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XV. THE CHARACTER OF A SMALL POET.

From Butler's "Characters", a series of satirical portraits akin to
those of Theophrastus.


The Small Poet is one that would fain make himself that which nature
never meant him; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own
whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small
stock and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out
other men's wit; and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or
company, he makes bold with as his own. This he puts together so
untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit as the rickets, by the
swelling disproportion of the joints. You may know his wit not to be
natural, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him: for as those that have
money but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have it,
so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will make him
appear witty. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom
of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely
what they get. He is like an Italian thief, that never robs but he
murders, to prevent discovery; so sure is he to cry down the man from
whom he purloins, that his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected.
He appears so over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but
disparagements of his own; and cries down all they do, as if they were
encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them,
as justices do false weights, and pots that want measure. When he meets
with anything that is very good, he changes it into small money, like
three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He disclaims
study, pretends to take things in motion, and to shoot flying, which
appears to be very true, by his often missing of his mark. As for
epithets, he always avoids those that are near akin to the sense. Such
matches are unlawful and not fit to be made by a Christian poet; and
therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a
wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two, and
if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a
letter, it is a work of supererogation. For similitudes, he likes the
hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make
their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is
more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity
make it appear clearer than it did; for contraries are best set off
with contraries. He has found out a new sort of poetical Georgics--a
trick of sowing wit like clover-grass on barren subjects, which would
yield nothing before. This is very useful for the times, wherein, some
men say, there is no room left for new invention. He will take three
grains of wit like the elixir, and, projecting it upon the iron age,
turn it immediately into gold. All the business of mankind has
presently vanished, the whole world has kept holiday; there has been no
men but heroes and poets, no women but nymphs and shepherdesses: trees
have borne fritters, and rivers flowed plum-porridge. When he writes,
he commonly steers the sense of his lines by the rhyme that is at the
end of them, as butchers do calves by the tail. For when he has made
one line, which is easy enough, and has found out some sturdy hard word
that will but rhyme, he will hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of
hot iron upon an anvil, into what form he pleases. There is no art in
the world so rich in terms as poetry; a whole dictionary is scarce able
to contain them; for there is hardly a pond, a sheep-walk, or a
gravel-pit in all Greece, but the ancient name of it is become a term
of art in poetry. By this means, small poets have such a stock of able
hard words lying by them, as dryades, hamadryades, aoenides, fauni,
nymphae, sylvani, &c. that signify nothing at all; and such a world of
pedantic terms of the same kind, as may serve to furnish all the new
inventions and "thorough reformations" that can happen between this and
Plato's great year.




ANDREW MARVELL.

(1621-1678.)


XVI. NOSTRADAMUS'S PROPHECY.

From _Political Satires and other Pieces_. It is curious to note
how much of the prophecy was actually fulfilled.


For faults and follies London's doom shall fix,
And she must sink in flames in "sixty-six";
Fire-balls shall fly, but few shall see the train,
As far as from Whitehall to Pudding-Lane;
To burn the city, which again shall rise,
Beyond all hopes aspiring to the skies,
Where vengeance dwells. But there is one thing more
(Tho' its walls stand) shall bring the city low'r;
When legislators shall their trust betray,
Saving their own, shall give the rest away;
And those false men by th' easy people sent,
Give taxes to the King by Parliament;
When barefaced villains shall not blush to cheat
And chequer doors shall shut up Lombard Street.
When players come to act the part of queens,
Within the curtains, and behind the scenes:
When no man knows in whom to put his trust,
And e'en to rob the chequer shall be just,
When declarations, lies and every oath
Shall be in use at court, but faith and troth.
When two good kings shall be at Brentford town,
And when in London there shall not be one:
When the seat's given to a talking fool,
Whom wise men laugh at, and whom women rule;
A minister able only in his tongue
To make harsh empty speeches two hours long
When an old Scots Covenanter shall be
The champion for the English hierarchy:
When bishops shall lay all religion by,
And strive by law to establish tyranny,
When a lean treasurer shall in one year
Make himself fat, his King and people bare:
When the English Prince shall Englishmen despise,
And think French only loyal, Irish wise;
When wooden shoon shall be the English wear
And Magna Charta shall no more appear:
Then the English shall a greater tyrant know,
Than either Greek or Latin story show:
Their wives to 's lust exposed, their wealth to 's spoil,
With groans to fill his treasury they toil;
But like the Bellides must sigh in vain
For that still fill'd flows out as fast again;
Then they with envious eyes shall Belgium see,
And wish in vain Venetian liberty.
The frogs too late grown weary of their pain,
Shall pray to Jove to take him back again.




