Chapter IV: Introduction: To John Cleveland (3)

Peace, Beldam Eve, surcease thy suit;
There 's no temptation in such fruit;
No rotten medlars, whilst there be
Whole orchards in virginity.
Thy stock is too much out of date
For tender plants t' inoculate.
A match with thee thy bridegroom fears
Would be thought interest in his years,
Which, when compared to thine, become
Odd money to thy grandam sum. 10
Can wedlock know so great a curse
As putting husbands out to nurse?
How Pond and Rivers would mistake
And cry new almanacs for our sake.
Time sure hath wheeled about his year,
December meeting Janiveer.
The Egyptian serpent figures Time,
And stripped, returns unto his prime.
If my affection thou wouldst win,
First cast thy hieroglyphic skin. 20
My modern lips know not, alack!
The old religion of thy smack.
I count that primitive embrace
As out of fashion as thy face.
And yet, so long 'tis since thy fall,
Thy fornication 's classical.
Our sports will differ; thou mayst play
Lero, and I Alphonso way.
I'm no translator, have no vein
To turn a woman young again, 30
Unless you'll grant the tailor's due,
To see the fore-bodies be new.
I love to wear clothes that are flush,
Not prefacing old rags with plush,
Like aldermen, or under-shrieves
With canvass backs and velvet sleeves:
And just such discord there would be
Betwixt thy skeleton and me.
Go study salve and treacle, ply
Your tenant's leg or his sore eye. 40
Thus matrons purchase credit, thank
Six pennyworth of mountebank;
Or chew thy cud on some delight
That thou didst taste in 'eighty-eight;
Or be but bed-rid once, and then
Thou'lt dream thy youthful sins again.
But if thou needs wilt be my spouse,
First hearken and attend my vows.
_When Aetna's fires shall undergo_
_The penance of the Alps in snow;_ 50
_When Sol at one blast of his horn_
_Posts from the Crab to Capricorn;_
_When th' heavens shuffle all in one_
_The Torrid with the Frozen Zone;_
_When all these contradictions meet_,
_Then, Sibyl, thou and I will greet._
For all these similes do hold
In my young heat and thy dull cold.
Then, if a fever be so good
A pimp as to inflame thy blood, 60
Hymen shall twist thee and thy page,
The distinct tropics of man's age.
Well, Madam Time, be ever bald.
I'll not thy periwig be called.
I'll never be 'stead of a lover,
An aged chronicle's new cover.

[_A Young Man, &c._ (_1647_.)]

[Line: 8 _1677_, &c. have 'incest', which is rather tempting,
but considering the 'odd money' which follows, not, I think,
absolutely certain.]

[Line: 13 Edward Pond died in 1629; but the almanac, published
by him first in 1601, lasted till 1709. Rivers was probably
Peregrine Rivers, 'Student in Mathematics', writer of one of
the numerous almanacs of the period. There are in the Bodleian
copies of his almanacs for 1629, 1630, 1638, all printed at
Cambridge. (Information supplied to me from Oxford.)]

[Line: 15 Some copies 'this'.]

[Line: 22 Rather a good line.]

[Line: 27 _1651_, _1653_, &c. 'mayst': _1647_, _1677_, &c.
'must'.]

[Line: 35 _1647_ 'Monster Shrieves', _1653_
'Monster-Sheriffs', which can hardly be right.]

[Line: 44 'eighty-eight] The Armada year, often taken as a
standard of remoteness not too remote. This, which is the
later reading, of 1677 _sqq._, seems better than '_Thou takest
in thy_ Eighty Eight' (_1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c.).]

[Lines: 49-62 The italics of _1653_, though discarded in
_1677_, seem worth keeping, because of the solemn call of
attention to the particulars of the 'Vow'; they extend in the
_1653_ text to l. 60. But _1647_ and _1651_, prefix inverted
commas to ll. 49-56, which seems a more effective ending to
the 'Vow'.]

[Line: 53 Some inferior editions put in 'shall'. _1647_,
_1651_, _1653_, and _1677_ exclude it.]

[Line: 61 twist] In the sense of 'twine', 'unite'. 'page' =
'boy'.]

[Line: 62 _1647_, _1651_ 'Tropicks': _1653_ 'Tropick'; but
both Cancer and Capricorn are wanted.]

To Mrs. K. T.

(Who asked him why he was dumb.)

Stay, should I answer, Lady, then
In vain would be your question:
Should I be dumb, why then again
Your asking me would be in vain.
Silence nor speech, on neither hand,
Can satisfy this strange demand.
Yet, since your will throws me upon
This wished contradiction,
I'll tell you how I did become
So strangely, as you hear me, dumb. 10
Ask but the chap-fallen Puritan;
'Tis zeal that tongue-ties that good man.
(For heat of conscience all men hold
Is th' only way to catch their cold.)
How should Love's zealot then forbear
To be your silenced minister?
Nay, your Religion which doth grant
A worship due to you, my Saint,
Yet counts it that devotion wrong
That does it in the Vulgar Tongue. 20
My ruder words would give offence
To such an hallowed excellence,
As th' English dialect would vary
The goodness of an Ave Mary.
How can I speak that twice am checked
By this and that religious sect?
Still dumb, and in your face I spy
Still cause and still divinity.
As soon as blest with your salute,
My manners taught me to be mute. 30
For, lest they cancel all the bliss
You signed with so divine a kiss,
The lips you seal must needs consent
Unto the tongue's imprisonment.
My tongue in hold, my voice doth rise
With a strange E-la to my eyes,
Where it gets bail, and in that sense
Begins a new-found eloquence.
Oh listen with attentive sight
To what my pratling eyes indite! 40
Or, lady, since 'tis in your choice
To give or to suspend my voice,
With the same key set ope the door
Wherewith you locked it fast before.
Kiss once again, and when you thus
Have doubly been miraculous,
My Muse shall write with handmaid's duty
The Golden Legend of your beauty.

He whom his dumbness now confines
But means to speak the rest by signs. 50

_I. C._

[_To Mrs. K. T., &c._ (_1647_). To this title _1677_
and its followers add 'Written _calente calamo_'. The variant
on _currente_ is of some interest, and the statement may have
been made to excuse the bad opening rhyme.]

[Line: 5 neither] either _1677_.]

