The incens'd Rabble like to Heathen Idols must have humane blood for a Sacrifice though the soolish overflowings of their Galls can be pacified by no more grateful oblation than that by which they express all ills Ingratitude seldom not gratified by his Ruine who might most seek their Preservation Though Strafford was allow'd to be no President yet some will ever propose him for an Example and no Act of Oblivion will make us so lost to our memories that the most unfortunate Earl will be forgot who incomparably loyal was impeach'd by such Arch Rebels as by introducing the Scots were guilty of the highest Treason the most implacable enemy of Traytors fell their sacrifice When putrid members were to be cut off the body politick was depriv'd of the sounder part which might have secur'd it from encroaching mischiefs while an unparallel'd Princes clemency which gave fears to none and left not the greatest villanies destitute of hopes administer'd in the Grand Statesmans ruine if not a just an unhappy cause of his own untimely period The gratifying of the weakest heads with the loss of the wisest as a most bloody so is rarely not a most succesless Policy The Athenians might be thought to have a veneration for an Owl only who could estrange Worth by an Ostracism Some will have the greatest of English Statists to have perish'd by their own weapons One wise head like Galba's wit not ill plac'd may exceed in value not only many Millions of Money but Armies of Men. Good intelligence and bold truth some say could unfix a no undeserving relation of the Generals whom nothing except his displeasure unrivited from the greatest office of Trust in which the Successor may seem not the least of State Riddles but mysterious Grandeur is such an Abyss as Fools will fondly guess at the depth of that which the Plumets of the most comprehensive reasons can never fathom Some who are uncapable of the diviner mysteries can put themselves to the troublesom admiration how the extemporary trash of a canting and long winded Schismatick in a Chamber can be preparatory to the more sober devotion of the Chappel-Royal or how the truly Loyal and religious Grandee's our incomparable Converts can keep Chaplains to assert with paper pellets that schism to which they must be the greatest strangers if not estranged to their Allegiance and to defile their new honours have not suck't up their old vomits The Actors on the worlds Theater by shifting Cloaks and Beards act different parts and interchangeably fill up the Play of life with calamitous scenes of misery or ridiculous interludes Nothing is more pleasant in our revolutions then to hear the grand enemies of the Prerogative and the Lordly Branches the most confident assertors of the Priviledges which the King and Lords may most justly challenge and the same persons formerly could most unjustly impugn who deprived the Throne of Supporters will ever stand in need of one to cleave to and secur'd by the Unicorn can be dreadless of the Lyon The least Friends of the loyal Clergie will ever want the benefit of it in a Psalm of mercy How appositely is the Princes Prerogative pleaded in the favour of scism by the Protosticklers of it which would allow him none in Religion And yet thus they can hope a priviledge for such as void both of tenderness and conscience to its Prince could deny him a liberty they would have indulg'd to the meanest Subjects There may be no improbable conjecture as well as other Grandees a confident ignorance might easily impose on our Heroe The intrusting so valued a body with such an illiterate quack as some would have disdain'd to have made the Farrier to a beloved or generous Beast lend no small suspicion the Patronage of the Stroaker some will have a too pregnant example Age in it self an invincible disease might assure no easie conquest of a concomitant distemper which might be intitled old yet twenty years of superannuation and twelve of deafness were esteemed inconsiderable in a nonagenarian woman when a wonder-working hand could appear for the recovery the Stroaker G. and sent by the General to restore her so long estranged Hearing Simon Magus Apollonius Pere grinus Philosophus Alexander Paphlago who appear'd with lying wonders to give a disrepute to Primitive Christianity could not be more confident then this gracious babe of the Presbyterian Reformation while the Puritans accuse the Papists for their holy Maid of Kent they forget Elizabeth Barton their Wench in the Wall As if stroaking could cicure the wildest Adversaries every party hath been provided by a thus trifling Impostor Men in power should not make themselves conscious by such a bruitish connivence as calls Gods and his Vicegerents Honours into question The bold folly of Stroakers may seem a mocking of Majesty and the intrenching on that Prerogative which conferr'd by a St. Edward the Confessor and a St. Lewis on the Kings of England and France to cure by touch must be reputed sacred such a Jewel as cannot be alienated from a Crown Miracles need not be call'd into the Scene where natural causes can be ascrib'd Stronger frictions can cure some