JOHN CLEIVELAND.

(1613-1658.)


XVII. THE SCOTS APOSTASIE.

From _Poems and Satires_, posthumously published in 1662.


Is't come to this? What shall the cheeks of fame
Stretch'd with the breath of learned Loudon's name,
Be flogg'd again? And that great piece of sense,
As rich in loyalty and eloquence,
Brought to the test be found a trick of state,
Like chemist's tinctures, proved adulterate;
The devil sure such language did achieve,
To cheat our unforewarned grand-dam Eve,
As this imposture found out to be sot
The experienced English to believe a Scot,
Who reconciled the Covenant's doubtful sense,
The Commons argument, or the City's pence?
Or did you doubt persistence in one good,
Would spoil the fabric of your brotherhood,
Projected first in such a forge of sin,
Was fit for the grand devil's hammering?
Or was't ambition that this damned fact
Should tell the world you know the sins you act?
The infamy this super-treason brings.
Blasts more than murders of your sixty kings;
A crime so black, as being advisedly done,
Those hold with these no competition.
Kings only suffered then; in this doth lie
The assassination of monarchy,
Beyond this sin no one step can be trod.
If not to attempt deposing of your God.
O, were you so engaged, that we might see
Heav'ns angry lightning 'bout your ears to flee,
Till you were shrivell'd to dust, and your cold land
Parch't to a drought beyond the Libyan sand!
But 'tis reserv'd till Heaven plague you worse;
The objects of an epidemic curse,
First, may your brethren, to whose viler ends
Your power hath bawded, cease to be your friends;
And prompted by the dictate of their reason;
And may their jealousies increase and breed
Till they confine your steps beyond the Tweed.
In foreign nations may your loathed name be
A stigmatizing brand of infamy;
Till forced by general hate you cease to roam
The world, and for a plague live at home:
Till you resume your poverty, and be
Reduced to beg where none can be so free
To grant: and may your scabby land be all
Translated to a generall hospital.
Let not the sun afford one gentle ray,
To give you comfort of a summer's day;
But, as a guerdon for your traitorous war,
Love cherished only by the northern star.
No stranger deign to visit your rude coast,
And be, to all but banisht men, as lost.
And such in heightening of the indiction due
Let provok'd princes send them all to you.
Your State a chaos be, where not the law,
But power, your lives and liberties may give.
No subject 'mongst you keep a quiet breast
But each man strive through blood to be the best;
Till, for those miseries on us you've brought
By your own sword our just revenge be wrought.
To sum up all ... let your religion be
As your allegiance--maskt hypocrisie
Until when Charles shall be composed in dust
Perfum'd with epithets of good and just.
He saved--incensed Heaven may have forgot--
To afford one act of mercy to a Scot:
Unless that Scot deny himself and do
What's easier far--Renounce his nation too.




JOHN DRYDEN.

(1631-1700.)


XVIII. SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.

Originally printed in broadside form, being written in the year
1662. It was bitterly resented by the Dutch.


