Poems on Affairs of State

[Volume I.] From the time of Oliver Cromwell to the Abdication of K. James the Second.

The Second Part. Written during the Reign of K. James the II. against Popery and Slavery, and his Arbitrary Proceedings.

II.

Vol. II. From The Reign of K. James the First, To this Present Year 1703.

III.

VOL. III. From the Year 1640. to the Year 1704.

IV.

VOL. IV. From 1620. to this present Year 1707.

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On Mun Doyly and Fleet Shepherd, Esquires.

Fat, ruddy, and dull,
With an Inch-thick of Skull;
But false as the Bags of his Brother;
Is that Caterer for News,
In Taverns and Stews,
Mun Doyly the Son of his Mother.

The great Legg hearing this,
Thought all was amiss;
And to run his Intelligence higher,
Resolv'd at a Jump,
To leven that Lump,
With Shepherd that voluble Lyar.

What notable Tools
Are a Brace of such Fools,
In the hands of a young Politician;
When the Colonel did chuse
False Wit, and false News,
Sure he needed much more a Physician.

197

Yet poor Shepherd may prove
In time, by Legg's Love,
As famous as Markham or Needham:
Or Berkinhead the Great,
Who employs all his Sweat
In witty smart Ballads (God speed him.)

Return to the Pot,
Thou damn'd drolling Sot,
In time, lest the Gallows attend thee;
For thou'lt ne'er make so good
A Spy as old Blood,
Tho Billing and Mead do befriend thee.

In Alehouses dipt,
From Oxford thou wert whipt,
For thy witty Deceits to the Tapster:
T' has e'er since been thy way,
Thy best Friends to betray;
Clancy proceeded not faster.

University of Virginia Library

On Mun Doyly and Fleet Shepherd, Esquires.