Detest foul juggling, now 'tis in your powers;
Let none but square play pass, the game is yours;
For, here you see, Hell. Rome, and all their train,
Plot to confound all your good laws again.
Then have a care, expel Rome's imps, make sure,
Your laws and liberties may still endure
To future ages; posterities then may
Have cause to bless your memories for aye.

1. LAMENT, lament, you bishops all,
Each wear his blackest gown;

Hang up your rochets on the wall,
Your pride is going down.

2. It needs must grieve each Romish heart,
To hear this sad relation;

All canons are not worth a fart,
Made in the convocation.
3. The bishops holy synod, and
The priests of Baal, that there
Consented, and concluded all,
Are now in grievous fear

4. To be depriv'd of priestly style,
Of coat canonical;

And quite be banished this isle,
They fear they must be all.
5. Ah! poor Et cætera is now dead,
Which grieves the bishops most;
What they would have immortal made,
Hath now giv'n up the ghost.

6. Alas! that new begotten oath,
Like snow against the sun,
It did begin to melt away,
When th' parliament begun.
7. All ceremonies are good cheap,
And I will tell you how :

The tippet, hood, and surplice eke,
Are good for nothing now.

8. And, which I know more woeful is,'
And most their courage quails,

There was a grievous murther made,
Amongst their holy rails.

9. Oh! when this sad and heavy news
Unto that synod came,

The birds and beasts were in a muse,
Ass, wren, and duck, and lamb.

10. And then a doleful ditty these
Did thus lament together,
Alas! we must all run away,
When shall we run, and whither?

11. Shall we, with Windebank, to France,
Or fly to Holland, where

The Finch is flown, for us a place,
Before-hand, to prepare?

12. No, quoth the duck, we'll fly to Rome,
And there rest without fear

Of parliament, and then the lamb
May come up in the rear.

13. And there we'll drink a health to all
The puritans confusion,

That have thus strongly wrought our fall
By parliament conclusion.

THE judges, and the lawyers all,
Attornies, proctors, clerks,

Sollicitors, and advocates,

Must now stand in their sarks,

And penance do for all their faults;

Their bribes they must restore;

Their cheats and tricks, which they did use,

They practise must no more.

The people long they have beguil'd,

And many a one undone ;

God's curse their wealth for this doth melt,

As snow is by the sun.

Their children and posterity

The gallows doth devour;

Themselves have made a league with hell,

To reign still by his power.

God is the God of unity,

Of love and peace alone;

But these men, for deceit and strife,
The like of them there's none.

Probatum est.

Received by me, Fountain of Iniquity, this 22d of September, 1641, by the help of Judge Bribery, and the furtherance of Lawyer Impiety, of Romanus Treachery, the sum of ten pounds of damnable simplicity, nine pounds of superstitious ignorance, seven pounds of idolatrous folly, six pounds of wilful stupidity, and three pounds of perverseness, to and for the use of Impatience; and, by his appointment, to be delivered unto Genteel Prodigality, to and for the use of Mistress Inconstancy, daughter and sole heir unto Mistress Leachery, the grand-child of Mistress Bawdry, dwelling next door unto Mistress Beggary.

By the new prison near the whipping thong,
At no great distance from Mr. Justice Long,

Long hath a long time been a knave,
Receiving bribes from every slave;
Long ever hath a shelter been full sure
For every thief, a cutpurse, and a whore;
Long knows full well his Christmas how to keep,
On cost of whores, those are his only sheep:
His capons, woodcocks, hearns, snipes, and jays,
Providers of good chear on all assays.

Long may he feast his body, fill his purse
By such a crew of hellish imps. God's curse
Assuredly will fall on him and his,

And prove his fatal recompence for this.
Long may he be a knave, of such great fame,
To all whores glory, his own eternal shame,

THE

FORERUNNER OF REVENGE.

BEING TWO PETITIONS:

The one, to the King's most excellent Majesty; the other, to the most honourable Houses of Parliament.

Wherein are expressed divers Actions of the late Earl of Buckingham; especially concerning the Death of King James, and the Marquis of Hamilton, supposed by poison. Also may be observed the Înconveniences befalling a State, where the noble Disposition of the Prince is misled by a Favourite. By George Eglisham, Doctor of Physick, and one of the Physicians to King James of happy Memory, for his Majesty's Person, above ten Years Space.

Quarto, containing Twenty-three Pages, printed at London, in the Year MDCXLII,

To the most potent Monarch, Charles, King of Great Britain. SIR,

O better motive there is for a safe government, than the safe meditation of death (equalling kings with beggars) and the exact justice of God requiring of them, that the good suffering misery in this life should receive joy in the other; and the wicked, flourishing securely in this, might be punished in the other. That which pleaseth lasteth but a moment; what tormenteth is everlasting. Many things we see unrewarded or unpunished in this inferior world, which, in the universal weight of God's justice, must be counterpoised elsewhere.