intercutaneous Maladies should the balsom of a sweating Palm be deni'd conducive by the effluviums of wonder-working Atoms A Knight a Relation to the Duke and Son to the Grandeve Patient of the Stroaker gratifying my curiosity with the converse of the Trifler I heard him as confidently propose Moses an example for his doing of Miracles as if he had been to lead the Jewish Tribes of Pharisaical Presbyterians through a Red Sea into a Land of Promise and the Invasion of France being then nois'd the English by a cunning Man might hope the recovery of what they had lost by a wise Woman If the Braggar't or a vouching Comrade were to be believ'd the General was so indear'd by the recovery of his Kinswomans eye that he would not allow him a nights absence to gratifie the importunity of Relations Sinking men will take hold of Reeds Stroaking which could hear abominable superstition and Jesuitical contrivance in the Papists must give a reparation to the declining cause of Presbyterians The wonder-working Lieutenant was the most affecting discourse of that party which had he been of a different phancy for his lying wonders they would have intitled him an Antichrist Whom some would have a Candidate for a Cardinals Cap others will have Probationer for a Fools while he could countenance a stroaking Friar to enter contest with a Prince and show a Chappel less efficacious for miracles then a Banquetting-house It not a little perplex'd Sir K. D. and made not a few merry that an eminent Churchman with an Honourable Title and the not disingenious Son of a Grand Virtuoso expos'd an innocent to danger and themselves to be ridiculous The solemn Pageantry which attended the simple Irish Priests stroaking to wiser heads of their own profession seem'd a discretion rivalling theirs who with Kettles
over Fate if not a principal an adjuvant or such a Cause without which our felicity could not be effected if to vast Piles of living Honors were superadded mountains of wealth and after death he is plac'd among Kings who seem'd the Restorer of Kingdoms no wise or good man can repine but rather congratulate the felicity of that Age in which a Servant esteemed Faithful found a Master truly Royal. Honor was not made dishonorable in our Generals superadditional Titles the atchievements of his Ancestors if not superior to most inferior to few Coats of Arms born by our English Nobility what might give a supereminence and Fools will be always the most apt to blazon the only blot in the Escutcheon Honor must be fair written ev'n the Fountain of it a Prince cannot wash away the blemishes of his own making The Generous Heroe who disdain'd to bring in a King fetter'd like a Royal Slave or such a Beast as must not be allowd the use of Reason whose Crowning is in Relation to the making of him a Sacrifice by not attending to that rigid zeal which inseparable from envy of any greatness which might exceed her own would have Kings bound in chains and their Nobles in fetters of iron the intolerable Gives of a Scottish League by making Princes Parties can dethrone not only level with a Peasant but equal to a Brute if giddy Fame was only constant to this Report none could think Honor or Riches misplac'd with our General except such who can believe cruelties exceeding that of the Goths Huns and Vandals confer'd on the Preserver of his Country a recompense worthy of a Bellizarius The devouring of a Serpent would be thus thought to produce a Dragon Our George might not have seem'd to conquer a Monster but to have introduc'd one in Ingratitude equalling that most monstrous piece of Barbarism the mischief brooding Part which venting nothing but noise and stench in the Opinion of Buffoons could be esteem'd more honorable than the Head He who restored the Fountain of Honor untainted none can justly envy a liberal benefit of the Streams or who would deny some larger clusters of Grapes to him by whose beneficence they seem to have the uninterrupted enjoyments of their Vines Necessity renders the proudest Titles contemptible when an Emperor became a Souldier to our Eighth Henry it might seem a timely magnificence which made a Princes bounties shine in a Tent made with cloath of gold The Prince who undervalues himself or Benefactors by becoming cheap his Kingdoms and Armies rarely want Purchasers The Drums must beat Trumpets sound and Images of Gold be rear'd to make the People fall down and worship Yet where worldly pelf are the only Motives wise men can rather suffer the fiery furnace of affliction than pay a Devotion to such foolish Idols Speeds Chronicle hath a Remarque That he who thought himself a match for Princes the Low Country Prince or truer King of Gypsies the Arch-canter and chief Idol of the Aerians who patroniz'd holy Hypocrites as sure friends to Religion as he was to the most bosom friend whose neck they could well contented break to make way for the espousing of a Whimzy the great E. of Leicester the so much celebrated Favourite living unmask'd by death could want a commendation Death only makes true Confessions A little loss of air or as much breath as can furnish out a bubble vanish'd