius, the other his Malus Genius.  Genius.  
When Traitors sell their country, and depart,  
And are not tane to suffer their desert;  
Their pictures are hanged, for them which doth show,  
They in due time themselves must suffer so;  
So though he yet on the dull earth abide,  
And yet 'mongst other mortals doth reside,  
Pluto to show that he doth love him well,  
Is pleased to hang his picture now in hell:  
I suffer till his soul his body leaves,  
And what is due to him he now receives,  
( By me) he is tormented with dire pain  
As Witches stab the picture, when they fain  
Would kill the substance: when he thus had said,  
strait from me vanished the delusive shade;  
For the swift houres unto the suns bright care  
Had tied his horses, and Sol did prepare  
To gallop round the world: thus back to thee  
Who e're thou wert that didst calumniate me;  
I have return'd thine own, hereafter fear  
How thou provokest me, in print t'appear.   
THE END.