[Line: 14 'their cold' _1651_, _1653_: 'that cold' _1647_,
_1677_.]

[Line: 16 silenced] As some Puritans were before Cleveland
wrote, and all, or almost all, Churchmen afterwards.]

[Line: 31 _1677_ 'Lest I should cancel all the bliss'.]

[Line: 37 bail] _1653_ &c. '_h_ail', which is doubtless a
misprint.]

[Line: 40 'prating' _1677_.]

[Line: 47 'handmaid' _1677_.]

[Line: 50 _1677_ '_Intends_ to speak'--an obvious correction
of the 'red-hot pen'. But whether Cleveland's or his
vindicators' who shall say?]

[Line: 51 So _1647_, _1651_, _1653_. The couplet is
meaningless without them.]

A Fair Nymph scorning a Black Boy courting her.

_Nymph._ Stand off, and let me take the air;
Why should the smoke pursue the fair?

_Boy._ My face is smoke, thence may be guessed
What flames within have scorched my breast.

_Nymph._ The flame of love I cannot view
For the dark lantern of thy hue.

_Boy._ And yet this lantern keeps Love's taper
Surer than yours, that's of white paper.
Whatever midnight hath been here,
The moonshine of your light can clear. 10

_Nymph._ My moon of an eclipse is 'fraid,
If thou shouldst interpose thy shade.

_Boy._ Yet one thing, Sweetheart, I will ask;
Take me for a new-fashioned mask.

_Nymph._ Yes, but my bargain shall be this,
I'll throw my mask off when I kiss.

_Boy._ Our curled embraces shall delight
To checker limbs with black and white.

_Nymph._ Thy ink, my paper, make me guess
Our nuptial bed will prove a press, 20
And in our sports, if any came,
They'll read a wanton epigram.

_Boy._ Why should my black thy love impair?
Let the dark shop commend the ware;
Or, if thy love from black forbears,
I'll strive to wash it off with tears.

_Nymph._ Spare fruitless tears, since thou must needs
Still wear about thee mourning weeds.
Tears can no more affection win
Than wash thy Ethiopian skin. 30

[_A Fair Nymph, &c._ (_1647_.)]

[Line: 2 An odd fancy included by Browne among the _Vulgar
Errors_.]

[Line: 5 'Thy flaming love' _1677_ &c.]

[Line: 10 'face will clear' _1677_ &c.]

[Line: 14 _1677_ 'Take me for a new-fashioned mask': _1647_,
_1651_ 'Buy me for a new false mask', varied in _1653_ 'Buy
for me'--apparently a misprint, as the boy does not seem to
wish to disguise himself.]

[Line: 15 Yes] Done _1677_.]

[Line: 20 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, 'make a press', ill repeated
from above.]

[Line: 24 'the ware' _1677_: _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, not so
well, '_thy_ ware'.]

[Line: 28 _1677_ changed 'thee' to 'thy'.]

[Line: 30 Some inferior copies '_the_ Ethiopian'.]

A Dialogue between two Zealots upon the &c. in the Oath.

Sir Roger, from a zealous piece of frieze
Raised to a vicar of the children's threes;
Whose yearly audit may by strict account
To twenty nobles and his vails amount;
Fed on the common of the female charity
Until the Scots can bring about their parity;
So shotten that his soul, like to himself,
Walks but in cuerpo; this same clergy-elf,
Encountering with a brother of the cloth,
Fell presently to cudgels with the Oath. 10
The quarrel was a strange misshapen monster,
&c., (God bless us) which they conster
The brand upon the buttock of the Beast,
The Dragon's tail tied on a knot, a nest
Of young Apocryphas, the fashion
Of a new mental Reservation.
While Roger thus divides the text, the other
Winks and expounds, saying, 'My pious brother,
Hearken with reverence, for the point is nice.
I never read on 't, but I fasted twice, 20
And so by revelation know it better
Than all the learn'd idolaters o'th' letter.'
With that he swelled, and fell upon the theme
Like great Goliah with his weaver's beam.
'I say to thee, &c., thou li'st!
Thou art the curléd lock of Antichrist;
Rubbish of Babel; for who will not say
Tongues were confounded in &c.?
Who swears &c., swears more oaths at once
Than Cerberus out of his triple sconce. 30
Who views it well, with the same eye beholds
The old half Serpent in his numerous folds.
Accurst &c. thou, for now I scent
What lately the prodigious oysters meant!
Oh Booker! Booker! How camest thou to lack
This sign in thy prophetic almanac?
It 's the dark vault wherein th' infernal plot
Of powder 'gainst the State was first begot.
Peruse the Oath and you shall soon descry it
By all the Father Garnets that stand by it; 40
'Gainst whom the Church, (whereof I am a member,)
Shall keep another Fifth Day of November.
Yet here's not all; I cannot half untruss
&c.--it's so abhominous!
The Trojan nag was not so fully lined;
Unrip &c., and you shall find
Og the great commissary, and (which is worse)
The apparitor upon his skew-bald horse.
Then finally, my babe of grace, forbear,
&c. will be too far to swear, 50
For 'tis (to speak in a familiar style)
A Yorkshire wee bit longer than a mile.'
Here Roger was inspired, and by God's diggers
He'll swear in words at large but not in figures.
Now by this drink, which he takes off, as loath
To leave &c. in his liquid oath.
His brother pledged him, and that bloody wine
He swears shall seal the Synod's Catiline.
So they drunk on, not offering to part
'Till they had quite sworn out th' eleventh quart, 60
While all that saw and heard them jointly pray
They and their tribe were all &c.

[_A Dialogue, &c._ (_1647_.) This occurs also in the
_Rump_ (1662, reprinted London, N. D.). A MS. copy is found in
Rawlinson MS. Poet. 26 of the Bodleian, at fol. 94, with the
title '_A Dialogue between 2. Zelots concerning &c. in the
new Oath_.' 'The Oath' is the famous one formulated in 1640
by Convocation. Fuller, who was proctor for the diocese of
Bristol (and who would have been fined heavily for his part,
'moderate' as he was, if the Puritan Ultras of the Commons
could have had their way), has left much about it. This
oath, to be taken by all the clergy, imported approval of
the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Church, and
disclaimed, twice over, 'Popish' doctrine and the usurpations
of the see of Rome. Unluckily the government of the Church was
defined as 'by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons,
_&c._', which last was, in the absence of any other handle,
seized by the Puritan party as possibly implying all sorts of
horrors. Cleveland banters them well enough, but hardly with
the force and directness which he was to show later. The
Royalists were then under the fatal error of underrating the
strength of their opponents, and the gullibility of the people
of England.]