leaves the most wind-impostum'd bladder shrivel'd What equals all men lends an impartial view and unlearns the mannerly distinctions betwixt a Prince and Peasant Homer though the Father of fictions may gain a sober belief while he will have Hare to insult over dead Lyons but Envy cannot blast just actions which as a minor Poet in the dust can smell sweet and blossom Who undervalued life in his Countreys Causes Lillies and Roses may be said to spring from the Tomb of a no less renowned Hero who dar'd to do as much in the Sea as Curtius in the Land for his Country Some will have the first Degree of Reviv'd Loyalty commenc'd at the Three Tuns and can dare publickly to aver That there is a Knight who being inspir'd by the same spirit of Loyal Sack will swear himself the Author of our so Happy Restoration and that Loyalty or Ruine were the only choice left to the General The Serpent which gave us the Sting must afford us the Cure Some will not be persuaded that the Juncto which made him a Cypher in Commission contributed no vote to their own Ruine by putting a Period to his gave a date to their own supereminent Power and thus the cunning were catcht in their own snare Yet he who infatuates the Council of the worldly wise hath the lest returns of Honor or Praise where most forgetting God can suppose a Sacrifice due to every foolish Net The Lord F. anagram'd by Hei fax fato Mars if not the greatest no slender persuasion will allow none of the meanest Instruments by rising on the back of Lambert and thus to have nobly expiated that brutish Folly not to give it a worse name which suffer'd us to be depriv'd of the best of Princes I have bin no infrequent though for the most part an incredulous Auditor of a Baronet who would have the General at his inlargement from the Tower crave a benediction from Bishop Wren and assurd ' him when opportunity was propitious he should not be averse to the Royal Service Neither was this a single Tradition which he had receiv'd from his Loyal Father but another must be attendant on it equally irrefragable a promise to his Loyal Comrades viz. never to bear Arms in England against his Prince This not a few will have most exactly to be perform'd and hence by no action of his Loyalty to be impeach'd What he acted in the first Dutch Ingagement and what was performed in the Caledonian War must by a milder gloss be interpreted a Zeal for his Country and no disaffection to his King but the more rigid Censors will not allow him who wounds in hands and feet no Enemy though not equally mortal with him who transpierces the heart A superintendent Lord would be a Privado to those proceedings which might call the wisest brains into question to imagin But coming from so supereminently knowing a Statist and told in Parliament he may seem wanting to all Reason could be deficient in the belief of our Generals intention for a Restauration I have heard a Kinsman and Retainer to his Lordship aver the sight of the Letter Whether O. C. L. c. have not complemented with vain hopes such as they never intended should reap any benefit above that of a deluded Imagination is the Discourse of no unwary if none of the wisest Heads The Supplement of a Chronicle which some can think may want a stout Peter Heylin who blind might best guess at dark intrigues must be incontrollable to evince the truth of those intents A Chronicles name passes
afford their tinckling Charity to the Moon in an Ecclyps Who since the Restauration gain'd to his Right Honourable Title a blew Ribband and in some opinions was intitled to a refin'd wit and grand Polititian the late times report the Patient and Admirer of a stroaking Lunatick the unhappy Stroaker whose disturbed brains for their recovery might want more drugs then an Anticyra could furnish which so long deluded the most active endeavours of Medicine attended by the severest discipline of Bedlam Who can wonder if natures rude draught a Soldier polish'd by no Art impos'd on by proud Ignorance and giddie Fame might give a Stroakers folly a Commendamus where the wisest Heads might have their Judgments call'd in question by their hands Desert is not only unattended on by a Mandamus but rarely encounters an unbrib'd Commendation Empty heads make the greatest sound and full purses the most significant noyse for Preferment A Phanatick Trooper who might be lost to all knowledge if he had not plunder'd it from Loyalty whose Library was not above a Barrows Method and an Almanack two Doctors hands requir'd for the granting of a licence to practise Physick he produc'd an obsolete Mandamus from the grand Protector of Ignorance Cromwel which in the worst of times had not the confidence to visit Oxford in the best durst encounter the most learn'd Bishop Saunderson who in vain could resist it ten Angels powerfully appearing to his Chancellour were satisfactory motives to make by the golden rule of practise a true Licentiate The Shcools can make it disputable whether what was intended the greatest encourager of Virtue hath not been the least acquainted with Merit Learning and Loyalty put beyond all dispute brought to the test would be