Look to it London Threatned to be fired by Wilde-fire-zeal Schismatical-faction Militant-mammon Discovered July 15. 1648. in a Discourse with one Croply and Hide by one John Dias one of Captain Whaleys Regiment Extant in a printed Schedule here verbatim Inserted and Commented The Preface to the Premonition AT my first approach to this City out of the Country I was saluted with this which Dias hath vented against the King Kingdom and City which perusing I was in a great suspence and my thoughts cast in dubious scales what to think of it Charity that is candid and not rashly credulous caused me to conceit that it was but some meer fiction or chymera invented like many idle Pamphlets coined news feigned Passages and Declarations like beggars passports made under a hedg and as the Piae fraudes the lying legends of Monks and Friers divulged by our vulgar Mercuries to squeaze monies from the gulled credulities of Plebeians withall when I heard that some Catilinarians Church and State-firebrands did employ their Agents as the devils working-tools to coin and mint out of Pluto's forge lewd and loud lyes scandals and satyrical invectives only to sow the seeds of division and cast their Atae's brands and balls betwixt King and Parliament camp and city to render them still in a further distance I conjectured this pay-squib to be of that nature so giving no more credit to it then to AEsops Fables or a Canterbury tale I slighted it But two days after discoursing with one what he thought of the truth of it he gave this hint that one accidentally meeting with the Copy printed and published it and that there came two men which in probability were Croply and Hide the subscribers to it who were very inquisitive after the said Publisher being in some passion that it was divulged without their consent adding withal that he need not to have printed it in corners nor to have vented it in hugger-mugger since all the passages in it were true as they would confirm by their oaths This passage gave me some light into the reallity of it and was some inducement unto me to think it was not altogether fabulous Yet notwithstanding all this my charity was of so large a size that I thought it was but one Doctor Dulmans opinion the Ignis Fatuus or Brutum Fulmen of one Bragadochian soldier the fools bolt soon shot of one John Dias whose tongue ran wrong Bias. Hence I thought it as unworthy of my genius to answer it as for an Eagle to stoop to a Fly or an Elephant to a Mouse but besides the urgings and sollicitings of some judicious friends who spur'd me on to give some critical observations of the fiery and factious passages in this spleenitive and zeal-drunk discourse hoping the best that the most and the best in the Army had neither head hand nor heart in these destructive Menaces sprinkled now in Print yet fearing the worst that this Di-ass in presenti had some birds in the Army of his own bloody feather who sung his notes in which I was the more grounded by paralelling the particulars here with some things in this nature which 〈◊〉 Martialists vented even to my self not many 〈…〉 As also knowing that oft a man may know by the Market-folk how the Market rules and that the nature of many wolves may be seen in one since also abundans cautela non nocet abundant circumspection never did hurt no more then preventing physick against a feared disease I thought good by a warning peece with pouder ere the threatned bullet be felt or the match fire and salt-peter unsavorily finelt to awaken secure Troynovant to a cautelous watching of their own Sinons within them confederate with armed Greeks without ere the flames be kindled in their houses which here break as a sulphureous Aetna out of the mouth of this Mounsier Malignant whose tongue fired by Hell is a world of wickedness Hereupon ex tempore as the Printer can depose without any other book or manuscript then a naked room in a declarative descant on this plain and vain song I porcupined my pen to run at Tilt with this Junior Donquixot this City-firing orlando furioso acting the parts here on a paper-stage of an Hercules surens and mad Ajax or at least of Sir Henry Hotspur and Sir Ferdinando Flash who here vents his mind with his wind which windy bladder I thus pen-prick in this subsequent synopsis and survey of every black and bloody word in his mouths shop from the warehouse of his Canniballized heart First he declared The Resolution of the Army was to fight for themselves The Resolution It s an excellent spirit to be resolute in a good cause as Daniel resolved not to pollute himself with the Kings meat Shadrach Meshach and Abednego not to bow