[Line: 2 'vicar', _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, _MS._: 'vicarage'
_1677_. 'children' _1651_, _1653_: I have been waiting a
long time to know what 'children's threes' means. It occurs
elsewhere, but to my thinking as an obvious reminiscence of
Cleveland.]

[Line: 7 shotten] 'like a herring that has spawned', 'thin'.]

[Line: 8 in cuerpo] 'in body-clothes', 'cloakless'. _1647_,
_1651_, _1653_ 'Querpo': _MS._ 'Quirpo', with 'cuerpo' written
above it.]

[Line: 12 _1677_ extends '&c.' to 'et caetera'. This is a
mistake, as the actual ampersand occurred in the oath and
gave some slight assistance to the cavillers. Cleveland's
expressions--'tail tied on a knot' (l. 14), 'curled lock' (l.
26), 'numerous folds' (l. 32)--lose their point without the
ampersand. _1677_ also has '_may_ conster', which though
possible enough, seems to me neither necessary nor even much
of an improvement.]

[Line: 17 _1677_, less euphoniously, 'Whil_st_'.]

[Line: 22 A reading of the _Rump_ version, 'Than all the
Idolaters of the letter', though almost certainly a mere
mistaken correction, has some interest.]

[Line: 23 fell] sett _MS._]

[Line: 24 Goliah] This form occurs in all the texts.]

[Line: 25 In this and other lines that follow much of the
quaintness is lost by 'extending' the '&c.' of the older
editions.]

[Line: 28 were] are _1677_, _MS._]

[Line: 32 All editions, I think, before _1677_ (which
substitutes 'false') have 'half'. 'False' is very feeble;
'half' refers picturesquely to the delineation of the Serpent
tempting Eve with a human head, being coiled below like the
curves of the _&c._ 'False' _MS._]

[Line: 33 _1677_, _MS._ 'Accurst Et Caetera! now, now I
scent'.]

[Line: 34 I do not know whether these very Livyish oysters
have been traced. _1677_ and _MS._ omit 'lately' and read
'prodigious bloody oysters'.]

[Line: 35 John Booker (1603-1677), Manchester man,
haberdasher, writing-master, and astrologer, gained a great
deal of credit by interpreting an eclipse after the usual
fashion as portending disaster to kings and princes, the great
Gustavus Adolphus and the unfortunate Frederick, 'Winter'-King
of Bohemia, being complaisant enough to die in accordance.]

[Line: 36 This sign] _1677_, _MS._ 'This _fiend_'--more
energetically.]

[Line: 37 ''Tis the dark vault where the' _MS._]

[Line: 40 The sting of 'the _Father Garnets_ that _stand by_
it' lies in the words immediately preceding the obnoxious
'&c.'--'archbishops, bishops, &c.'--whom the Puritan divine
stigmatizes as Jesuits and traitors to Church and State. As
has been stated, the oath distinctly, in set terms and twice
over, abjured Rome and all things Roman; but the Puritans
of those days, like their descendants, paid no attention to
trifles of this kind. For 'stand' _MS._ reads 'stood'.]

[Line: 43 Yet] Nay _MS._]

[Line: 44 _1647_, _1651_ 'abominous'; _1653_ 'abhominous'.
The 'h' must be kept in 'ab_h_ominous', though not unusual
for 'ab_om_-', because it helps to explain, and perhaps to
justify, _1677_ and _MS._ in reading 'ab_d_ominous'. This,
though something suggestive of a famous Oxford story, derives
some colour from 'untruss' and may be right, especially as I
do not know another example of 'abominous' for 'abominable'.]

[Line: 47 Og] _v. sup._, p. 31. _MS._ has marginal note
'Roan'.]

[Line: 48 'Skew-bald' is not = 'piebald', though most horses
commonly called piebald are skewbalds. 'Pie[magpie]bald' is
_black_ and white; skewbald _brown_ (or some other colour not
black) and white. The Church-courts were much more unpopular,
in these as in mediaeval times, than the Church, and High
Commissioners and commissaries and apparitors were alleged to
lurk under the guileful and dreadful '&c.']

[Line: 49 'babes' _1677_.]

[Line: 52 Blount's _Glossographia_ (1656), a useful book,
shows the ignorance of Northern English then prevailing by
supposing 'we_a_-bit' (the form found in Cleveland originally)
to be '_way_-bit'. It is, of course, 'little bit', the Scotch
'mile and a bittock'.]

[Line: 53 Here] Then _1647_, _1651_, _1653_. God's diggers] =
nails or fingers. Commoner in the corruption 'Ods niggers'.]

[Line: 54 'in words at large' _1647_ ('at length', one issue
of _1647_): 'at words in large' _1651_, _1653_: 'in words at
length, and not in figures' _MS._]

[Line: 58 Edd. 'Cat_a_line', as usual, but _1677_ 'Catiline'.
'He swears he'll be the Synod's' _MS._]

[Line: 59 'Thus they drink on, not offering to depart' _MS._]

[Line: 60 _1677_ omits 'quite'--no doubt for the old syllabic
reason. _MS._ substitutes 'fully'.]

[Line: 62 Perhaps nowhere is the comic surprise of the symbol
more wanted than here, and more of a loss when that symbol is
extended.]

Smectymnuus, or the Club-Divines.

