Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	bear_v	good_a	know_v	985	5	3.2926	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58914	A seasonable answer to a late pamphlet entituled, The vindication of Slingsby Bethel, Esq. one of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex / by one who is a citizen of London and an inhabitant of the borough of Southwark.	Citizen of London and an inhabitant of the borough of Southwark.	1681 (1681)	Wing S2217A; ESTC R33731	9,381	10

upon Conference with one another found themselves divided in their Opinions concerning the Superiority of Merit between Sir Richard How and Mr. Pilkinton and yet resolv'd if possible to have one of them Of this indeed they might have been certain if they had return'd them two but it is to be considered that then there had been no Tryal of Skill between their two Parties and also that being both worthy Men either of them which should be assign'd to that Office would have seem'd to be the Court of Aldermen's Choice rather than theirs Hereupon to leave as little scope as might be to the Court of Aldermen for the exercise of their Prerogative both parties consented to return Mr. Sheriff Bethel for one as knowing him to be a person so un-acceptable to that Court that they might be sure of him of the other two to whom it should fall by the Decision of their own Votes So that that Gentleman who lost it at the Poll had more respect shewn him by the Ward than he who carried it without a Poll and they unanimously agreed to chuse Mr. Bethel because they knew they were in no Danger of being troubled with him And now Sir much Joy to you of the Honor of that General Consent and the concurrent Votes which you so highly boast of Now because the Court of Aldermen had discovered a Dislike of his Company he therefore resolves and declaims against House-keeping and groundlesly misplacing his Anger falls foul upon the Innocent and without any Provocation in the Earth does vent such undeserved Reproaches and bitter Invectives against all the Dishes of a Generous Sheriff's Table even from Rost-Beef to Custard that certainly it is his Interest to dissuade all men from reading his Book till they have Dined For no Hungry Stomach can with Patience bear to have its good Friends and Allies so vilely abused He says that nothing can be less Honourable to the Sheriffs than Feasting of the Companies that good Eating is a great Expence of time and a plentiful an Enemy to that sober Industry which is the rise and glory of a Trading City as if a sober industrious Trader who intended to thrive and grow wealthy were obliged now and then to satisfie himself with the refreshment of sucking a Button and be glad to take up with the smell of a Cooks shop instead of a Meal Beef and Mutton defend us say I If this man were Manciple he would within the compass of a Week so effectually promote his Landlords Trade as to deserve to sit Rent-free for within that time our Bellies would dwindle and grow so lank that happy were he who could get a Taylor to adjust the Wast-band of his Breeches Being destitute of any farther Arguments to put a colour upon his sordid way of living in so publick an Employment he falls to his Prayers to God that among other Sins Fulness of Bread which was charged upon Sodom and Jerusalem as one Cause of Gods Judgments may not grow to that height in this City as to become the Ruin and Destruction of it I do not love to jest in Serious Matters and shall therefore only take notice that there are certain Citizens under his Custody who through his Neglect are able truly to plead Not Guilty to that Charge Had Mr. Sheriff Bethel fed the Poor instead of Feasting the Rich had he supply'd the Defect of Splendid Entertainments by an extraordinary Charity towards his Prisoners he might have had a fairer Plea But he himself without blushing grants it to be true that he does not contribute to the Relief of their Necessities and has so utterly renounc'd all Modesty as boldly to undertake to prove it his Duty to be unmerciful For mark you me by putting a Stop to the usual Payments If any Prisoners be famish'd this Year the Court of Aldermen and a Committee of the City will take care to prevent the like Mischief against the next And my holding of my Hand says he will prevail with others to open theirs and encourage them to Chrritable Benevolences and Legacies for the Maintenance of those wretched People Heavens what Arguments are these But such a man can never be defended but by such Logic. I shall now trouble the Reader no further after I have told him that I am a Person not at all delighted in enquiring after or exposing and publishing the Vices or Follies of any man and as probably I had never known that he has been reported to be a Jesuite one of the late Kings Judges c. unless he himself had told me so the World had never known for me that his carriage towards his own Company of Leather-Sellers has been such that they have thought fit contrary to their usual Method of Proceeding to wave his Merit of Congruity in their late Election of a Master notwithstanding that he is present Sheriff of London That a Person who might have escap'd a troublesome and to any but himself a Chargeable Office by swearing that he was not worth 10000 l. should yet to come off for a Shilling at the time of the last Poll-Tax give order to a Maid-Servant to acquaint the Officers that he was a Decayed Merchant That when he knew the Easter Sermons were to be at S. Sepulchres he should yet perversly make a Ridiculous Cavalcade to the Spittle by himself like the Pied Piper of Halberstadt drawing all the Boys and Girls in the Town after him These things I say with all which has gone before I should not have concern'd my self to Publish had he not provoked me to enquire concerning him and by lewdly applying a Text of Scripture to himself with a seeming mighty Confidence of his own Innocence challeng'd all the World to Come down and see FINIS

