THE REFORMADOS RIGHTED. BEING AN ANSWER TO A paltry piece of Poetry, styled, general MASSEY'S Bartholomew-Fayrings, FOR colonel POYNTZ, &c.  
Printed in the year 1647.   

The reformadoes righted.  

ANd yet me thinks he doth attempt the street  
As boldl'as he whose provd heroic Feet  
Trampled on ruined Troy. Like one oth' race,  
Whose Feet run perfect in their Cinquepace.  
But O ye Nine forgive me that I thus  
mistook the fellow, and his Genius,  
Alas! 
See the beginning of the Pamphles.  'Twas then when as I but read ore  
The four first words, those made me thirst for more.  
But O my wish is now that I had first  
drunk at thy Bottle to have quenched that thirst,  
Before the loathsome ink had been a tist,  
And on thy guilty sheet so foully spilled  
Thy Vomit Homer, were a cordial  
To this black potion: how it tastes oth' gull?  
How raw this undigested Matter lies  
Upon my stom●cke? How I feel it rise?  
And must disgorge again, Well, if I do  
With it Ile bring up fleame and choler too.  
But is this all St. bartholomew affords,  
A farthel of unprofitable words?  
A very peddlers pack indeed it is,  
A Miscellaneous heap of sentences:  
An Independent R●psodie of rhymes  
Flesh't with an imprimatur from the Times.  
'Twill pass this Faire time for a label to  
Some Puppet play some new found mask or show,  
A Fairing call y' it? Sure by all the prattle  
'Tis such a bauble as a Smithfield Rattle;  
For such indeed I bought it, and it shall  
Serve for my lighter thoughts to play withall.  
But what turned Poet Lilburne? Yes, tis he;  
T' looks like his prose sliced into Poetry.  
'Twas of his spinning sure, only the scene  
Cut into needlefulls; has changed his vain,  
Or hired some withered Genius, or him  
That penned the Western Iliads, to trim  
His rugged Phrase, his Lines with rhymes to tip  
His syllables with Synalepha's clip,  
And scarce enough to pare them I protest,  
Some Lines two foot at least outstrip the rest:  
Others fall short as far oth' rule; 
See page. the 3. at viz. Oh that we had the Independent Army by: and a gain at viz. A scarlet Reformado who scarce yet did know: again pag. the 4. almost all ore.  as though  
Set forms in poesy were sinful too:  
doubtless he thought that verse differed from prose,  
Only in their unevenness ith' close,  
And so turned Poet with as little pain  
As ever Ovid with his natural strain.  
But why my Legislative Liburne now  
So light and trivial grown? So frothy you,  
You that ere while prescribed what you thought meet  
To govern States by, thus appear ith' street  
amidst a knot of Ballad Nosers. You,  
That in a crowd of Saints could nose it so:  
Oh, 'tis a hymn of praise newly composed  
By that sweet singer, and as sweetly nosed  
By him, who now in solace overflows  
To see the banishment of his two foes  
Massey and Pointz: A hymn that hath been sung  
The faithful Congregations all among,  
A song in consort; base and triple, see,  
By th' differing Notes in his Typography.  
His Muse is Dialogicall; behold  
The fashion of his verse, and then unfold.  
From his hot brain there rose an angry push,  
Which pricked, out did this filthy Matter gush.  
'Tis true we'r idle; 
'T was then when as the name of Massies force called all the idle Reformadoes to Horse, &c.  but alas! you know  
You may best call us that have made us so.  
ungrateful London! mayst thou never more  
find a friend faithful; though thou shouldst implore  
His aid with tears, and bended knees: May never  
Successive woes from thy accursed walls sever.  
Tell me ye poor unworthy spirits there;  
Is not our blood, our lives to us as dear  
As is your own? Could you betray us then,  
To save yourselves? O ye most false of men:  
Us who prepared the laurel for the Brow  
Of them who proudly do usurp it now.  
Us who have done, we'r not ashamed to say,  
As faithful service to the State as they;  
Us whom ye called into the field to save you  
From a proud Army purposed to enslave you,  
And you have found it so; you have let in  
A Trojan Horse that shall reward your sin  
Of treachery; thus you have wound a wreathe  
For others Brows, to bind your own hands with.  
Was't not enough that first you gave away  
Our field employments from us, made us stay  
So long for what we earned so long before,  
Till we had spent it double on the score?  
But you must now engage us to bereave  
Our hopes of all subsistence, and to leave  
Our Carcases to th' mercy of a crowd,  
Under whose cover, so yourselves may shrowded,  
Let men of honour perish, and their Name  
Rot in your service, so they bear your shane.  
Yet tis not such a poor Pedanticke Muse  
As this, can our brave Massies famed abuse:  
Tis not a drop from such a peevish Pen  
Can blot that Name; but we can clear't again  
With Characters indelible, as those  
That lasting Vellame wears: Our Standish flows  
With constant fresh supplies that shall be spent  
T'repayr th' inscription of his Monument,  
When Age hath slur'd it; may he flourish still,  
In spite of such a rhymers teethy Quill.  
writ on, writ on, dull fool, thy gawlfull ink  