Smectymnuus! The goblin makes me start!
I' th' name of Rabbi Abraham, what art?
Syriac? or Arabic? or Welsh? what skill't?
Ap all the bricklayers that Babel built,
Some conjurer translate and let me know it;
Till then 'tis fit for a West Saxon poet.
But do the brotherhood then play their prizes
Like mummers in religion with disguises,
Out-brave us with a name in rank and file?
A name, which, if 'twere trained, would spread a mile! 10
The saints' monopoly, the zealous cluster
Which like a porcupine presents a muster
And shoots his quills at bishops and their sees,
A devout litter of young Maccabees!
Thus Jack-of-all-trades hath devoutly shown
The Twelve Apostles on a cherry-stone;
Thus faction 's _à la mode_ in treason's fashion,
Now we have heresy by complication.
Like to Don Quixote's rosary of slaves
Strung on a chain; a murnival of knaves 20
Packed in a trick, like gipsies when they ride,
Or like colleagues which sit all of a side.
So the vain satyrists stand all a row
As hollow teeth upon a lute-string show.
Th' Italian monster pregnant with his brother,
Nature's diæresis, half one another,
He, with his little sides-man Lazarus,
Must both give way unto Smectymnuus.
Next Sturbridge Fair is Smec's; for, lo! his side
Into a five-fold lazar's multiplied. 30
Under each arm there 's tucked a double gizzard;
Five faces lurk under one single vizard.
The Whore of Babylon left these brats behind,
Heirs of confusion by gavelkind.
I think Pythagoras' soul is rambled hither
With all the change of raiment on together.
Smec is her general wardrobe; she'll not dare
To think of him as of a thoroughfare.
He stops the gossiping dame; alone he is
The purlieu of a metempsychosis; 40
Like a Scotch mark, where the more modest sense
Checks the loud phrase, and shrinks to thirteen pence:
Like to an ignis fatuus whose flame,
Though sometimes tripartite, joins in the same;
Like to nine tailors, who, if rightly spelled,
Into one man are monosyllabled.
Short-handed zeal in one hath cramped many
Like to the Decalogue in a single penny.
See, see how close the curs hunt under sheet
As if they spent in quire and scanned their feet. 50
One cure and five incumbents leap a truss;
The title sure must be litigious.
The Sadducees would raise a question
Who must be Smec at th' Resurrection.
Who cooped them up together were to blame.
Had they but wire-drawn and spun out their name,
'Twould make another Prentices' Petition
Against the bishops and their superstition.
Robson and French (that count from five to five,
As far as nature fingers did contrive-- 60
She saw they would be 'sessors, that 's the cause
She cleft their hoof into so many claws)
May tire their carrot-bunch, yet ne'er agree
To rate Smectymnuus for poll-money.
Caligula--whose pride was mankind's bail,
As who disdained to murder by retail,
Wishing the world had but one general neck,--
His glutton blade might have found game in Smec.
No echo can improve the author more
Whose lungs pay use on use to half a score. 70
No felon is more lettered, though the brand
Both superscribes his shoulder and his hand.
Some Welshman was his godfather, for he
Wears in his name his genealogy.
The banns are asked, would but the times give way,
Betwixt Smectymnuus and Et Caetera.
The guests, invited by a friendly summons,
Should be the Convocation and the Commons.
The priest to tie the foxes' tails together
Mosely, or Sancta Clara, choose you whether. 80
See what an offspring every one expects,
What strange pluralities of men and sects!
One says he'll get a vestry, but another
Is for a synod; Bet upon the mother.
Faith, cry St. George! Let them go to 't and stickle
Whether a conclave or a conventicle.
Thus might religions caterwaul, and spite
Which uses to divorce, might once unite.
But their cross fortunes interdict their trade;
The groom is rampant but the bride displayed. 90
My task is done, all my he goats are milked.
So many cards i' th' stock, and yet be bilked?
I could by letters now untwist the rabble,
Whip Smec from constable to constable;
But there I leave you to another dressing;
Only kneel down and take your father's blessing.
May the Queen Mother justify your fears
And stretch her patent to your leather ears!

[_Smectymnuus, &c._ (_1647_.) Whether this lively
skit on the five 'reverend men whose friend' Milton was (as
far as he could be proud of being anything but himself) proud
of being was in Milton's own mind when he wrote his _Apology_
for the acrostically named treatise, one cannot say. It is
a lively 'mime' enough, and he seems to throw back that word
with some special meaning. Cleveland's poem may have appeared
in the summer of 1641. Naturally, it is in the _Rump_ poems.]

[Line: 3 All editions 'skilt'. It apparently must be as in
text: 'skill't' for 'skill'st' = 'dost thou [or 'does it']
signify?']

[Line: 4 _1677_, &c. 'Ape', but 'Ap' in the Welsh sense (Welsh
having just been mentioned) does well enough. It would go, not
too roughly for Cleveland's syntax, with 'conjurer'. Let some
wizard, descended from all these, _and therefore knowing all
tongues_, translate.]

[Line: 6 This is rather interesting. Does it refer to Wessex
or Devonshire dialect of the day, or to old West Saxon? Junius
did not edit Cædmon till fourteen years later, but there was
study of Anglo-Saxon from Parker's time at Cambridge.]

[Line: 7 the brotherhood] 'Brother' and 'sister' being
constant sneers at the Puritan.

play their prizes] = 'fight'.]

[Line: 10 Perhaps another sneer at the 'train-bands' of the
City.]

[Line: 15 'distinctly' _1677_.]

[Line: 16 '_in_ a' _1677_.]

[Line: 18 I suppose _à la mode_, which is in _1677_, is right;
but the '_all_-a-mode' of _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ is tempting.]

[Line: 20 'murnival' or 'mournival'. Four aces, kings, &c.,
especially at gleek.]

[Line: 22 _1677_, &c. 'Or like _the College_'.]

[Line: 24 'h_a_llow' _1653_.]

[Line: 25 I knew not this monster, and suspected that he would
not be a delicate monster to know. But Mr. Thorn-Drury has
found him in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1777, p. 482. Lazarus
Collondo, a Genoese, had a small brother growing out of his
side, with one leg, two arms, &c., &c.]

[Line: 29 'Smec' will now be an even greater attraction at the
Sturbridge fair at Cambridge. All fairs rejoiced in monsters.]

[Line: 36 '_The_ change', as in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ and its
group, including the _Rump_ version, is not so good as 'her',
which _1677_ reads.]

[Line: 38 i.e. 'to go on to any _other_ body'.]

[Line: 40 'Purlieu' seems to be used in the sense of
'precinct' or 'province'.]

[Lines: 41-2 These lines are in all the seventeenth-century
editions I have seen, but not in Mr. Berdan's. The Scots pound
was of course only twenty English pence, and so the mark (two
thirds) 'shrank' accordingly.]