could he reasonably hope that none of his Contemporary Merchants at that Staple should tell his Famous History and display him in his Colors at their Return into England How could he reasonably hope to survive all those who are able to justifie to his Face the Truth of what they had related when he should have the Confidence to deny it How could he reasonably hope that Factious and Turbulent Practices should not deserve to be punish'd at least with Reproach and Infamy How could he reasonably hope But that I may encourage Modesty especially in such a one as He for the sake of that blushing Parenthesis I will spare him at present till he give me further occasion to deal more roughly with him From his private Station which I cannot allow to extend any farther than to his Continuance at Hamburgh For after his Return into England he himself acknowledges that he did embrace Civil Offices and 't is well known that he was always edging himself in to make one in all the late shiftings of the Scene and the Continuator of Bakers Chronicle attests him to have been nominated one of the Councellors of State who were to abjure the Family of the Stuarts and all Kingly Government but these things it was his Interest to dissemble and conceal and therefore I say from his Private Station as he calls it he immediately passes to the time of his being chosen a Sheriff of London and Middlesex and because I resolve to keep up close with him I must e'en take the same Leap too He tells us he was call'd forth by his Fellow Citizens to a Publick Employment meaning the Shrievalty contrary to his Inclinations and Humor which indeed is both true and false 'T is very true it was contrary to his Inclination and Humor to be at the Charge and Expence which usually attends the Execution of that Office as the Event has sufficiently shewn but that it was contrary to his Inclination and Humor to have in his Hands the Power of doing Mischief which accompanies it is as false For otherwise why should he take the Sacrament according to the Rites of the Church of England the Oath of Allegiance c. about which he and his Conscience were not agreed for Twenty Years before merely to qualifie himself for that Employment when 't is probable the Court of Aldermen would rather have given him Money to be rid of him than insisted upon any high Fine to excuse him Well Mr. Bethel is Sheriff of London and Middlesex and would have been a Burgess of Southwark And what then Why then he falls a complaining most bitterly of his hard Fate that he can no sooner leave his Private Station and stand in Competition for Places of great Honor and Trust but presently men enquire whether he be fit to be trusted and search into the History of his Life and slander him with all the matter of Truth that they can collect And is it not a most sad and deplorable Case that a man of his Bulk and Character who comes and says upon his Word that he is as honest and wise and every way as fit to be our Representative as any man we can chuse should be so contemptuously repulsed and baulked as he was by a company of inquisitive and unconfiding Burghers And now that by chance I have mention'd Mr. Bethel and Honesty and Wisdom in one Paragraph I cannot but take notice of the extraordinary Cast he gives us of both in his assuming the Honor of being one of our Representatives and making one great reason of Writing this Vindication of his to be That those of the Neighbouring Borough may not be thought to have been mistaken and deceived in the Person whom they preferred to a place of so great Trust p. 2. Was it honest in him to insinuate to the World That he had been chosen a Burgess for Southwark when he was excluded by a considerable Majority and those more considerable for their Quality than Number It being highly probable that the misled men who crowded for him might as easily have been persuaded to give their Votes for John Doe and Richard Roe And was it wise for him to tell us in Print that we had elected him when we knew we had not No No Mr. Bethel such Tricks will not do with us We that opposed you are satisfied that we were not as you say well mistaken and deceived in you and Multitudes of those who through a Blind Zeal appear'd for you are now enlightened and convinced that they were mistaken So that I would advise you as a Friend that if when His Majesty shall be pleas'd to Summon another Parliament you find the same hankering after a Membership continue upon you you would apply your self to some other Borough where you are less known than here Having acquainted us to our Amazement that he was our Burgess he proceeds next with a Consistency peculiar to himself to let the World know the Obstacles which hindred him from being so He says That to disable him from holding any Place of so great Trust It was objected that he was a Papist and a Jesuit and that upon some Variance happening between him and Dr. Oates he did declare that he knew him beyond the Seas to be such that he was a Souldier in the Parliament's Army in the time of the late Wars and was most cruel and unmerciful in the Exercise of Arms that being at Hamburgh at such time as the Late King's Death was resolved on in England he did there say That rather than he should want an Executioner he would come thence to perform the Office and that he was not only one of the Late Kings Judges but one of those two persons in Vizzards that assisted on the Scaffold at his Death To each of these Articles he says something which he hoped no doubt would look like an Answer but the whole amounts only to this that he stifly denies 'em all But if none of these things were true how comes it to pass that after he had boasted under Article 3. p. 3. That he has brought his Action at Law for the Vindication of himself in that point he should yet drop that Action with two more of the same Nature and that the Prospect of 30000l for so much he laid his Damage should not be sufficient to encourage him to be at the common charge of the Law to go on with them Whence should arise so much Smoak if there were no Fire How did it chance that the rest of the Competitors had not the like Brands of Infamy fastened upon them Whence did it proceed that all the Dirt of the City and Town should be thrown into his Cart Certainly he is one of the most unfortunate Men that ever left Private Station if he be innocent That he is Innocent we have only his own Word and how far that ought to weigh we may judge from what follows in his next Paragraph concerning a Paper