University of Virginia Library

A Plundering Coward.

Of all our Martial Evils he's the worst,
Who fain would write himself Man if he durst,
His bulk, and needlesse magnitude hath shewn
The symptomes of (what he's afraid to own)
An active honest man; although we may
Conclude, nought is more different than they;
There's lesse antipathy 'twixt Lamb, and Fox:
Honest, and Coward, is a Paradox
So great, that wiser Judgements may agree,
Poyson and Balsam have a Sympathy,
Compar'd to them; He dares not be of that
Religion he must fight for; but is what
You please to call him, which (if understood)
It shall go hard, but he will make it good:
No man like him so guilty of detraction,
But hates the words of Sword, and Satisfaction;
The hour of Six, St Georges fields, the length
Of Weapons, with a Secondary Strength;
Such circumstance as this hath power to kill,
More lightning-like than the Weeks mortal Bill
Presented to a Usurer, when he
Thinks of his crimes, and his mortality:
A Debtor meets a Sergeant with lesse fear,
Or Indian Merchants Gallies from Algier;
Yet he's the onely thing that is most froward
To his own Tribe, & speaks the base word Coward,
With such emphaticall contempt, as if
He were Bellona's Officer in chief:
He'l lie (to) and be told so, yet you may
(For ought he knows) live many a fair day
Without accounting for't; no man as he
Doth bluster so in civil company:
Or puts the Drawers and Bar-boy in fear;
But (if by hapless Chance) women be there,
His Dialect is Gunpowder, his frown,
Designs the sacking of some stately Town:
His ruddy rhetorique speaks nought but Wars,
Drums, Trumpets, Cannons, Granado's, Petars;
Hurting the Ladies with uncivil force,
To shew them how he charg'd a Troop of horse,
And kild their chief Commander: Till they pray,
He will be pleas'd to fight no more that day:
At which he cries, Ladies I must confess,
This language is not for your gentleness;
I shall be silent, but will onely tell,
How by one Cannon shot ten thousand fell,
At storming of a City; then (it may be)
Ere that, some Gentleman relieves my Lady,
That knows his vapouring, to whom he dares,
Sooner breath Blasphemy, then speak of Warrs;
A boy out-braves him, if he can but threat him,
And each man is his master that dares beat him;
(That's every man that knows him) to whom he
Hath vow'd Allegeance, Love, and Loyalty:
His Friend is one for whom he doth not care,
Because subjected not to love but fear:
He's one the town ridds without bit or snaffle,
Kick'd capable of every sort of bafflle;
And is contented to bestow the strife
(Receiv'd abroad) at home upon his wife,
Or quaking servants; nay, his very Doxy
Shall suffer, thus he grows reveng'd by proxy:
The Fidlers greatly fear him, whom he puts
To flight, or frets them to the very guts:
If Marshall law for plunder han't destroy'd him,
Ile teach you by his habit to avoid him;
His look and language are both rude, and rough,
His plump corpes laced in with larded buff
Of primitive Cows skin, which he doth regard
So much; that all his actions are Cow-ward.
His hat pinn'd up, a black patch crosse the nose,
A heavy iron sword, which fondly grows
To the kinde scabberd, and (the more to brave it)
A greasie scarfe, fat as the fist that gave it.
But if he have a fortune, you shall see
His Cowship in more glittring bravery;
Of beaver, feather, silver spurs, rich hilt,
The medall of his General in gilt,
Yet is an Armies Cipher, and doth cumber
The place he rides in, to make up the number.