[Line: 49 _1647_, _1651_, _1677_ insert 'a' before 'sheet'.
The metaphor is probably as old as hunting. 'Spend', as
Professor Case reminds me, has had already in _The Miser_, l.
67, the sense of 'give tongue'. 'Scanned their feet' for 'kept
pace' is good enough; but why the five should leap a truss,
and why this should be litigious, I again frankly confess
myself to have been ignorant. Mr. Simpson, however, quotes R.
Fletcher in _Ex Otio Negotium_, 1656, p. 202, 'The model of
the new Religion':

How many Queere-religions? clear your throat,
May a man have a penyworth? four a groat?
Or do the _Iuncto_ leap at truss a fayle?
Three tenents clap while five hang on the tayle?

Cleveland seems to have tried in this piece to equal the
mystery of the title of 'Smec' by his own matter, and to have
succeeded very fairly.]

[Line: 54 _1677_, &c. '_shall_ be'. 'at th'' _1647_, _1677_:
'at the' _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 55 cooped] cooked _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 56 _1677_, &c. '_the_ name'.]

[Line: 57 An absurd, but doubtless in the circumstances
dangerous, document of the kind was actually disseminated, in
which the prentices bold engaged 'to defend his Sacred Majesty
against Popish innovations such as archbishops and bishops
appear to be'.]

[Line: 63 carrot-bunch] Cant for 'fingers'.]

[Line: 70 'pay' _1653_, _1677_: 'pays' _1647_, _1651_. _1677_
'_and_ use'.]

[Line: 75 'Banns' _1677_: 'Banes' in earlier texts. _1653_
'time'.]

[Line: 78 The Convocation which had been guilty of '&c.', and
the Commons who mostly sympathized with 'Smec'.]

[Line: 79 foxes' tails] As at Samson's marriage (Judges xv.
4-7.)]

[Line: 80 Mosel[e]y, Milton's printer; and Sancta Clara, the
Jesuit?]

[Line: 82 _1677_ 'plurality'.]

[Line: 83 'Vestry, but' _1677_: 'Vestery' _1647_, _1651_,
_1653_.]

[Line: 84 _1677_ 'Bets'.]

[Line: 90 The heraldic terms are pretty plain, but _1677_
reads 'is spade' i.e. 'spayed', as in _The Hecatomb to his
Mistress_, l. 2.]

[Line: 94 Rhyme here really badly managed.]

[Line: 95 _1677_ 'another's'.]

[Line: 97 The fear and dislike of Henrietta Maria (whom Mr.
Berdan supposes to be meant) among the disaffected is only too
certain: and the fate of Prynne's ears for his scandal of her
is notorious. But why _at this time_ she should be called a
Queen Mother (it was her proper title afterwards, and she was
one of the very few to whom it was actually given), and what
the last line means, I know not. Nor does Professor Firth,
unless Marie de Médicis (who _was_ Queen Mother in France
and had visited England) had, as he suggests, a share in some
leather patent, and is meant here. Smec's ears are 'vellum' in
_Rupertismus_, 169 (_v. inf._, p. 67).]

The Mixed Assembly.

Flea-Bitten synod, an assembly brewed
Of clerks and elders _ana_, like the rude
Chaos of Presbyt'ry, where laymen guide
With the tame woolpack clergy by their side.
Who asked the banns 'twixt these discoloured mates?
A strange grotesco this; the Church and states,
Most divine tick-tack, in a piebald crew,
To serve as table-men of divers hue!
She, that conceived an Ethiopian heir
By picture, when the parents both were fair, 10
At sight of you had born a dappled son,
You checkering her imagination.
Had Jacob's flock but seen you sit, the dams
Had brought forth speckled and ring-streakéd lambs.
Like an impropriator's motley kind
Whose scarlet coat is with a cassock lined;
Like the lay-thief in a canonic weed,
Sure of his clergy ere he did the deed;
Like Royston crows, who are (as I may say)
Friars of both the Orders, Black and Gray; 20
So mixed they are, one knows not whether 's thicker,
A layer of burgess, or a layer of vicar.
Have they usurped what Royal Judah had,
And now must Levi too part stakes with Gad?
The sceptre and the crosier are the crutches,
Which, if not trusted in their pious clutches,
Will fail the cripple State. And were 't not pity
But both should serve the yardwand of the City?
That Isaac might stroke his beard and sit
Judge of [Greek: eis Haidou] and _elegerit_? 30
Oh that they were in chalk and charcoal drawn!
The miscellany-satyr and the faun
And all th' adulteries of twisted nature
But faintly represent this riddling feature;
Whose members being not tallies, they'll not own
Their fellows at the Resurrection.
Strange scarlet doctors these! They'll pass in story
For sinners half refined in Purgatory,
Or parboiled lobsters, where there jointly rules
The fading sables and the coming gules. 40
The flea that Falstaff damned thus lewdly shows
Tormented in the flames of Bardolph's nose.
Like him that wore the dialogue of cloaks
This shoulder John-a-Stiles, that John-a-Nokes;
Like Jews and Christians in a ship together
With an old neck-verse to distinguish either;
Like their intended discipline to boot,
Or whatsoe'er hath neither head nor foot;
Such may their stript-stuff-hangings seem to be,
Sacrilege matched with codpiece simony. 50
Be sick and dream a little, you may then
Fancy these linsey-woolsey vestry-men.
Forbear, good Pembroke, be not over-daring.
Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing,
And thy drum-major oaths, of bulk unruly,
May dwindle to a feeble 'By my truly'!
He that the noble Percy's blood inherits,
Will he strike up a Hotspur of the spirits?
He'll fright the Obadiahs out of tune
With his uncircumciséd Algernoon; 60
A name so stubborn, 'tis not to be scanned
By him in Gath with the six-fingered hand.
See, they obey the magic of my words!
Presto! they're gone, and now the House of Lords
Looks like the withered face of an old hag,
But with three teeth like to a triple gag.
A jig! a jig! and in this antic dance
Fielding and Doxie Marshall first advance.
Twisse blows the Scotch-pipes, and the loving brace
Puts on the traces and treads cinque-a-pace. 70
Then Saye and Sele must his old hamstrings supple,
And he and rumpled Palmer make a couple.
Palmer 's a fruitful girl if he'll unfold her;
The midwife may find work about her shoulder.
Kimbolton, that rebellious Boanerges,
Must be content to saddle Dr. Burges.
If Burges get a clap, 'tis ne'er the worse,
But the fifth time of his compurgators.
Noll Bowles is coy; good sadness, cannot dance
But in obedience to the ordinance. 80
Here Wharton wheels about till mumping Lidy,
Like the full moon, hath made his lordship giddy.
Pym and the members must their giblets levy
T' encounter Madam Smec, that single bevy.
If they two truck together, 'twill not be
A child-birth, but a gaol-delivery.
Thus every Ghibelline hath got his Guelph
But Selden,--he 's a galliard by himself;
And well may be; there 's more divines in him
Than in all this, their Jewish Sanhedrim: 90
Whose canons in the forge shall then bear date
When mules their cousin-germans generate.
Thus Moses' law is violated now;
The ox and ass go yoked in the same plough.
Resign thy coach-box, Twisse; Brooke's preacher he
Would sort the beasts with more conformity.
Water and earth make but one globe; a Roundhead
Is clergy-lay, party-per-pale compounded.

