A nursery of novelties in Variety of Poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Heroick Sirs, you glorious nine or ten,
That can dispose the King or the Kings men,
Who by sublimer Rhetorick agree
That Prisons are the Subjects Liberty;
And though we brought in Silver at low rates,
Ye plunder to secure us our Estates,
Your serious subtlety is born so grave,
We dare not tell you how much Power ye have;
Or else you dare not hear us, how ye frown
If we but say King Pym wears Charles his Crown:
Such a word's Treason, and you must not hear it,
Treason to speak it, and yet none to wear it.
Oh! wise mysterious what shall we
Do for such men as you e're forty three
Be quite expir'd, and an unlucky season
Shall put a period to Triænial Treason?
When Master Pym your wise judicious Schollar
Ascends his Throne, and takes his Crown in Collar:
When the Field's pitch't, and some (for all their skill)
Shall fight a fearful Battle on Tower-hill,
When Canterbury coming forth, shall wonder
You have so long secur'd him from the thunder
Of your King-hunting Prentices, and the Major
Shall justle zealous Isaac from his Chair;
Then Cheap-side Cross shall be new guilt, new painted,
Gregory be made a Sheriff, and Tyburn sainted:
Fore-knowing Brooks, thou drew'st a happy lot,
'Twas a wise bolt although it was soon shot.

But whilst you reign, our low Petition craves
That we, the King's true Subjects, and your Slaves

May in our Comick Mirth and Tragick Rage
Set ope the Theatre and shew the Stage;
The Shop of Truth and Fancy, where we vow
Not to act any thing you'l disallow;
We will not dare at your strange Votes to jeer,
Or personate King Pym with his State fleire:
Aspiring Cataline shall be forgot,
Bloody Sejanus, or who ere could plot
Confusion 'gainst a State, the War betwixt
The Parliament and just Harry the Sixt,
Shall have no thought or mention, 'cause their power
Not onely plac'd, but lost him in the Tower;
Nor will we parallel with least suspicion,
Your Synod with the Spanish Inquisition,
Or like the grave advice of learned Pym,
Make a Malignant, and then Plunder Him.
All these and such like actions that may mar
Your soaring plots, or shew you what you are,
We shall omit, lest our inventions shake 'em,
Why should the men be wiser then you'l make 'em:
Methinks there should not such a difference be
'Twixt your Professions and our Quality.

You Meet, Plot, Act, talk high with minds immense,
The like with us, but onely we speak sense

Inferiour unto yours, we can tell how
To depose Kings, there we know more then you;
Although not more then what ye would, so we
Do in our vaster Priv'ledges agree;

But that yours are the larger, and controuls,
Not onely Lives and Fortunes, but mens souls;
Declaring by an Enigmatick sence,
A priviledge on each man's Conscience;
As if the Trinity could not consent
To save a Soul, but by the Parliament:
We make the people laugh at some vain show,
And, as they laugh at us, they do at you,
Onely i'th' contrary we disagree,
For you can make them cry faster then wee:
Your Tragedies more real are exprest,
You murther men in earnest, we in jeast;
There we come short, but if you follow't thus,
Some wise men fear you will come short of us.
As humbly as we did begin, we pray,
Dear School-masters, you'l give us leave to Play,
Quickly before the King comes, for we wou'd
Be glad to say, v've done a little good.
Since ye have sat, your play is almost done,
As well as ours, would 't had ne're been begun;
But we shall finde, e're the last Act be spent,
Enter the King, Exit the Parliament,
And hey then up go we, who by the frown
Of guilty Members have been voted down.
Yet you may still remain, and sit, and vote,
And through your own beam see your brothers mote,
Until a legal tryal shew how
Y'ave us'd the King, and hey then up go you.
So pray your humble slaves (with all their powers)
That when they have their due you may have yours.