In witness of the truth of these presents, and of every particular contained in the same, the parties above-named have hereunto set their hands and seals, the day aforesaid, and in the 5662d year of the reign of our most damnable Sovereign Lord, King Lucifer, &c. Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of us WILLIAM LAUD, Bishop. NISI PRIUS CRAULY, Judge. JAMES IN GRAIN, Jailor. ROBERT KILFART, Sollicitor. And RUDINE HAPHUDIBRASS CYTINKYCLOPA- Here followeth a brief relation of a great feast, which, from Lucifer Prince of Hell, was, by the hands of Cardinal Pegusious, presented to the view, disposal, and approbation of the Pope of Rome, in the year of Jubilee, 1611. Pope. MY Lord Cardinal Pegusious and you, the rest of my holy brethren, I beseech you view these excellent varieties, and variety of excellencies, well dressed and most exquisitely set forth and garnished. But the contents of every dish, I believe, is best known to you my Lord Pegusious, from whom I desire to be satisfied concerning the contents, qualities, and operation of every several dish. Cardinal. May it please your holinees, these varieties of dishes, which your holiness here thus set forth, were all of them prepared for the only table of our high and mighty monarch, King Lucifer, your holiness's sole patron and protector; a certain number of which dishes his Majesty hath graciously been pleased to cause them to be presented to your holiness's disposal, and the residue of them only to your holiness's view and approbation, being to be preserved for his Majesty's own peculiar palate. Pope. I beseech you, my Lord Cardinal, let me have them brought hither before me, in order, according to the appointment of my sovereign, and most munificent patron. Card. Your Holiness's will and pleasure shall be accomplished; and here, in the first place, may it please your Holiness to take notice, that the first dish, by his Majesty's appointment, to be presented to your Holiness's disposal, is this large Latin charger, containing twenty-two lordly English bishops, stewed with the fire of contention, on the chafing-dish of exasperation, and seasoned with the several spices of man's invention, as with the spice of the mass, priesthood, holy-days, altars, candles, rails, holy-bread, holy-water, holy-ashes, devout prayer for the dead, invocation of saints, offerings at the altars, excommunications, and the strong and operative spice of the high commission. It is also garnished about with the several heretical doctrines of all the new-intitled priests of England; and this dish his Majesty hath appointed to be disposed of by your Holiness. Pope. I will surely taste of it; it looks lovely; oh, admirable! It is a most Laud-able dish of meat: I can find nothing wanting in this dish, but only three grains of the spice of accomplishment, and then it had been devoutly seasoned for my palate; but, I pray, what is the next dish, my lord? Card. The next dish, may it please your Holiness, is a silver charger, comprehending all the contrivers and complotters of the dissension be tween England and Scotland, of the last Spanish invasion of England, and the practisers with the French, for the subversion of all the hereticks in England, Scotland, and Ireland: it is seasoned with all our jesuitical practices, church-policies, and all our English Roman Catholick treacheries, and garnished with all our English Roman statists: this dish of meat is now almost cold, and therefore at this present unfit for your Holiness's palate; it only wants the breath of the Earl of Strafford's fiery zeal to heat it, by a laudable blast or two. Pope. However, I pray let me taste of it. Oh, the lamentation of a sinner! Pity, pity, yea, a thousand pities is it, that this dish had not been kept hot and seasoned to the proof, that we might have sung most laudably, te Lucifer Laudamus. But, my Lord Cardinal, what is the next dish? Card. May it please your Holiness, this dish contains a certain number of false and corrupt judges; it is seasoned with the spice of aged detestable covetousness, bribery, extortion, oppression, injustice, unmercifulness, and with perversion of all the statute-laws, garnished with ship money, forest-money, loan-money, and a multitude of nisi prius's; but this dish is, by his Majesty's special order, to be preserved for his own peculiar palate. Pope. His Majesty's will be done: I shall be ever ready and obedient to all his Majesty's commands, nor will I presume to taste of it, but only pass my judgment on it, that it is a princely dish, fit