As needy gallants, in the scriv'ner's hands,
Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgag'd lands;
The first fat buck of all the season'd sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment;
The dotage of some Englishmen is such,
To fawn on those, who ruin them, the Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those, who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guinea-trade, the herrings too;
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you.
Some are resolv'd, not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.
What injuries soe'er upon us fall,
Yet still the same religion answers all.
Religion wheedl'd us to civil war,
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's now wou'd spare.
Be gull'd no longer; for you'll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith! than you.
Int'rest's the God they worship in their state,
And we, I take it, have not much of that.
Well monarchies may own religion's name,
But states are atheists in their very frame.
They share a sin; and such proportions fall,
That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all.
Think on their rapine, falsehood, cruelty,
And that what once they were, they still wou'd be.
To one well-born th' affront is worse and more,
When he's abus'd and baffl'd by a boor.
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do;
They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation;
For they were bred ere manners were in fashion:
And their new commonwealth has set them free
Only from honour and civility.
Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
Than did their lubber state mankind bestride.
Their sway became 'em with as ill a mien,
As their own paunches swell above their chin.
Yet is their empire no true growth but humour,
And only two kings' touch can cure the tumour.
As Cato did in Africk fruits display;
Let us before our eyes their Indies lay:
All loyal English will like him conclude;
Let Caesar live, and Carthage be subdu'd.



XIX. MACFLECKNOE.

This satire was written in reply to a savage poem by the dramatist,
Thomas Shadwell, entitled "The Medal of John Dayes". Dryden and
Shadwell had been friends, but the enmity begotten of political
opposition had separated them. Flecknoe, who gives the name to this
poem, and of whom Shadwell is treated as the son and heir, was a
dull poet who had always laid himself open to ridicule. It is not
known (says W.D. Christie in the _Globe_ Dryden) whether he had
ever given Dryden offence, but it is certain that his "Epigrams",
published in 1670, contain some lines addressed to Dryden of a
complimentary character.