But wilful and secret murther hath seldom been observed to escape undiscovered or unpunished; even in this life, such a particular and notable revenge perpetually followeth it, to the end that they who are either Atheists or Machiavelists may not trust too much to their wits in doing so horrible injustice. Would to God your Majesty would well consider what I have often said to my master, King James, The greatest policy is honesty; and howsoever any man seem to himself wise in compassing his desires, by tricks, yet, in the end, he will prove a fool: For falshood ever deceiveth her own master, at length, as the devil (author of all falshood) always doth, leaving his adherents desolate, when they have the greatest need of his help; no falshood without injustice, no injustice without falshood, albeit it were in the person of a king.

There is no judge in the world more tied to do justice than a king, whose coronation tieth him unto it by solemn oath, which, if he violate, he is false and perjured.

It is justice that maketh kings, justice that maintains kings, and injustice that brings kings and kingdoms to destruction, to fall into misery, to die like asses in ditches, or a more beastly death, eternal infamy after death, as all historians from time to time do clearly manifest.

What need hath mankind of kings but for justice? Men are not born for them, but they for men; what greater, what more royal occasion in the world, could be offered to your Majesty, to shew your impartial disposition in matters of justice, at the first entry of your reign, than this which I offer in my just complaint against Buckingham, by whom your Majesty suffereth yourself so far to be led, that your best subjects are in doubt whether he is your king, or you his. If your Majesty know and consider how he hath tyrannised over his lord and master, King James, (the worldly creator of his fortunes) how insolent, how ingrate an oppressor, what a murtherer and traitor he hath proved himself towards him, how treacherous to his upholding friends, the Marquis of Hamilton and others, your Majesty may think (giving way to the laws demanded against him) to yield a most glorious field for your Majesty to walk in, and display the banner of your royal virtues. Your Majesty may perhaps demand, what interest I have therein, what have I to do therewith, that I should stir, all others being quiet? Sir, the quietness or stirring of others expecteth only a beginning from me, whom they know so much obliged to stir, as none can be more, both in respect of knowledge of passages, and in regard of human obligation, and of my independency from the accused, or any other that his power and credit can reach unto; many know not what I know therein, others are little or nothing beholding to the dead; others, albeit they know it as well as I, and are obliged as deep as I, yet dare not complain so safely as I, being out of their reach, who are inseparable from him by his inchantments, and all to obscure myself until the power of just revenge upon him be obtained from God,

What I know sufficient against him, I have set down in my petition against him to the parliament; to which if your Majesty dismiss him, sequestered from your Majesty chiefly in an accusation of treason, you shall do what is just, and deliver yourself and your kingdom from the

captivity in which he holdeth them and your Majesty oppressed. How easily I may eclipse myself from his power to do me harm, unless he hath legions of infernal spirits at his command to pursue me, your Majesty may well know, I being ultra mare to these dominions, where he ruleth and rageth.

How far I am obliged to complain more than others, I will, in few words, express, that neither your Majesty, nor any man, may think otherwise, but that I have most just reason not to be silent in a wrong so intolerable, the interest of blood, which I have to any of them, of whose death I complain; either by the house of Balgony Lunday or Silverton-Hill, albeit it is easy to be made manifest and sufficient to move me, yet it is not the sole motive of my breach of silence. But the interest of received courtesy, and the heap of infallible tokens of true affection, is more than sufficient to stir me thereto, unless I would prove the most ingrate in the world, and senseless of the greatest injuries that can be done unto myself; for who killed King James, and the Marquis of Hamilton, in that part of the injury, which is done unto me therein, he hath done as much as robbed me of my life, and all my fortunes and friends.

With such constant and loving impressions of me, as are neither to be recovered nor duly valued; for his Majesty, from the third year of my age, did practise honourable tokens of singular favour towards me, daily augmented them in word, in writ, in deed, accompanied them, with gifts, patents, offices, recommendations, both in private and publick, at home and abroad, graced so far, that I could scarce ask any thing, but I could have obtained it.

How much honour he hath done unto me, there needs no witness unto your Majesty, who is sufficient for many; no less is my Lord Marquis of Hamilton's friendship established by mutual obligation of most acceptable offices continued by our ancestors these three generations, engraven in the tender minds and years of the Marquis and me, in the presence of our sovereign King James. For the Marquis's father, who with the right hand on his head, and the left on mine, did offer us (young in years so joined) to kiss his Majesty's hand, recommending me to his Majesty's favour, said, I take God to witness, that this young man's father was the best friend that ever I had, or shall have in this world. Whereupon, the young lord resolved to put trust in me, and I fully to addict myself to him, to deserve of him as much commendations as my father did of his father.

This royal celebration of our friends rooted itself so deep in my mind, that to myself I purposed this remembrance, giving it to my young lord, and to my familiar friends, and set it upon the books of my study. Semper Hamiltonium, &c.

VOL. IV.

Always the King and Hamilton

Within thy breast conserve,

Whatever be thy actions,
Let princes two deserve.

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