[_The Mixed Assembly_ (_1647_.) This was the famous
'Westminster' Assembly which met in July, 1643--a hodge-podge
of half a score peers, a score of commoners, and about four
times as many divines as laymen. Tanner MS. 465, of
the Bodleian, has a poor copy of this poem; but some
transpositions and omissions suggest that it preserves an
earlier draft. Lines 63-6 follow 52; 71-8, 81-2, are omitted.]

[Line: 1 Flea-bitten] As of a horse--the laymen appearing like
specks on the body of clergy.]

[Line: 2 _ana_] Usually interpreted in the apothecary's sense,
'in equal quantities', written so in prescriptions and said to
be from the Greek--[Greek: ana] being thus used.]

[Lines: 6, 7 'Church and State's, Most divine' _MS._]

[Line: 19 In a fable a Royston crow (the town being on the way
to Cambridge had probably a bad reputation for fleecing the
guileless undergraduate) advised an innocent of his kind to
drop a shellfish from a height on rocks where the Royston bird
was waiting and secured the meat.]

[Line: 28 _1677_ changes 'But' to 'That'.]

[Line: 29 _1677_ inserts '_go_' before 'stroke'. But Cleveland
probably scanned 'I-sa-ac'. The reference is to Isaac
Pennington: cf. _The Rebel Scot_, l. 79.]

[Line: 30 The phrase is of course Homeric (_sc._ [Greek:
domous]) and with its companion combines the idea of an
ecclesiastical condemnation ('delivering over to Satan') and a
civil execution, a writ of _elegit_.]

[Line: 32 faun] All old editions, I think, and Mr. Berdan,
'fa_w_n'. But the _animal_ (always now indicated by that
spelling) is not of a 'twisted nature', the half-god is.]

[Line: 40 One of those that taught Dryden something.]

[Line: 41 Cleveland, like most Royalists and their master,
was evidently sound on Shakespeare. A copy of _1677_ in
my possession has a manuscript list of references on the
fly-leaf.]

[Line: 46 'neck-verse'] = for benefit of clergy.]

[Line: 49 'Stript', _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, is evidently
'striped', and is printed 'strip'd' in _1677_.]

[Line: 53 Philip Herbert, fourth Earl of Pembroke, though a
patron of literature and the arts, was a man of bad character
and a virulent Roundhead.]

[Line: 55 'thy' _1677_: 'these' _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.

of bulk unruly] if Vulcan rule you _MS._]

[Line: 59 _1647_, _1651_ 'Obadiahs': _1653_ and its group
'Obadiah': _1677_ 'Obadiah's'.]

[Line: 60 Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland--who
repented too late of his rebellion and tried to prevent the
consequences--seems to have joined the Roundheads out of pique
(his pride was notorious) at neglect of his suggestions and
interference with his powers as Lord High Admiral. By putting
the fleet into the hands of the Parliament he did the
King perhaps more hurt than any other single person at the
beginning of the war. 'Algernoon' _1647_, _1651_: later texts
spoil the point of the next line by using the conventional
form.]

[Line: 68 Fielding] Basil, the degenerate son of the first
Earl of Denbigh. He actually served in the Parliamentary Army,
but like Northumberland, who did not go that length, repented
too late.

Doxie Marshall] The Stephen Marshall of _Smectymnuus_ and the
'Geneva Bull' of _The Rebel Scot_, l. 21; exactly why
'Doxie' I do not know. Possibly 'prostitute' from his eager
Presbyterianism. It is odd that Anne and Rebecca Marshall, two
famous actresses of the Restoration to whom the term might be
applied with some direct justification, used to be counted his
daughters, though this is now denied.]

[Line: 69 Twisse] William (1578-1646), the Prolocutor of the
Assembly.]

[Line: 71 Saye and Sele] William Fiennes, first Viscount
(1582-1662). Of very bad reputation as a slippery customer.]

[Line: 72 rumpled] Mr. Berdan 'rumbled', on what authority
and with what meaning I do not know. 'Rumpled', which is in
_1647_, _1651_, _1653_, and _1677_, no doubt refers to
the untidy bands, &c. of a slovenly priest. Herbert Palmer
(1604-1647) was a man of good family but a bitter Puritan.
He was first Fellow and then President of Queens' College,
Cambridge, where Cleveland doubtless knew him. The odd
description reads like that of a sort of deformed dwarf.]

[Line: 75 Kimbolton] Edward, Lord (1602-1671), just about to
become the well-known Earl of Manchester of the Rebellion.
Like Northumberland and Denbigh, he repented, but only
after he had been not too politely shelved for Fairfax and
Cromwell.]

[Line: 76 Cleveland would have been delighted had he known the
fate of Cornelius Burges (1589?-1665), of whom he evidently
had a pretty bad idea. Burges, a Wadham and Lincoln man, was
one of the leaders of the Puritans among the London clergy,
and a great favourite with the House of Commons in the Long
Parliament. He wanted to suppress cathedrals; and, being a
practical man and preacher at Wells during the Commonwealth,
did his best by buying the deanery and part of the estates.
Wherefore he was promptly and properly ruined by the
Restoration, and died in well-deserved poverty. He was
vice-president of the Westminster Assembly.]

[Line: 79 Oliver Bowles, a Puritan divine. _1653_ omits the
comma after 'sadness' found in _1651_,--a neat punctuation,
meaning 'in good sadness, he cannot dance'. Phrases like 'in
good truth', 'in good sadnesse' were the utmost licence of
speech which the Puritans permitted themselves.]