All human things are subject to decay,
And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey;
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long;
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute,
Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute
This aged prince, now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase;
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To settle the succession of the state:
And, pond'ring, which of all his sons was fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit,
Cry'd, "'Tis resolv'd; for Nature pleads, that he
Should only rule, who most resembles me.
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years:
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he,
Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Besides, his goodly fabrick fills the eye,
And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty:
Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain
And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
Thou last great prophet of tautology.
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
Was sent before but to prepare thy way;
And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came
To teach the nations in thy greater name.
My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung,
When to King John of Portugal I sung,
Was but the prelude to that glorious day,
When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way,
With well-tim'd oars before the royal barge.
Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge;
And big with hymn, commander of an host,
The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost.
Methinks I see the new Arion fail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.
At thy well-sharpened thumb, from shore to shore,
The trebles squeak with fear, the basses roar:
Echoes from Pissing-Alley Shadwell call,
And Shadwell they resound from Aston-Hall.
About thy boat the little fishes throng
As at the morning toast, that floats along.
Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band,
Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand.
St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time,
Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rime:
Though they in number as in sense excel;
So just, so like tautology, they fell,
That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore
The lute and sword which he in triumph bore,
And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more."
Here stopt the good old sire, and wept for joy,
In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.
All arguments, but most his plays, persuade,
That for anointed dulness he was made.
Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind,
(The fair Augusta much to fears inclin'd)
An ancient fabric, rais'd t' inform the sight
There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight:
A watch-tower once; but now so fate ordains,
Of all the pile an empty name remains:
From its old ruins brothel-houses rise,
Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys,
Where their vast courts the mother-strumpets keep,
And, undisturb'd by watch, in silence sleep.
Near these a nursery erects its head
Where queens are form'd, and future heroes bred;
Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry,
Where infant punks their tender voices try,
And little Maximins the gods defy.
Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;
But gentle Simkin just reception finds
Amidst this monument of vanish'd minds:
Poor clinches the suburbian Muse affords,
And Panton waging harmless war with words.
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known,
Ambitiously design'd his Shadwell's throne.
For ancient Dekker prophesy'd long since,
That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,
Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense:
To whom true dulness should some Psyches owe,
But worlds of misers from his pen should flow;
Humorists and hypocrites it should produce,
Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.
Now Empress Fame had publish'd the renown
Of Shadwell's coronation through the town.
Rous'd by report of fame, the nations meet,
From near Bunhill, and distant Watling-street.
No Persian carpets spread th' imperial way,
But scatter'd limbs of mangled Poets lay;
From dusty shops neglected authors come,
Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum.
Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay,
But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way.
Bilk'd stationers for yeomen stood prepar'd,
And Herringman was captain of the guard.
The hoary prince in majesty appear'd,
High on a throne of his own labours rear'd.
At his right hand our young Ascanius sate,
Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.
His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,
And lambent dulness play'd around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come,
Swore by his sire a mortal foe to Rome;
So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,
That he till death true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father's right, and realm's defence,
Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.
The king himself the sacred unction made,
As king by office, and as priest by trade.
In his sinister hand, instead of ball,
He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale;
Love's kingdom to his right he did convey,
At once his sceptre, and his rule of sway;
Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young,
And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung.
His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread
That nodding seem'd to consecrate his head.
Just at the point of time, if Fame not lie,
On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly.
So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,
Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
Th' admiring throng loud acclamations make,
And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head,
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed
Full on the filial dulness: Long he stood,
Repelling from his breast the raging god:
At length burst out in this prophetic mood.
"Heav'ns! bless my son! from Ireland let him reign
To far Barbadoes on the western main;
Of his dominion may no end be known,
And greater than his father's be his throne;
Beyond Love's kingdom let him stretch his pen!--"
He paus'd, and all the people cry'd "Amen".
Then thus continu'd he: "My son, advance
Still in new impudence, new ignorance.
Success let others teach, learn thou from me
Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.
Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage,
Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage;
Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
And in their folly show the writer's wit.
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence,
And justify their authors' want of sense.
Let 'em be all by thy own model made
Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid;
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same,
All full of thee, and diff'ring but in name.
But let no alien Sedley interpose,
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetorick thou would'st cull,
Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull;
But write thy best, and top; and, in each line,
Sir Formal's oratory will be thine:
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,
And does thy Northern Dedications fill.
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,
And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part:
What share have we in Nature or in Art?
Where did his wit on learning fix a brand,
And rail at arts he did not understand?
Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein,
Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain?
Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse,
Promis'd a play, and dwindled to a farce?
When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,
As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?
But so transfus'd, as oil and waters flow,
His always floats above, thine sinks below.
This is thy province, this thy wondrous way,
New humours to invent for each new play:
This is that boasted bias of thy mind,
By which, one way, to dulness 'tis inclin'd:
Which makes thy writings lean on one side still,
And, in all changes, that way bends thy will.
Nor let thy mountain-belly make pretence
Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.
A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,
But sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit.
Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep;
Thy tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep.
With whate'er gall thou set'st thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart though venom lies,
It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics, but mild Anagram.
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic land,
There thou may'st wings display and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Or if thou would'st thy different talents suit,
Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute."
He said: But his last words were scarcely heard:
For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd,
And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.
Sinking he left his drugget robe behind,
Borne upwards by a subterranean wind.
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,
With double portion of his father's art.



XX. EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS.

This excellent specimen of Dryden's prose satire was prefixed to
his satiric poem "The Medal", published in March, 1682. It was
inspired by the striking of a medal to commemorate the rejection by
the London Grand Jury, on November 24, 1681, of a Bill of High
Treason presented against Lord Shaftesbury. This event had been a
great victory for the Whigs and a discomfiture for the Court.