to the Kings image more then some ex moliori luto that would not so much as bow to an English Baal an Altar So Luther is resolute to go to Wormes if every tile on their houses were a devil though he should suffer as much as Jerom of Prague and John Huss at the inconstant Counsel at Constance But to be resolute in a bad cause like some Popish Pseudomartyrs and the French Byron whose great spirit would not submit to the mercy of the French King no more then Cato of Vtica to Caesars pardon or Cleopatra to grace Augustus his triumph this savors either of swoln pride or perverse self-will or main folly and childish simplicity to hold a candle in the hand till it burn the singers or a hardy wasp till she sting To fight for themselves In which though many acute and nasuted Criticks are not deceived thinking no better of it at the first then Noah of his son nec de eo melius speravi yet many that did conside more in them that they had fought like second Joshuahs and Gideons and Davids and Jonathans the Lords battels and not their own at least like the best Paganish Patriots pro aris focis for Religion and the peace and safety of the Kingdom reading now that all their streams run homeward for themselves and their own ends they cry quant â de spe de re decidi we are souly deceived in them if it be true as perhaps it is not which this soul mouth blatters but I hope they do not dare verba et verbera feed us as fools and children with fair words and delude us as Zeuxis deluded hungry birds with painted grapes or as Faustus and Apollonius their guests with painted dishes if it proves thus all is not gold that glisters and in mens hearts are many odd corners against all that should oppose them whether King Parliament Church State Senate Synod or God-himself I scarce beleeve they be such Junior Caesars with Romanized Resolves and their Facta est alea to hoyst fails against all surging waves or second Hannibals to cut the ways to their own ends through Flints and Rocks with
so unwise as to chuse the Fox for their Governor pereat unus non unitas Its better many Gangreend or rotten Members to be cut off then the whole City infected In this case above any of Merlins or mother Shiptons Prophesies the Proverb may be verified foolish pitty spoils the City It was likewise inquired how the General had performed his word with the King and Kingdom in re-establishing the King and restoring the Kingdom to Peace he answered the General never intended any such thing Did he never intend it Did he ever acquaint this Dias with his intentions Sure if he had after the curtesie of the French King to Scoggan he had been fitter to be of his Privy then of his Cabinet Councel for you see he is rimarum plenus a leaking vessel full of holes he keeps Councel as well as Scoggans wise or Fabius once the divulged secrets of Augustus Coesar he reveals what he knows of the Army and of his General and perhaps ten times more it being the Devils Arithmetick to make lyes by addition as un just plunderers steal by substraction and the family of Love or Lust spawn bastards by multiplication Sure though this Souldier be no Ephestion yet a seal had need be set on his lips He did never intend it Into his secrets let not my soul enter perhaps primum in intentione ultimum in executione what was first in intention may be at last in ex cution He that reads Shepards Jubilee in his encomium were he as snakishly envious against his wel-deservings as ever any emulating Serpen s against the famous Themist ocles Alcibiad s Miltiades the two Scipioes or any other renowned Martialists cannot but say that he hath done much fame worthy and that God hath done much by him yet pace tanti viti to interpose my opinion if not judgment had be brought his King to an interview and personal Treaty with his Parliament which was so projected and so strongly still expected as the most probable means of a setled Peace as Discussions bring forth truth and unity as the repercussions of the steel and flint bring forth fire I say when the ball was at his foot as perhaps it may be again or is to have brought his Prince to his Peers and as a moderate Cassander to set the strings that were out of tune to those that were in tune in an Harmonious diapason he had then as wise men think joyned Ulisses his head to Ajax hand policy to prowesse as a pearl in gold and for ever aeternized his name like Augustus the late famous Sweed yea he had been held to England as Camillus and Fabius to Rome the restorer of her to a new life yea the Atlas mainly propping a declining state Both saith Dias he did never intend it His General is much beholden to him to