[Line: 81 Philip, fourth Lord Wharton (1613-1696) took the
anti-Royalist side very early, but cut a very poor figure at
Edgehill and abandoned active service. He did not figure
under the Commonwealth, but was a zealous Whig after the
Restoration, and a prominent Williamite in the last years of
his long life. Who 'Lidy' (_1653_) or 'Lidie' (_1677_)
was seems unknown. Professor Firth suggests a misprint for
'Sidie,' i.e. Sidrach Simpson (1600?-1655), a busy London
Puritan and member of the Assembly. Another ingenious
suggestion made to me is that 'mumping Lid[d]y' may be one
of the queer dance-names of the period, or actually a woman,
Wharton being no enemy to the sex. But I do not know that
there was such a dance, and as all the other pairs are males,
being members of the Assembly, it would be odd if there were
an exception here. For 'Here' _1647_, _1651_ read 'Her'.]

[Line: 88 The exceptional position of Selden is well hit
off here. His character and his earning were just able to
neutralize, though not to overcome, the curse of Laodicea.]

[Line: 95 'Brooke' is Robert Brooke, second Lord Brooke,
cousin and successor of Fulke Greville--the 'fanatic Brooke'
who had his 'guerdon meet' by being shot in his attack on
Lichfield Cathedral. _Mercurius Anti-Britannicus_, 1645, p.
23, has:

Like my Lord Brooke's _Coachman_
Preaching out of a tub.

(I owe this citation to Mr. Simpson.)]

The King's Disguise.

And why a tenant to this vile disguise
Which who but sees, blasphemes thee with his eyes?
My twins of light within their penthouse shrink,
And hold it their allegiance now to wink.
O, for a state-distinction to arraign
Charles of high treason 'gainst my Sovereign!
What an usurper to his prince is wont,
Cloister and shave him, he himself hath don' 't.
His muffled feature speaks him a recluse--
His ruins prove him a religious house! 10
The sun hath mewed his beams from off his lamp
And majesty defaced the royal stamp.
Is 't not enough thy dignity 's in thrall,
But thou'lt transmute it in thy shape and all,
As if thy blacks were of too faint a dye
Without the tincture of tautology?
Flay an Egyptian for his cassock skin,
Spun of his country's darkness, line 't within
With Presbyterian budge, that drowsy trance,
The Synod's sable, foggy Ignorance; 20
Nor bodily nor ghostly negro could
Roughcast thy figure in a sadder mould.
This privy-chamber of thy shape would be
But the close mourner of thy Royalty.
Then, break the circle of thy tailor's spell,
A pearl within a rugged oyster's shell.
Heaven, which the minster of thy person owns,
Will fine thee for dilapidations.
Like to a martyred abbey's coarser doom,
Devoutly altered to a pigeon-room; 30
Or like a college by the changeling rabble,
Manchester's elves, transformed into a stable;
Or if there be a profanation higher;
Such is the sacrilege of thine attire,
By which thou'rt half deposed.--Thou look'st like one
Whose looks are under sequestration;
Whose renegado form at the first glance
Shows like the Self-denying Ordinance;
Angel of light, and darkness too, (I doubt)
Inspired within and yet possessed without; 40
Majestic twilight in the state of grace,
Yet with an excommunicated face.
Charles and his mask are of a different mint;
A psalm of mercy in a miscreant print.
The sun wears midnight, day is beetle-browed,
And lightning is in kelder of a cloud.
O the accursed stenography of fate!
The princely eagle shrunk into a bat!
What charm, what magic vapour can it be
That checks his rays to this apostasy? 50
It is no subtile film of tiffany air,
No cobweb vizard such as ladies wear,
When they are veiled on purpose to be seen,
Doubling their lustre by their vanquished screen.
No, the false scabbard of a prince is tough
And three-piled darkness, like the smoky slough
Of an imprisoned flame; 'tis Faux in grain;
Dark lantern to our bright meridian.
Hell belched the damp; the Warwick Castle vote
Rang Britain's curfew, so our light went out. 60
[A black offender, should he wear his sin
For penance, could not have a darker skin.]
His visage is not legible; the letters
Like a lord's name writ in fantastic fetters;
Clothes where a Switzer might be buried quick;
Sure they would fit the body politic;
False beard enough to fit a stage's plot
(For that 's the ambush of their wit, God wot),
Nay, all his properties so strange appear,
Y' are not i' th' presence though the King be there. 70
A libel is his dress, a garb uncouth,
Such as the _Hue and Cry_ once purged at mouth.
Scribbling assassinate! Thy lines attest
An earmark due, Cub of the Blatant Beast;
Whose breath, before 'tis syllabled for worse,
Is blasphemy unfledged, a callow curse.
The Laplanders, when they would sell a wind
Wafting to hell, bag up thy phrase and bind
It to the bark, which at the voyage end
Shifts poop and breeds the colic in the Fiend. 80
But I'll not dub thee with a glorious scar
Nor sink thy sculler with a man-of-war.
The black-mouthed _Si quis_ and this slandering suit
Both do alike in picture execute.
But since w' are all called Papists, why not date
Devotion to the rags thus consecrate?
As temples use to have their porches wrought
With sphinxes, creatures of an antic draught,
And puzzling portraitures to show that there
Riddles inhabited; the like is here. 90
But pardon, Sir, since I presume to be
Clerk of this closet to your Majesty.
Methinks in this your dark mysterious dress
I see the Gospel couched in parables.
At my next view my purblind fancy ripes
And shows Religion in its dusky types;
Such a text royal, so obscure a shade
Was Solomon in Proverbs all arrayed.
Come, all the brats of this expounding age
To whom the spirit is in pupilage, 100
You that damn more than ever Samson slew,
And with his engine, the same jaw-bone too!
How is 't he 'scapes your inquisition free
Since bound up in the Bible's livery?
Hence, Cabinet-intruders! Pick-locks, hence!
You, that dim jewels with your Bristol sense:
And characters, like witches, so torment
Till they confess a guilt though innocent!
Keys for this coffer you can never get;
None but St. Peter's opes this cabinet, 110
This cabinet, whose aspect would benight
Critic spectators with redundant light.
A Prince most seen is least. What Scriptures call
The Revelation, is most mystical.
Mount then, thou Shadow Royal, and with haste
Advance thy morning-star, Charles, overcast.
May thy strange journey contradictions twist
And force fair weather from a Scottish mist.
Heaven's confessors are posed, those star-eyed sages,
T' interpret an eclipse thus riding stages. 120
Thus Israel-like he travels with a cloud,
Both as a conduct to him and a shroud.
But oh, he goes to Gibeon and renews
A league with mouldy bread and clouted shoes!

