NO MERCURIUS AULICUS; But some merry flashes of Intelligence, with the Pretended PARLIAMENTS Forces besiedging of OXFORD four miles off, and the terrible taking in of a Mill, instead of the KING and CITY.  
Also the breaking of BOOKER, the Asse-tronomicall London Figureflinger, his perfidious Prediction failing, and his great Conjunction of Saturn and jupiter dislocated.  
By JOHN TAYLOR.  
July 10 th'. Printed in the Year. 1644.   

the miserable miss People to believe once more in the unsaving Public Faith, whereby they may be further cozened of the other 1 or 200000 l. to reward your mighty Commanders, and your Brethren the Scots, who do speed as well in the North as the rest have done about Oxford, is not to be feared or doubted.  
Thus (Monsieur Bookerus) I have anatomised and skellitonized your railing Pamphlet and ridiculous Prediction: it is known too well, that the expectation of some mischievous events was the ladder on which your meditations mounted. You were believed amongst a company of catacoxcombrian Plebeians, as amongst the Heathen the Delphian Oracle; amongst many you were accounted as the Celestial Bearward, and that Vrsa major and Vrsa minor were your Cubbes, the Dogstar was your Whelp, for you brought him up of a puppy. Master Booker, Taurus is your best game. Bull, and that is a Beast of your own breeding, it is supposed you sucked him since the first time he was a Moon-Calfe; jupiters' thunder is your Taber, Mercury is your Bagpiper, and writes your Bearegarden Bills, in the form of Planetary Conjunctions, Charles his Wain is but a Cart to you, and Ariadne's Crown is at your disposal, Hesperus and Vesperus lights you to bed and to breakfast, the Pleyades are your Handmaids, and Castor and Pollux are your Pages.  
In a word, I hold thee to be more than mortal, and that the Dragon being sick, and much troubled with the Megrim in the Head, so that Aesculapius was sent by jupiter to give him a Clyster, which being applied, the Dragon voided thee out of his Tail for a worm. This was once your high estate and estimation, but how art thou fallen, O thou wonder amongst wise men and widgeons; the seven Planets are highly and implacably offended with thee, and (instead of their influences) they will infuse into thee seven deadly sins, and all the twelve Signs have shut their celestial Gates against thee, at the command of Saturn and jupiter, the stars are malevolent pretending and portending revenge against thee for belying them, and calling and causing them to witness thy lying Conjunctions and traitorous expositions of them. Aries will browbeat thee, with battering thy shameless Head and Face, and make thee Horn-mad. Taurus will gore thee through the Neck, and hunch thy Lies into thy Throat; Gemini will bastinado thine arms and shoulders with a cudgel called Morbus Gallicus; Cancer shall gnaw thy slinking Stomach, and (like the worm of conscience) torment thee, he shall crabbedly torment thee, and Crab-lice shall crawl over thee. Leo shall rage's hotly, roar terribly, and by't thee horribly in the Dog-days. Virgo shall accuse thee for a Rape, for lying with her against her will, and belying of her in thy foisting fustianisme, for which she will vex thee to the very guts and belly, with Chollickes, Stranguries, Dropsies, Convulsions, and Hippocondraicus. Libra hath weighed thee in his Balance, and finds thee too light, his Equinoctial Scales says thou wants so many Grains either of Troy or Averdepois of honesty, that he will possess thy Reins with the loathsome Gonorea, and thy Kidneys with the Stone more feeling and sensibly than that of the Philosophers. Scorpio (in secret) remembers thee, therefore look to thy Prepuce, be careful of thy Priapus, for he will have a fling at thy Testiculanorums. Thou hast displeased Sagittarius, in shooting dogbolts and fooles-bolts in his name, without his leave, for the which he will shut Sciatica shafts into thy Hips and huckle-bones, and pocky arrows through thy Thighs. Capricorn will give thee no more Goat's milk, and will strike thy knees into such a stiffness, that thou shalt never have the grace to bow them to any other Gods than those of the Close Committee. Aquarius, or Aquaticus, will dash and balderdash thee, duck, souse, pump and plunge thee, into the bottomless Gulf of Mare mortuum; or if thou scape that, he will plague thee with Gouts and Cramps, and lastly hurl thee headlong into the perpendicularity of the vast watery Region; where thou shalt irremediably and irrecoverably be crippled in thy feet, root and branch, cap à pe, top and tail by Pisces.  
How thinkest thou now of thyself (thou quondam wisdom of five Justices) thou hast spun a fair thread, big enough to make thee a Gregorian necklace, I pray thee do but look in a glass, and see the figure of we two, I tell thee, (without swearing) that I am very sorry for thee, but I could hardly weep to see thee and all thy friends hanged: that's a full point.  
Mercurius Aulicus and George Naworth do so fare slight thee and thy for did railing, as the Lion or Mastiff regards not the barking and bawling of a mangy Curte; only I myself (yea my very self) have out of my grace and clemency vouchsafed to descend so low as to honour thee with this mine Answer. If wishes were available, I would wish thee to play the lying Knave no more, give over writing of Treason, and incensing People to Rebellion, confess thy faults in abusing of me, and I perhaps will beg thy pardon.   

THese are to signify, that all Merchants, and others, that are desirous weekly to impart beyond Seas, the certain condition of affairs here, and of the proceed of the War; they shall have it weekly published in Print, in the French Tongue, and every Thursday at nine of the clock in the morning: the Reader may have them (if he please) at Master Bournes Shop at the old Exchange: the Title of the thing is Le Mercure Anglois, which a while since was begun and continued for two or three weeks, and finding it much desired, during these three weeks past, that the publishing of it (through some occasions) was discontinued: It shall for the future be continued according to the most certain, and impartial Relations of affairs here, to come out at the time and place aforesaid.  
July 10th 1644