Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	great_a	part_n	people_n	5,808	4	4.2401	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81226	A Venice looking-glasse: or, A letter vvritten very lately from London to Rome, by a Venetian Clarissimo to Cardinal Barberino, protector of the English nation, touching these present distempers. Wherein, as in a true mirrour, England may behold her owne spots, wherein she may see, and fore-see, her follies pass'd, her present danger, and furture destruction. Faithfully rendred out of the Italian into English.	J. B. C.	1648 (1648)	Wing C79A; Thomason E525_19; ESTC R205654	17,303	25

cry out in the Pulpit there is a great work to be done upon earth for the reforming all mankind and they are appointed by Heaven to be the chief Instruments of bringing it about They have already bin so busie abroad that with vast sommes of money they brought the Swed upon the Dane and the very Savages upon the English Cavalier in Virginia and could they confederat with Turk or Tartar or Hell it self against them they wold do it they are monstrously puff'd up with pride that they stick not to call themselfs Conquerors and one of the chief ring-leaders of them an ignorant home-bred kind of Brewer was not ashamed to vaunt it publiquely in the Commons House that if he had but 20000. men he wold undertake to march to Constantinople and pull the Ottoman Emperour out of his throne Touching the other grand Idoll the Parlement 't is true that the primitive constitution of Parlement in this Iland was a wholsome peece of policy because it kept a good correspondence and clos'd all ruptures 'twixt the King and his people but this thing they call Parlement now may rather be term'd but a cantle of one or indeed a Conventicle of Schismatiques rather then a great Counsell 't is like a kind of headlesse Monster or som ectropiated carkas for there is neither King nor Prelate nor scarce the seventh part of Peers and Commons no not the twelfth part fairely elected neverthelesse they draw the peeple specially this City like so many stupid animalls to adore them Yet though this institution of Parlement be a wholsom thing in it self there is in my judgment a great incongruity in one particular and I believe it hath bin the cause of most distempers It is That the Burgesses are more in number then the Knights of Shires for the Knights of the Shires are commonly Gentlemen well born and bred and vers'd in the Lawes of the Land as well as forren governments divers of them but the Burgesses of Townes are commonly Tradesmen and being bred in Corporations they are most of them inclining to Puritamism and consequently to popular government these exceeding the Knights in number carry all before them by plurality of Voices and so puzzle all And now that I have mentioned Corporations I must tell your Lordship that the greatest soloecism in the policy of this Kingdom is the number of them especially this monstrous City which is compos'd of nothing els but of Corporations and the greatest errors that this King specially his Father committed was to suffer this town to spread her wings so wide for she bears no proportion with the bi●nesse of the Iland but may fit a Kingdom thrice as spacious she engrosseth and dreines all the wealth and strength of the Kingdom so that I cannot compa●e England more properly then to one of our Cremona geese where the custom is to fatten onely the heart but in doing so the whole body growes lank To draw to a conclusion This Nation is in a most sad and desperate condition that they deserved to be pittied and preserved from sinking and having cast the present state of things and all interests into an equall balance I find my Lord there be three waies to do it one good and two bad 1. The first of the bad ones is the Sword which is one of the scourges of heaven especially the Civill sword 2. The second bad one is the Treaty which they now offer the King in that small Iland where he hath bin kept Captif so long in which quality the world will account him still while he is detain'd there and by that Treaty to bind him as fast as they can and not trust him at all 3. The good way is in a free confiding brave way Englishmen-like to send for their King to London where City and Countrey shold petition him to summon a new and free full Parlement which he may do as justly as ever he did thing in his life these men having infring'd as well all the essentiall Priviledges of Parlement as ev'ry puntillio of it for they have often risen up in a confusion without adjournment they had two Speakers at once they have most perjuriously and beyond all imagination betrayed the trust both King and Countrey repos'd in them subverted the very fundamentalls of all Law and plung'd the whole Kingdom in this bottomlesse gulf of calamities another Parlement may happly do som good to this languishing Iland and cure her convulsions