[_The Kings Disguise._] That assumed on the fatal
journey from Oxford to the camp of the Scots. (First printed
as a quarto pamphlet of four leaves; Thomason bought his copy
on 21 January, 1647; reprinted in the 1647 _Poems_. Vaughan
wrote a poem on the same subject about the same time.)]

[Line: 1 a tenant to] so coffin'd in _1677_.]

[Line: 2 Which] That _1677_.]

[Line 4: _1677_ omits 'now', rather to one's surprise, as the
value 'allegi-ance' is of the first rather than of the second
half of the century. It is therefore probably right.]

[Line: 14 transmute] transcribe _1677_. The two
readings obviously pertain to two different senses of
'blacks'--'clothes' and 'ink'.]

[Line: 17 for] from _1647_ (pamphlet).]

[Line: 18 line 't] lin'de _1647_ (pamphlet).]

[Line: 19 The _1677_ 'Vindicators' had forgotten 'budge'
in the sense of 'fur' (perhaps they were too loyal to read
Milton) and made it 'b_a_dge'.]

[Line: 20 _1651_, _1653_ 'Synod', with no hyphen but perhaps
meant for a compound. The genitive is perhaps better. The
comma at 'sable', which Mr. Berdan omits, is important.]

[Lines: 21-2 The error of those who say that such a rhyme
points to the pronunciation of the _l_ in words like 'could'
is sufficiently shown by the fact that 'coud' is frequent.
It is, of course, a mere eye-rhyme, like many of Spenser's
earlier. 'No bodily' _1647_ (pamphlet).]

[Line: 23 shape] garb _1677_.]

[Line: 24 of] to _1677_.]

[Line: 25 'Twill break' _1647_, _1653_. tailor's] jailor's
_1647_, _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 29 _1653_, but obviously by a mere misprint,
'co_u_rser'.]

[Line: 31 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ '_the_ college'. It is said
that the definite article usually at this time designates 'the
College _of Physicians_'. But, as Mr. Berdan well observes,
'the case was unfortunately too common to admit of
identification'. Cleveland's restless wit was not idle
in calling 'Manchester's elves'--the Parliamentary
troops--'changelings'. The soldier ought to be a King's man:
and indeed pretended to be.]

[Line: 32 _1647_ (pamphlet) 'reformed'.]

[Line: 40 This and l. 47 are examples of the Drydenian line
before Dryden, so frequent in Cleveland.]

[Line: 46 = 'The unborn child of a cloud'.]

[Line: 47 Alliteration, and some plausibility of verse,
seduced _1677_ into 'of State', but I think 'fate' is better.]

[Line: 50 checks] shrinks _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.]

[Lines: 55-6 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ read

_Nor_ the false scabbard of a Princ_e's_ tough
_Metal_ and three-piled darkness like the slough.

Some fight might be made for 'Metal', but 'Nor' is
indefensible. I am half inclined to transfer it above to l. 52
and take 'No' thence. The text, which is _1677_, is I
suppose a correction. Both _1647_ texts mark 'slough' with
an asterisk, and have a marginal note 'A damp in coal-pits
usual'.]

[Line: 57 I cannot understand what Mr. Berdan--who prints
'Fawkes'--means by saying it is not authorized by any edition,
whereas his own apparatus gives 'Faux' in every one. It is
a mere question of spelling. 'Three-piled darkness' equally
surrounds to me his further remark that he 'adopted it as the
only reading approximating sense; _treason in grain_'. The
metaphor of the dark lantern cloaked is surely clear enough;
and this 'in grain' is one of the innumerable passages showing
the rashness of invariably interpreting 'in grain' as = 'with
the grain of the cochineal insect'. Beyond all doubt it has
the simple sense of _penitus_, 'inward'.]

[Line: 58 bright] high _1647_, _1653_.]

[Line: 59 the Warwick Castle vote] The Resolution of the
Commons on May 6, 1646, that the King, after the Scots sold
him, should be lodged in Warwick Castle.]

[Lines: 61-2 Not in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ and its group, but
added in _1677_.]

[Line: 63 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ '_Thy_ visage'.]

[Line: 67 _1677_ has the very considerable and not at once
acceptable alteration of 'thatch a poet's plot'. But it may
have been Cleveland.]

[Line: 72 _1647_, _1651_, again give an asterisked note,
'Britanicus', showing the definite, not general, reference of
'Hue and Cry'. It seems that _Mercurius Britannicus_ did issue
a 'Hue and Cry' after the King, for which the editor, Captain
Audley, was put in the Gate-house till he apologized.]

[Line: 75 _1651_ 'wreath', corrupted into 'wrath' in _1653_.]

[Line: 76 Blount stupidly thought 'callow' to mean 'lewd or
wicked', as if 'unfledged' did not ratify the usual sense.]

[Line: 80 breeds] brings _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 83 _Si quis_] The first words of a formal inquiry as
to disqualifications in a candidate for orders, &c. It would
apply to the Hue and Cry itself.]

[Line: 85 It being a favourite Puritan trick to identify
'Royalist' with 'Papist'. 'Date' apparently in the sense of
'begin', which it usually has only as neuter.]

[Line: 89 puzzling] _1677_ and its followers 'purling', with
no sense.]

[Line: 95 _1677_ 'The second view' and 'wipes'.]

[Line: 106 Bristol] as of diamonds.]

[Line: 109 coffer] cipher _1677_, &c.]

[Line: 110 opes] ope _1677_.]

[Line: 116 'Charles' _1677_: _1647_, _1651_, _1653,_ by a
clear error 'Charles's'.]

[Line: 120 'T' interpret an' _1647_ (pamphlet): 'To interpret
an' _1647_ (Poems) _1653_, _1677_. _1651_ omits 'To' and reads
the 'an' which seems bad in metre and meaning alike.]

The Rebel Scot.