First Stamford slew him, then Waller outkilled that half a bar; and yet
it is thought the sullen corpse would scarce bleed were both these
manslayers never so near it.
The same goes of a Dutch headsman, that he would do his office with so
much ease and dexterity, that the head after execution should stand upon
the shoulders. Pray God Sir William be not probationer for the place;
for as if he had the like knack too, most of those whom the diurnal hath
slain for him, to us poor mortals seem untouched.
Thus these artificers of death can kill the man without wounding the
body, like lightning, that melts the sword and never singes
the scabbard.
This is the William whose lady is the conqueror; this is the city's
champion and the diurnal's delight; he that cuckolds the general in his
commission; for he stalks with Essex, and shoots under his belly,
because his Excellency himself is not charged there: yet in all this
triumph there is a whip and bell; translate but the scene to Roundway
Down, there Hazelrig's lobsters turned crabs and crawled backwards,
there poor Sir William ran to his lady for an use of consolation.
But the diurnal is weary of the arm of flesh, and now begins an hosanna
to Cromwell; one that hath beat up his drums clean through the Old
Testament; you may learn the genealogy of our Saviour by the names in
his regiment; the muster-master uses no other list but the first chapter
of Matthew.
With what face can they object to the king the bringing in of
foreigners, when themselves entertain such an army of Hebrews? This
Cromwell is never so valorous as when he is making speeches for the
association, which nevertheless he doth somewhat ominously with his neck
awry, holding up his ear as if he expected Mahomet's pigeon to come and
prompt him. He should be a bird of prey too by his bloody beak; his nose
is able to try a young eagle, whether she be lawfully begotten. But all
is not gold that glitters. What we wonder at in the rest of them is
natural to him to kill without bloodshed, for the most of his trophies
are in a church window, when a looking-glass would show him more
superstition. He is so perfect a hater of images that he hath defaced
God's in his own countenance. If he deals with men, 'tis when he takes
them napping in an old monument; then down goes dust and ashes, and the
stoutest cavalier is no better. O brave Oliver! Time's voider, subsizer
to the worms, in whom death, who formerly devoured our ancestors, now
chews the cud. He said grace once as if he would have fallen aboard with
the Marquis of Newcastle; nay, and the diurnal gave you his bill of
fare; but it proved a running banquet, as appears by the story. Believe
him as he whistles to his Cambridge team of committee-men, and he doth
wonders. But holy men, like the holy language, must be read backwards.
They rifle colleges to promote learning, and pull down churches for
edification. But sacrilege is entailed upon him. There must be a
Cromwell for cathedrals as well as abbeys; a secure sin, whose offence
carries its pardon in its mouth; for how shall he be hanged for
church-robbery, that gives himself the benefit of the clergy?
But for all Cromwell's nose wears the dominical letter, compared to
Manchester he is but like the vigils to an holy-day. This, this is the
man of God, so sanctified a thunderbolt, that Burroughs (in a
proportionable blasphemy to his Lord of Hosts) would style him the
archangel giving battle to the devil.
Indeed, as the angels each of them makes a several species, so every one
of his soldiers makes a distinct church. Had these beasts been to enter
into the ark it would have puzzled Noah to have sorted them into pairs.
If ever there were a rope of sand it was so many sects twisted into an
association.
They agree in nothing but that they are all Adamites in understanding.
It is a sign of a coward to wink and fight, yet all their valour
proceeds from their ignorance.
But I wonder whence their general's purity proceeds; it is not by
traduction; if he was begotten a saint it was by equivocal generation,
for the devil in the father is turned monk in the son, so his godliness
is of the same parentage with good laws, both extracted out of bad
manners, and would he alter the Scripture as he hath attempted the
creed, he might vary the text and say to corruption, Thou art my Father.
This is he that put out one of the kingdom's eyes by clouding our mother
university; and (if this Scotch mist farther prevail) he will extinguish
the other. He hath the like quarrel to both, because both are strung
with the same optic nerve, knowing loyalty.
Barbarous rebel! who will be revenged upon all learning, because his
treason is beyond the mercy of the book.
The diurnal as yet hath not talked much of his victories, but there is
the more behind, for the knight must always beat the giant,
that's resolved.
If anything fall out amiss which cannot be smothered, the diurnal hath a
help at maw. It is but putting to sea and taking a Danish fleet, or
brewing it with some success out of Ireland, and then it goes
down merrily.
There are more puppets that move by the wire of a diurnal, as Brereton
and Cell, two of Mars his petty-toes, such snivelling cowards that it is
a favour to call them so. Was Brereton to fight with his teeth (as in
all other things he resembles the beast) he would have odds of any man
at the weapon. Oh, he's a terrible slaughterman at a Thanksgiving
dinner. Had he been cannibal to have eaten those that he vanquished, his
gut would have made him valiant.
The greatest wonder is at Fairfax, how he comes to be a babe of grace,
certainly it is not in his personal, but (as the State-sophies
distinguish) in his politic capacity; degenerate _ab extra_ by the zeal
of the house he sat in, as chickens are hatched at Grand Cairo by the
adoption of an oven.
There is the woodmonger too, a feeble crutch to a declining cause, a new
branch of the old oak of reformation.
And now I speak of reformation, _vous avez_, Fox the tinker, the
liveliest emblem of it that may be; for what did this parliament ever go
about to reform, but, tinkerwise, in mending one hole they made three?
But I have not ink enough to cure all the tetters and ring-worms of the
State.
I will close up all thus. The victories of the rebels are like the
magical combat of Apuleius, who thinking he had slain three of his
enemies, found them at last but a triumvirate of bladders. Such, and so
empty are the triumphs of a diurnal, but so many impostumated fancies,
so many bladders of their own blowing.
* * * * *
_The "Surfeit to A.B.C." in 1656, was a look of Characters. "Naps upon
Parnassus'" in 1658 contained Characters of a Temporizer and an
Antiquary. In the same year appeared "Satyrical Characters and Handsome
Descriptions, in Letters." In 1659 there was a third edition of a satire
on the English, published as "A Character of England, as it was lately
presented in a Letter to a Nobleman of France" replied to in that year
by "A Character of France." These suggested the production in 1659 of "A
Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland" and, also in
1659, "A Brief Character of the Low Countries under the States, being
Three Weeks' Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the Inhabitants."
This was written by Owen Feltham, and added to several editions of his
"Resolves." In 1660 appeared "The Character of Italy" and "The Character
of Spain;" in 1661, "Essays and Characters by L. G.;" in 1662-63, "The
Assembly-Man" a Character that had been written by Sir John Birkenhead
in 1647. Then came, in 1665, Richard Flecknoe, to whom Dryden ascribed
sovereignty as one who
"In prose and verse was owned without dispute,
Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute."
As he was equally ready in all forms of writing that his neighbours
followed he, of course, wrote Characters. They were "Fifty-five
Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several
Persons, Humours, Dispositions. Pleasant and full of Delight. By R. F.,
Esq." The Duke of Newcastle admired, and wrote, in lines prefixed to
the book--_
"Flecknoe, thy characters are so full of wit
And fancy, as each word is throng'd with it.
Each line's a volume, and who reads would swear
Whole libraries were in each character.
Nor arrows in a quiver stuck, nor yet
Lights in the starry skies are thicker set,
Nor quills upon the armed porcupine,
Than wit and fancy in this work of thine."
_This is one of Flecknoe's Characters:--_