brand him to blow hot and cold as the Satyres Host with one breath yea to sympathize with Pope Alexander and his good son Coesar Borgias the one of them never speaking as he thought the other never thinking as he spoke their words and works like Germans lips as the phrase is being nine mile a sunder these two the old Fox and the young Cub being Matchavils perfect patterns and Ideas of his right moulded politick Prince which Matchavil many Polypragmatests have studyed more then Moses And that for the Personal Treaty the Army would not suffer it More is the pitty that now Gowns must give place to Guns that cedant arma togae is held no true Syntaxis at least a Pseudodox not an Orthodox Tenet that Achilles armour is judged from Vlisses to rash Ajax though lesse worthy yea that any free Parliament should be limited bounded and obstructed like those that are in a ship or in a Coach who must go either as the wooden Sea-horse and the Land Chariot carrieth them them or if they leap out of the first they indanger drowning or out of the second a neck or a leg breaking or bruising Can the Councel of Trent be held a free Councel or rather a Conventicle who as learned and judicious Doctor Brent in his worthy book in folio hath turned the inside of it outward did not nay durst not decree any thing but what they had from their Popes as the moon her borrowed light from the Sun from whence the Sarcasm was that the Holy Ghost was ever brought to them from Rome as a Bee in a box But why would not or wil not the Army suffer this Treaty Because the City would think they gained the honor of it Would think Hath this Momus any windows to look into the hearts of the Citizens what they think Will he enter into a premunire against God to be Cardiognoses the searcher of hearts Must any Joseph be above Pharaoh in the throne He measures the City by his own Last and makes conclusions yea confusions from the delusions of his own thoughts as we say in Yorkshire just as the fool thinketh so the Bell clinketh Come again Whittington as for the City as there be many things que non nisi per acta landantur which are not praise-worthy till finished So I perswade my self the City would be glad at their hearts of such a Treaty to be the husband as would marry with Peace as once the white Rose with the red in a blessed Union after many bloody Combustions yea there be millions of Mephibosheths who prefer the Kings safe reducing to his Crown Peers and People above their own lives and liberties and would bless God for any one that should be that happy Instrument to effect it even as a sincere Preacher with Pauls spirit is glad howsoever that the Gospel is preached without emulation of the Organ of the conversion of souls as if a man be pulled out of the pit as Joseph or out of the dungeon with Jeremiah or as a brand out of the fire what makes matter who he be whether friend or foe that doth the good work Let the Army do the great work the great duty and let them on Gods Name receive the great Dignity the City will yeeld them the Bucklers the great Honors of Patres Patria the Patriots of their Country Onus et bonos officium et beneficium shall both be theirs But let us trace him further He would not have the City to have the honor of bringing the King to a Treaty but the Army Oh what a contesting is here about Honor as the seven Cities once about Homer the Lady Honora and that pale-faced Pecunia like the Corinthian Lais is Courted of all in Cities Courts and Camps all would shine in the Orb of Honor most in any place or office would like Coesar have no equals or like Pompey no Superiors all would be aut Casares ant nihil Casars or nothing Kings even of molehils How innate it is to the nature of all especially of Artists and Martialists to emulate rather the Honors and Dignities then imitate the deserts of others as
in the blood of the Lutherans but God so sought for the Protestants yea the winds and the waves as once for Honorius as the Red Sea once against Pharaoh the Stars and the River Kishon against Sisera halistones from Heaven against the Amalakites and Hornets against the Canaanites that all these felt and found what it was to fight against God to kick against the prick and to reckon without their Host as this fond Braggadocheo sells the Fox skin before he be catcht and reckons his chickens before they be harcht All would be their own All their own What will not part serve as some Gentleman pay their debts by a kind of Synecdoche cal'd pars pro toto a part for the whole will he and his outstrip the Pope that great Participle who takes part from the Clergy part from the Secular and part from