rarely found above in the sees and Mandamus of not a few booted Fishermen for degrees as they call them which are catch't by a golden hook Loosers may have a prating licence If a few complain many have cause to praise this golden Age. He must be wise who is rich or some whose mercenary spirits can give so glib a commendation to the most deplorable pieces of Folly may be question'd for that wisdom which makes fools and themselves equally fortunate Worldly Grandeur with the not misbecoming attributes of Right Honourable and Right Worshipful sometimes can have a too unhappy resemblence to Pagan Idols which having eyes and ears neither hear nor see Whose wisdom lyes in another mans head who can be blind and deaf for interest may make a comment on that Text which will have man being in honour compar'd to the beasts which perish wathout understanding Some will have our English Solomon in pain to have listen'd to a Woman for a Remedy There are who guess by the touchstone of Physick whose ignorance might exceed a Phanaticks Sermon not the only Emperick who attended our Heroe France France often repeated in the opinion of a Francis could equal the titles of an Emperour to excuse his mistakes and make a parallel for all worthies we may repeat the Souldier Souldier Some think they honour most in making no Souldier but an uncommission'd and peaceable Spectator to the most happy of Revolutions When the stinking part offensive to most nostrils had her Presbyterian appurtenances adjoyn'd which long laid aside for sweetning had not deposited their rankness to clear Noses One of their prime votes was that no man should be capaple of Office who would not subscribe Rebellion lawful for by a necessary illation it is deducible if a war against the King was just I have heard some not of so ill inform'd judgments as to believe the levelling of a war against a Prince not Treason yet so loose principl'd in Religion that they would assert all Oaths and Subscriptions lawful which might render capable of serving the Royal Interest such tools were as profitable to Loyalty as the Gnosticks to Christianity He who dares not trust God in vain may be credited by man To play the Devil for God sake hath been a common Proverb but was never enter'd for an Article in a sober Belief Who could glory in being Confessors and could think to suffer in the Cause of God their King and Countrey Martyrdom Air and Dirt Life and Fortune were contemptible trifles to them who could propose white Robes in confession and Purple in their sufferings which might be Prologues to Crowns and Immortality but such who followed deserted Loyalty as the people our Saviour into the Wilderness for the miracle of Loaves seeking worldly advantages might pawn their souls for trash and sin for a morsel of bread It is an Atheistical piece of folly to disown Omnipotency that we may gratifie weak Surmisers The custom of swearing and forswearing had in our unhappy Land took away the sense of perjury by the no infrequent use of Poyson it went into the opinion of such nutriment as might seem necessary for their constitutions In a wilderness of Apes and Monkeys none could dread by an Oath to take in a Spider That Oaths may make a Land mourn we have Religion to assure and reason to instruct us but how they can be the instruments to our rejoycing may be an Article of that Creed only which could exchange a Christ for an Adonis and make Religion truckle to every darling folly In such an Apostacie as might make an unhappy Land sigh and wonder at her self so soon turn'd Leper Some believe a thundring Legion to have secur'd our Theodosius we received a Charles by the grace of God not favour of Men. No quirks nor intrigues of giddie Polititians but he alone who rules the wheel of human vicissitudes produc'd this happyer Revolution the best of Physitians and no worm'd-brain'd Mountebank of State subven'd to our distractions when the twisting of sand by foolish combinations was found a succesless folly and the brain-sick hopes of fondest Royalists might pass for phrenzy God derided from heaven and by dividing their Councils who were enemies to our David turn'd the wisdom of our Achitophels into a Rope When the Bricks were doubled a Moses came our Task-masters grown intolerable God rais'd us up Deliverers The Stars in their courses which sought against fight for us the most inauspicious Planets by happier conjunctions deposit their malevolence and seem to have friendly aspects for Loyalty by a more propitious revolution Sure this was the Lords doing and should be marvellous in our eyes God scatter'd the men who took delight in war and by a bloodless victory gave us peace the prayers and tears of a poor and distressed party the weapons of the Church militant prevail'd over the loud crying blasphemy and perjuries of their Enemies The war begun from Scotland a Nation fatal to Princes a Region of darkness can give light and the North infamous for ill must be celebrated for good since from that place we receiv'd the first part of for cure to which weow'd the beginning of mischief The Lord who being a General gave way to a Princes ruine