For to whom can I dedicate this poem, with so much justice, as to you?
'Tis the representation of your own hero: 'Tis the picture drawn at
length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your
ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of the tower, nor the
rising sun; nor the Anno Domini of your new sovereign's coronation.
This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party;
especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the
original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it: all his Kings
are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that
many a poor Polander, who would be glad to worship the image, is not
able to go to the cost of him; but must be content to see him here. I
must confess, I am no great artist; but sign-post-painting will serve
the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be
had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true: and though he sat
not five times to me, as he did to B. yet I have consulted history; as
the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula;
though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a
statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus.
Truth is, you might have spared one side of your medal: the head would
be seen to more advantage, if it were placed on a spike of the tower; a
little nearer to the sun; which would then break out to better purpose.
You tell us, in your preface to the _No-Protestant Plot_, that you
shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty. I suppose you mean
that little, which is left you: for it was worn to rags when you put
out this medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious
impudence in the face of an established Government. I believe, when he
is dead, you will wear him in thumb-rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg;
as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy.
Yet all this while, you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but
a due veneration for the person of the king. But all men, who can see
an inch before them, may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it
is necessary for men in your circumstances to pretend both, is granted
you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But
I would ask you one civil question: What right has any man among you,
or any association of men (to come nearer to you) who, out of
Parliament cannot be consider'd in a public capacity, to meet, as you
daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the Government in your
discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges
in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public
welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition of _loyal_, which is
to serve the King according to the laws, allow you the licence of
traducing the executive power, with which you own he is invested? You
complain, that his Majesty has lost the love and confidence of his
people; and, by your very urging it, you endeavour, what in you lies,
to make him lose them. All good subjects abhor the thought of
arbitrary power, whether it be in one or many; if you were the patriots
you would seem, you would not at this rate incense the multitude to
assume it; for no sober man can fear it, either from the King's
disposition or his practice; or even, where you would odiously lay it,
from his ministers. Give us leave to enjoy the Government, and the
benefit of laws, under which we were born, and which we desire to
transmit to our posterity. You are not the trustees of the public
liberty; and if you have not right to petition in a crowd, much less
have you to intermeddle in the management of affairs, or to arraign
what you do not like; which in effect is everything that is done by the
King and Council. Can you imagine, that any reasonable man will believe
you respect the person of his Majesty, when 'tis apparent that your
seditious pamphlets are stuffed with particular reflections on him? If
you have the confidence to deny this, 'tis easy to be evinced from a
thousand passages, which I only forbear to quote because I desire they
should die and be forgotten. I have perused many of your papers; and to
show you that I have, the third part of your _No-Protestant Plot_ is
much of it stolen from your dead author's pamphlet called the _Growth
of Popery_; as manifestly as Milton's defence of the English people is
from Buchanan, _de jure regni apud Scotos_; or your first covenant, and
new association, from the holy league of the French Guisards. Anyone,
who reads Davila, may trace your practices all along. There were the
same pretences for reformation and loyalty, the same aspersions of the
King, and the same grounds of a rebellion. I know not whether you will
take the historian's word, who says, it was reported, that Poltrot a
Huguenot murder'd Francis Duke of Guise, by the instigations of
Theodore Beza; or that it was a Huguenot minister, otherwise called a
Presbyterian (for our Church abhors so devilish a tenet) who first
writ a treatise of the lawfulness of deposing and murdering Kings, of a
different persuasion in religion. But I am able to prove from the
doctrine of Calvin, and principles of Buchanan, that they set the
people above the magistrate; which, if I mistake not, is your own
fundamental; and which carries your loyalty no farther than your
liking. When a vote of the House of Commons goes on your side, you are
as ready to observe it, as if it were passed into a law: but when you
are pinch'd with any former, and yet unrepealed, Act of Parliament, you
declare that in some cases you will not be obliged by it. The passage
is in the same third part of the _No-Protestant Plot_; and is too plain
to be denied. The late copy of your intended association you neither
wholly justify nor condemn: but as the Papists, when they are
unoppos'd, fly out into all the pageantries of worship, but, in times
of war, when they are hard pressed by arguments, lie close intrenched
behind the Council of Trent; so, now, when your affairs are in a low
condition, you dare not pretend that to be a legal combination; but
whensover you are afloat, I doubt not but it will be maintained and
justified to purpose. For indeed there is nothing to defend it but the
sword: 'Tis the proper time to say anything, when men have all things
in their power.

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