only for his Majesty's table. What is the next, I pray, my Lord? Card. The next, may it please your Holiness, is a large golden charger, containing a very great number of base-minded, covetous, unjust, extorting, and oppressing lawyers, who value every word, by them uttered at a bar of justice, at a far higher price, than your Holiness doth your bulls, issued forth for remission of sins; and these caterpillars his Majesty King Lucifer hath brought into such great esteem with all the inhabitants of England, as that no man of quality thinks his house to stand, unless it be supported by one of those vermin pillars, and brood of contention: this dish is seasoned with the spice of extorting fees from one twenty-one shillings piece, to five, to ten, yea, to twenty; especially by those, who are stiled the judge's favourites; all this is given sometimes but for the speaking of two or three words; it is likewise seasoned with the taking of fees on both sides, deluding clients, spinning out the thread of an honest cause to its full length, until the purse-strings, both of plaintiff and defendant, crack; and then they are tied together, by a commission into the country, where these caterpillars are reverenced and feared like so many gods by all the people this dish is garnished with some ten-thousand pestiferous pettifogging, seditious, ten-groat attornies; one of whose perfidious bills of charges, in one term, advances itself sometimes unto the sum of five, ten, twenty, yea, thirty pounds; especially, when he finds his client naturally inclined to the conditions of an ass; and, on every of these garnishes, hangs five coney-catching deceitful sollicitors, properly termed lawyers limetwigs, traps, or nets, to catch the poor silly creatures called clients; and this dish his Majesty hath also reserved for his own table. Pope. It is a princely dish, indeed, and fit only for the peculiar table of so great a monarch, as is our most damnable Sovereign, King Lucifer; the operation and vertue of which dish is able to season a whole kingdom, to be fit meat for his majesty's palate, especially if there be but the operative spice added to it, called, The action of the case. But what is this dish, my Lord Cardinal ? Card. May it please your Holiness, this dish contains a certain number of base muckworms, stiled doctors of our civil law, chancellors, and officials: this dish is also seasoned with unjust spice of extortion, oppression, fraud, and deceit, and garnished about with a most damnable crew of proctors, notaries, registers, delegates, advocates, sumners, and petty apparitors; these have, for many years, proved notable instruments of strife and vexation unto the inhabitants of England, and, through their deceivable ways, have mightily oppressed the people, being not much inferior unto the precedent of the golden charger. But to this dish, may it please your holiness, there hath happened this year a very great mischance in the cooking; for, when we thought it should have been most laudably boiled up to its greatest height of catholick operation, there happened a spider to fall into it, through a sudden blast of reformation, which hath made it somewhat dangerous now for your Holiness to taste of; for the lamb, that was most richly seasoned in it, is now, through this sudden and unexpected misfortune, putrefied; and the duck, being a watery fowl, is quite dissolved; and this dish, by his Majesty's special order, is to be left now to your Holiness's disposal. Pope. I am much bound to his Majesty for his gracious favour to me herein? I shall be very careful, through deliberation, and mature consideration, to study, for the fittest disposal thereof, during the time of my vicegerency here, and then return it again to his Majesty's disposal. But I pray you, my Lord Cardinal, what do these copper vessels contain? Card. May it please your Holiness, this covered mess is a gallimawfry; or, as the Fleming calls it, a hodgepodge, wherein are sundry meats stewed together; it contains a certain number of beasts, called corrupt masters of the Chancery, and half a dozen corrupt clerks of the Chancery; also one-hundred and fifty of their puny clerks, commonly termed attornies in Chancery; it also contains six new attornies of the court of Requests, and some sixty of their puny clerks: this hodgepodge is seasoned with the spice of bribery, false witnesses, stiled Knights of the post, a spice greatly in request in those courts, especially in the examiners office, and the late Coventry affidavit office; but his Majesty's