Poffefs'd with abfolute dominions
O'er Brethren's purfes and opinions?
And, trusted with the double keys
Of heaven, and their warehouses;
Who, when the Caufe is in distress,
Can furnish out what fums they please,
That brooding lie in bankers' hands,
To be difpos'd at their commands,
And daily' increafe and multiply
With Doctrine, Ufe, and Ufury;
Can fetch-in parties (as, in war,
All other heads of cattle are)
To bawds as fat as Mother Nab,
All guts and belly, like a crab.
Our party's great, and better ty'd
With oaths, and trade, than any fide,
Has one confiderable improvement
To double fortify the Covenant;
I mean our Covenant to purchase
Delinquents' titles, and the Church's,
That pafs in fale, from hand to hand,
Among ourselves, for current land,
And rife or fall, like Indian actions,
According to the rate of factions;
The Covenant (their creed) t' affert ;
Our best reserve for Reformation,
When new Outgoings give occasion;
That keeps the loins of Brethren girt,
And, when they 've pack'd a Parliament,
Will once more try th' expedient:
Who can already mufter friends
To ferve for members to our ends,
That reprefent no part o' th' nation,
But Fisher's-folly congregation;
Are only tools to our intrigues,
And fit like geefe to hatch our eggs;
Who, by their precedents of wit,
T'outfaft, outloiter, and outfit,.
Can order matters under hand,
To put all business to a stand;
Lay public bills afide for private,
And make them one another drive out;
Divert the great and necessary,
With trifles to contest and vary;
And make the nation reprefent,
And ferve for us in Parliament;
Cut out more work than can be done
In Plato's year, but finish none,
Unless it be the bulls of Lenthal,
That always pafs'd for fundamental;
Ver. 909.] Mr. Lenthal was Speaker to that House of Commons which begun the Rebellion, murdered the King, becoming then but the Rump, or fag-end
Help pamphlets out, with fafe editions,
Of proper flanders and feditions,
And treafon for a token fend,
By letter, to a country friend;
Difperfe lampoons, the only wit
That men, like burglary, commit,
With falfer than a padder's face,
That all its owner does betrays,
Who therefore dares not truft it, when
He 's in his calling to be feen;
Difperfe the dung on barren earth,
To bring new weeds of difcord forth;
Be fure to keep up congregations,
In spite of laws and proclamations :
For chiarlatans can do no good,
Until they're mounted in a crowd;
And when they 're punifh'd, all the hurt
And, while they kept their fhops in prifon,
Have found their prices ftrangely rifen;
Difdain to own the leaft regret
For all the Chriftian blood we 've let ;
'Twill fave our credit, and maintain
Our title to do so again;
That needs not coft one dram of sense,
But pertinacious impudence.
Our conftancy to our principles,
In time, will wear out all things elfe;
Like marble ftatues, rubb'd in pieces
With gallantry of pilgrims' kiffes;
While those who turn and wind their oaths,
Have fwell'd and funk, like other froths ;
Prevail'd a while, but 'twas not long
Before from world to world they fwung,
As they had turn'd from fide to fide
And as the changelings liv'd they dy'd.
This faid, th' impatient Statesmonger
Could now contain himself no longer,
Who had not spar'd to fhew his piques
Against th' haranguer's politics.
With smart remarks of leering faces,
And annotations of grimaces,
After h' had administer'd a dose
Of fnuff mundungus to his nofe,
Ver. 995, 996.] Dr. South remarks upon the Regi-. cides, "That fo fure did they make of heaven, and "fo fully reckoned themfelves in the high road thi"ther, that they never fo much as thought that their "Saintfhips fhould take Tyburn in the way."
Ver. 1004.] Grimashes, edition 1674. Altered 1684.
And powder'd th' infide of his fcull,
Instead of the outward jobbernol,
He fhook it with a fcornful look:
On th' adverfary, and thus he fpoke:
In dreffing a calf's head, although
The tongue and brains together go,
Both keep fo great a distance here,
'Tis ftrange if ever they come near ;
For who did ever play his gambols
With fuch infufferable rambles,
To make the bringing in the King
And keeping of him out one thing?
And bring him in, but on your fcore;
A fpiritual doctrine, that conduces
Moft properly to all your uses.
'Tis true, a fcorpion's oil is faid
To cure the wounds the vermin made;
And weapons drefs'd with falves reftore
And heal the hurts they gave before :
But whether Prefbyterians have
So much good-nature as the falve,
Ver. 1007.] Infide of his foul, in the firft edition of 1678. Altered to Scull, 1684, four years after Mr. Butler's death.
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