but for these men that arrogat to themselfes the name of Parlement by a locall puntillio only because they never stirr'd from the place where they have bin kept together by meer force I find them by their actions to be so pervers so irrational and refractory so far given over to a reprobat sense so fraught with rancor with an irreconcileable malice and thirst of bloud that England may well despaire to be heal'd by such Phlebotomists or Quacksalvers besides they are so full of scruples apprehensions and jealousies proceeding from black guilty soules and gawl'd consciences that they will do nothing but chop Logic with their King and spin out time to continu their power and evade punishment which they think is unavoydable if there should be a free Parlement Touching the King he comports himself with an admired temper'd equanimity he invades and o'remasters them more and more in all his answers by strength of reason though he have no soul breathing to consult withall but his owne Genius he gaines wonderfully upon the hearts and opinion of his peeple and as the Sun useth to appear bigger in winter and at his declension in regard of the interposition of certain meteors 'twixt the eye of the beholder and the object so this King being thus o'reclouded and declined shines far more glorious in the eyes of his peeple and certainly these high morall vertues of constancy courage and wisdom com from above and no wonder for Kings as they are elevated above all other peeple and stand upon higher ground they sooner receave the inspirations of heaven nor doth he only by strength of reason outwit them but he wooes them by gentlenes and mansuetude as the Gentleman of Paris who having an Ape in his house that had taken his only child out of the cradle and dragged him up to the ridge of the house the parent with ruthfull heart charmed the Ape by faire words and other blandishments to bring him softly down which he did England may be said to be now just upon such a precipice ready to have her braines dasht out and I hope these men will not be worse natur'd then that brute animal but will save her Thus have I given your Eminence a rough account of the state of this poor and pittifully deluded peeple which I wil perfect when I shall com to your presence which I hope will be before this Autumnall Equinox I thought to have sojourn'd here longer but that I am growne weary of the clime for I feare there s the other two scourge of heaven that menace this Iland I mean the famin and pestilence especially this City for their prophanenes rebellion and sacriledge it hath bin a talk a great while whether Anti-Christ be com to the world or no I am sure Anti-Jesus which is worse is among this peeple for they hold all veneration though voluntary proceeding from the inward motions of a sweet devoted soule and causing an outward genuflexion to be superstitious insomuch that one of the Synodicall Saints here printed and published a Book entitling it against Iesu Worship London this 16. of August Stylo loci 1648. So in the profundest posture of reverence I kisse your vest being My Lord Your Eminences most humbly devoted J. B. ●

ring of this high cariage of the Kings and the sound went thence to the Countrey whence the silly Plebeians came presently in whole heards to this City and strowting up and down the streets had nothing in their mouths but that the priviledg of Parlement the priviledg of Parlement was broken though it be the known cleer Law of the Land that the Parlement cannot supersede or shelter any treason The King finding how violently the pulse of the gr●sly seduced people did beat and there having been formerly divers riotous crues of base Mechaniques and Mariners who had affronted both his own Court and the two Houses besides which the Commons to their eternall reproach conniv'd at notwithstanding that divers motions were made by the Lords to suppresse them the King also having private intelligence that there was a mischievous plot to surprize his person remov'd his Court to the Countrey The King departing or rather being driven away thus from his two Houses by this mutinous City he might well at his going away have obraided her in the same words as Henry the 3. did upbraid Paris who being by such another tumultuous rabble driven out of her in the time of the Ligue as he was losing sight of her he turn'd his face back and sayed Farewell ingratefull Cittie I will never see thee again till I make my way into thee through thy Walls Yet though the King absented himself in person thus from the two Houses he sent them frequent messages that they wold draw into Acts what he had already assented unto and if any thing was left yet undon by him he wold do it therfore he will'd them to leave off those groundles feares and jealousies wherwith they had amus'd both Cittie and Countrey and he was ready to return at all times to his Palace in Westminster provided