special command is, to have this covered mess preserved in its present condition, lest contention should seize amongst the inhabitants of England, and unity and peace take place, which cannot but tend much to his Majesty's detriment, and loss of dominion, in that kingdom; and, to that end, he hath caused the same to be sealed up, and to be conveyed from Coventry to Manchester by the Golden Finch. Pope. Good, my Lord Cardinal, I beseech you, let his Majesty's will and pleasure herein be very carefully accomplished, for it concerns much his Majesty's honour and our safety. But what is this dish, my Lord ? Card. This, may it please your Holiness, is likewise a hodgepodge, containing meats of sundry sorts and operations; it contains a certain number of prothonotaries, registers, and clerks of the Star-chamber, Chancery, Court of Requests, King's-bench, Common-pleas, and the Exchequer; this gallimawfry is seasoned with subornation of false witnesses, falsifying of orders and decrees; it is garnished with the subtle practices of the renter-warden of the Fleet, and his imps, as also with Killvert, Killfart, Killbennet, Killbishop, and the like instruments of lawyers gain; the operation of this dish chiefly consists in the confusion of men's estates, to extract gold out of all men's purses, to suppress virtue and peace, and to advance iniquity and contention; to wrong and oppress every man, and to do right to no man. And this mess is also to be reserved for his Majesty's table. Pope. Good, my Lord Cardinal, I pray you let me taste of this mess, the operation whereof, by your relation, appears to be admirable. I wish, from my heart, that I might also grow capable of that vertue of extracting gold out of the English nation, as some of my predecessors have done before me. I confess, the study of this art was begun by my physician most laudably; but alas! and woe is me, it was marred by a robustious storm of wind out of the North, and quite spoiled by a vehement shower of puritanical rain. And what is this next mess, my Lord? Card. May it please your Holiness, this is also a hodgepodge, containing sundry coarse meats, as scriveners, brokers, usurers, jailors, bailiffs, serjeants, informers, perjured churchwardens, justices of the peace, and bumbailiffs; this mess is seasoned with parchment, deceit, extortion, usury, oppression, murdering of Christian souls in prisons, through famine, false information, injustice, neglect, and tyranny; and is garnished with a number of irreligious mayors, sheriffs, fœderies, escheaters, clerks of the assize, clerks of the peace, constables, and headboroughs. But this mess is, by his Majesty's order, to be disposed of unto his servants. Pope. Indeed, my Lord Cardinal, methinks this mess hath a very bit ter relish with it, else my mouth is quite out of taste; I conceive it to be a mess fit only for his Majesty's hell-hounds. But what is this last mess? Card. I conceive this mess to be very well known to your Holiness, for it is seasoned with most of those operative spices, that all the meat dressed in your Holiness's kitchen is seasoned with; this mess contains divers justicial birds of Middlesex, as namely, the long, the hearn, the snipe, the hooker, the jay, and the like of them; seasoned with the fees and bribes of all the whores and thieves that live in Westminster, Covent-Garden, Holborn, Grub-Street, Clerkenwell, Rosemary-Lane, Turnbuli-Street, Ratcliff, Southwark, Bankside, and Kent-Street; this dish is also garnished with the new year's gifts of the whores, thieves, and cutpurses dwelling in the forenamed several places; but this mess is, by his Majesty, reserved for his own peculiar palate. Pope. Oh Venerable Bede! Oh holy Garnet! Oh sanctified Faux! Oh reverend Beckett! Oh beloved Ravilliack, Campion, Watson, Parsons, Moreton, Sands, and admired Bellarmine, I call you all to witness this day, whether you, or any of you, have ever, as yet, been capable of such a delicious feast, adorned with so many varieties, beautified with so many several rarities, and seasoned with such delectable spices. Sancte Benedicte, ora pro nobis. And thus, rendering all humble and hearty thanks, with all reverence in all obedience, unto his Majesty, our most damnable prince and protector, Lucifer, King of Styx and Phlegethon, I remain his Majesty's humble servant, and vicegerent, at his Majesty's sole disposal during life, Papa Romanorum. Advice and Motives to the Honourable Assembly in Parliament. E. S. I. E. W. J. S. THE stake's three crowns, four nations gamesters are; |