--------------"hee, for wicked ends,
Had the Castalian spring defiled with gall,
And changed by Witchcraft most satyricall,
The bayes of Helicon and myrtles mild,
To pricking hawthornes and to hollies wild.
--------------with slanders false,
With forged fictitious calumnies and tales--
He added fewel to the direful flame
Of civil discord; and domestic blowes,
By the incentives of malicious prose.
For whereas he should have composed his inke
Of liquors that make flames expire, and shrink
Into their cinders--
--He laboured hard for to bring in
The exploded doctrines of the Florentine,
And taught that to dissemble and to lie
Were vital parts of human policie."
[331] Alluding to a ridiculous rumour, that the King was to receive
foreign troops by a Danish fleet.
[332] Col. Urrey, _alias_ Hurrey, deserted the Parliament, and went
over to the King; afterwards deserted the King, and discovered
to the Parliament all he knew of the King's forces.--_See
Clarendon._
[333] This Sir William Brereton, or, as Clarendon writes the name,
Bruerton, was the famous Cheshire knight, whom Cleveland
characterizes as one of those heroes whose courage lies in
their teeth. "Was Brereton," says the loyal satirist, "to
fight with his teeth, as he in all other things resembles the
beast, he would have odds of any man at this weapon. He's a
terrible slaughterman at a Thanksgiving dinner. Had he been
cannibal enough to have eaten those he vanquished, his gut
would have made him valiant." And in "Loyal Songs" his valiant
appetite is noticed:
"But, oh! take heed lest he do eat
The Rump all at one dinner!"
And Aulicus, we see, accuses him of concealing his bravery in
a hayrick. It is always curious and useful to confer the
writers of intemperate times one with another. Lord Clarendon,
whose great mind was incapable of descending to scurrility,
gives a very different character to this pot-valiant and
hayrick runaway; for he says, "It cannot be denied but Sir
William Brereton, and the other gentlemen of that party,
albeit their educations and course of life had been very
different from their present engagements, and for the most
part very unpromising in matters of war, and therefore were
too much contemned enemies, executed their commands with
notable sobriety and indefatigable industry (virtues not so
well practised in the King's quarters), insomuch as the best
soldiers who encountered with them had no cause to despise
them."--_Clarendon_, vol. ii. p. 147.
[334] "The Scotch Dove" seems never to have recovered from this
metamorphosis, but ever after, among the newsmen, was known to
be only a Widgeon. His character is not very high in "The
Great Assizes."
"The innocent _Scotch Dove_ did then advance,
Full sober in his wit and countenance:
And, though his book contain'd not mickle scence,
Yet his endictment shew'd no great offence.
Great wits to perils great, themselves expose
Oft-times; but the _Scotch Dove_ was none of those.
In many words he little matter drest,
And did laconick brevity detest.
But while his readers did expect some Newes,
They found a Sermon--"
The Scotch Dove desires to meet the classical Aulicus in the
duel of the pen:--
------------"to turn me loose,
A _Scottish Dove_ against a _Roman Goose_."
"The Scotch Dove" is condemned "to cross the seas, or to
repasse the Tweede." They all envy him his "easy mulet," but
he wofully exclaims at the hard sentence,
"For if they knew that _home_ as well as he,
They'd rather die than there imprison'd be!"
[335] This stroke alludes to a rumour of the times, noticed also by
Clarendon, that Pym died of the _morbus pediculosus_.
[336] "Peard, a bold lawyer of little note."--_Clarendon._
[337] These divines were as ready with the sword as the pen; thus, we
are told in "The Impartial Scout" for July, 1650--"The
ministers are now as active in the military discipline as
formerly they were in the gospel profession, Parson Ennis,
Parson Brown, and about thirty other ministers having received
commissions to be majors and captains, who now hold forth the
Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other, telling the
soldiery that they need not fear what man can do against
them--that God is on their side--and that He hath prepared an
engine in heaven to break and blast the designs of all
covenant-breakers."--ED.