that his Person might be secur'd from the former barbarisms outrages But in lieu of a dutifull compliance with their Prince the thoughts of the two Houses ran upon nothing but war The King then retiring into the North thinking with a few of his servants only to go visit a Town of his he was denied entrance by a fatall unlucky wretch who afterwards was shamefully executed with his eldest son by command of his new Masters of the Parlement The King being thus shut out of his own town which open'd the first dore to a bloudy war put forth a Declaration wherein he warn'd all his people that they should look to their proprieties for if Hee was thus barr'd of his owne how could any private Subject be sure to be Master of any thing he had and herein he was as much Prophet as Prince For the Parlement-men afterwards made themselfs Land-Lords of the whole Kingdome it hath been usuall for them to thrust any out of his freehold to take his bed from under him and his shirt from off his very back The King being kept thus out of one of his townes might well suspect that he might be driven out of another therefore 't was time for him to look to the preservation of his Person and the Countrey came in voluntarily unto him by thousands to that purpose but hee made choice of a few only to be his gard as the Parlementteers had don a good while before for themselfs But now they went otherwise to worke for they fell a levying listing and arming men by whole Regiments and Brigades till they had a verie considerable Army a foot before the King had one Musqueteer or Trooper on his side yet these men are so notoriously impudent as to make the King the first Aggressor of the war and to lay upon Him all the blood that was spilt to this day wherein the Devill himself cannot be more shameles The Parliamenteers having an army of foot and horse thus in perfect Equipage 't was high time for the King to look to himselfe therefore he was forced to display his royall Standard and draw his sword quite out Thus a cruell and most cruentous civill war began which lasted neer upon foure yeers without intermission wherin there happen'd more battailes sieges and skirmishes then passed in the Netherlands in fourescore yeers and herein the Englishmen may be said to get som credit abroad in the world that they have the same blood running in their veines though not the same braines in their sculls which their Ancestors had who were observed to be the activest peeple in the field impatient of delay and most desirous of battaile then any Nation But it was one of the greatest miracles that ever happen'd in this Land how the King was able to subsist so long against the Parlamenteers considering the multiplicity of infinite advantatages they had of him by water and land for they had the Scot the Sea and the City on their side touching the first he rushed in as an Auxiliary with above 20000. Horse and Foot compleatly furnish'd both with small and great ammunition and arms well cloth'd and money'd For the second they had all the Kings Ships well appointed which are held to be the greatest security of the Island both for defence and offence for every one of them is accounted one of the moving Castles of the Kingdome besides they had all the other standing stone-Castles Forts and tenable places to boot Concerning the last viz. the City therein they had all the wealth bravery and prime ammunition of England this being the onely Magazin of men and money Now if the King had had but one of these on his side he had in all probability crush'd them to nothing yet did he bear up strangely against them a long time and might have don longer had he kept the campane and not spent the spirits of his men before Townes had he not made a disadvantagious election of som Commanders in chief and lastly had he not had close Traitors within dores as well as open Rebells without for his very Cabinet Councell and Bed-Chamber were not free of such vermin and herein the Parlementeers spent unknown sums and were very prodigall of the Kingdomes money The King after many traverses of war being reduced to a great streight by crosse successes and Counsells rather then to fall into the hands of the Parlementeers withdrew himselfe in a Servingmans disguise to the Scors army as his last randevous and this plott was manag'd by the French Agent then residing here A man wold think that that Nation wol'd have deem'd it an eternall honor unto them to have their own King and Countrey-man throw himself thus into their armes and to repose such a singular trust in them upon such an Extremity but they corresponded not so well with him as he expected for though at first when the Parlamenteers sollicited their deer Brethren for a delivery of the Kings person unto them their note was then if any forren petty Prince had so put himself upon them they could not with honor deliver him much lesse their own Native King yet