Shall sooner then the reputation sink  
Of thy too brave an enemy, to be  
wronged by the Pen of such a choose as thee.  
But stout Poyntz too must have a Lash forsooth; 
red pag the 1. His brother P●yntz was straight informd. a youth with goggle eyes and large wry mouth.   
The Fellow's angry at his eyes and mouth.  
For shane dull satirist, you now Lash out  
Beyond the compass of your Whip, to flowt  
At Natures error: you'd be scourged for this  
With sharper Whipcord then a Poets is.  
And yet I wonder the white-livered Poet  
Durst look him in the face so long, to know it,  
And take such notice on't, and not fall dead  
Under his looks they carry so much dread.  
Bu● see, the fool takes heart, he's resolute, 
red pa●the a● the Dialogue between Poyntz and the Poet, observed by the variation in the print.   
And face to face in words, they now fall too't.  
But yet his colour goes and comes, me hinke,  
As if his trembling soul appeared in's I●ke:  
behold sometimes how deep it looks, anon  
If Poyntz but speak, the colour's changed and gone.  
The Printer doubtless was ingenuous,  
So aptly to the life to paint him thus.  
But now his courage comes: 
look page. the 3. at viz. Out ye damned garlic eating Rogues, d'you think you don't already vent sufficient stinks. But you must call for those will die your skurffes and breeches of the same.  his colour rises,  
Atth ' Name o'h ' Army, how he tyrannises  
o'er the dejected reformadoes, with words  
As loud as is the Thunder, Jove affords?  
Yet see the Poets Thunder Bolt's soon shot,  
A line or two limits his rage: but what?  
What foul aspersion, Sirrah, durst you throw  
On our yet unstayn'd Skarffes? You Varlet, know,  
Though our Great Sun, within black night be set,  
Our bright Aurora turned to Evening; yet  
Our colours still retain their hue, and shall  
even in dead autumn, when yours perish all.  
Although the beams that made us Tawny, now  
Be shut up from us, weel ourselves allow  
Fr●sh Skarses to celebrate his memory,  
Who though he died, could not our hue undy.  
Brave Essex is that Sun, which yet in vain  
You think to sully with your inky stain:  
We have a pen lies dipped in Leman Lake,  
To take out all the stains your ink can make  
On these pure Skarfes of ours: yes such a pen  
Whose sharpness shall make thee look sour again.  
O Sir! you're merry, wondrous merry now,  
And so conceited you can quibble too,  
And in such witty wise, that I protest  
Archy to thee was but a fool in Iest:  
The bare word massy fits him with a clinch  
So sovereign that Name is at a pinch,  
For all you scorn him so: but we know why;  
〈…〉 an Independent Army by  
To bear you our, you durst be hanged as well  
As writ in his disgrace one syllable.  
But O the times and manners! That a fool,  
A scurrilous ass that yet might go to school  
And learn to scan a Verse; should undertake  
To dip his Pen in Castaly, and make  
Such sottish rhymes would stop the Muses ears,  
He would be thought a satirist by's jeares;  
But such a one as was Filistus, when  
He undertook to flout at Virgills pen,  
A satire rather by his beastly Feet,  
His ruff unpolish't lines, a thing not meet  
To be ecclip't a poem; if you will  
Call it the Castings of a Poets quill.  
But that so vilde a thing as this should pass  
The shreets unwhipt; that such a prating ass  
Should be thus licenced to abuse and wrong  
So many men of Honour, in a throng  
Of Ballad Auditors, attempt the press,  
And boldly vapour in the Printers dress  
Through the abused streets; I was ashamed,  
Nor could I see such rudeness pass untamed,  
Such impudence scape uncorrected. No,  
Since y' have made kicking we would have you know  
We can find Feet at hand as well as you,  
And bring a Muse full as long winded too.  
May't near be said that Massey wants a Pen  
Or Points, or our deceased Essex,( when  
Such dull deriders shall reproach their Name)  
To reillustrate their deserved F●me  
Even then, when those for fain that thirsty grow,  
Shall want a drop of ink to quench it; though  
They now have pulled the laurel from the Brow  
That was its proper soil, and cropped the Bow  
From off its natural stock, and of it made  
A Garland for themselves: But it must fade,  
And Crumwell must return again to brew  
I'th Fenny iceland, and forsake his Crew,  
And Fairefax too, retire to's Frigid Zone,  
And our King Charles be settled in his Throne.   

Now thankes my peddling Poet for your Fairing,  
I have made use on't where tis worth the wearing.  
For since you have accused us of ill sent, 
red page. the 3. at the top.   
Your sheet our future stinking shall prevent;  
Or if we thought 'twould vex your patience more,  
With it wee'd light our smoke you so abhor: 
Ibidem.   
At least if Derricke don't prevent our Taper,  
And burnt in Smithfield for a Libellous Paper,  
O how 'twould vex our Idle Pamphleteer,  
To see his Fairing executed there:  
Yet such a punishment too Noble is  
For senseless rhymers; let thy doom be this;  
May never Reader henceforth look for Thee,  
But on a Whipping Post or Pillory.   
FINIS.