both Will these Harpies play sweep-stake and take all both stock and thwatch harvest and gleanings all from Courts Carts and Crown from City and Country from Church and State All both Gold and Government Power and Pelf Will they as Cormorants devour all before them as the Gothes and Vandals when they over ran Italy and Lumbardy will they swallow up all as flap Dragons Gods part and all Will they rob Altars make with Pompey Temples Stables for Horses shave off Esculapius golden beard reave the Tholous gold rake not only as the Spaniards with the Indians and the Romans with the Iews into the guts of the living but as Darius once into the sepulchres of the dead for gold Oh will these Catepillers eat all the green things of the Land as the Aegyptian Locusts called Monks and Fryers oft in this our Albion our Terra florida Will they monopolize all and leave neither the Clergies part the tenth nor the widows part the thirds Will they rob the spittle and shear the Ape Will they make a mad medley of the dogs hair and the wool of a Baboon Oh sure however such as are the botts and glaunders in the Army the Achans in the Camp seed on such base and sordid projects as Scarabean fleas on dunghils who mayfor all their gaping jaws miss their fat morsels as Aesops dog mist the substance for a snatched shadow and as Ixion imbraced a Cloud for Iuno their brag being a good dog yet catching nothing yet I am perswaded the noble and generous spirits in the Army yea still in my old phrase the best and the most are as far from such dunghil thoughts and from stooping to such base Lures that if Satan or his organs did but dart them into their hearts they would pump them out again as Mariners waters out of their ships yea cast them out as new wines poyson out of the barrels and the seas their froth to the shores God forbid we should condemn all the Disciples for some Iudasses or all professors for some Anani-asses and Sapphiraes But still to follow them and to overtake them as the Hound the Fox in slow running Commeating further That if the Army should thus declare the City and Kingdom would rise as Dias was told Would rise Else they had an asinine patience a sleepish simplicity without any mixture of serpentine calidity to lie stil in a ditch til the ravens pluck their pelts and pulld out their eyes yea their right eyes as Naash the Ammonite projected to those of Iabes Gilead 1 Sam. 11. since nature teacheth the worm turn again if she be trod on the crows to chatter and wrens to wrangle if their nests be pulld down else where were the old English valor if cowed and over-awed as the Britains once with a Danish a Popish an Aegyptian yoke some being fit to be abused yea to sleep to Mecanas like a sawning Courtier a timerous Traveller and a Coriatized odcomb to receive injuries and give thanks but an English-man rightly bred is not fit to be abused though a grated Lion may perhaps be pluckt by the beard yet its dangerous to anger his whelps abroad and to provoke them too far if by any fair and square way of Truce or Treaty they may be appeased He answered Anser is Latin for a Goose They regarded not the City But the City hath both regarded and rewarded them and is she now shaken off as the spaniel shakes off the water when he hath used it to swim to his desired duck Have they climbed their own ends by her and will they now throw her by like broken Ladders Have they no more need of her men nor of her moneys the nerves and sinews of War Nor of her Ammunition which they carry away in Cart-loads full of kindness even many a man that makes Matrimony a matter of money regards the silver feathers if not the flesh of the bird which he takes into his nest but this is not commune malum But could fire it at pleasure At pleasure Oh Gunpowder spirits Jesuited Ignatians who would conclude all in ferio in ferro flamma as the Spanish inquisition and Bonner once and Gardner all are not guilty of this those who are gracious in the Army are also grateful in their invincible arguments of fire and faggot When Iames and Iohn would have fetcht fire from heaven to burn the Samaritans Christ told them they knew not of what spirit they were Luk. 9. But without being at cost with a. Herald we may derive some spirits from the torrid Zone from the pedigree and hot line of Thais that hot harlotrcausing Alexander to burn Persepolis of the mad Greeks firing Troy fired first by the lust of Paris of Nero firing Rome and singing funeral Elegies to it as to second Troy of the Tartars firing the great city Mosco of Faux the firebrand in his devilish intention and invention of a Parliament But to proceed where they exceed Fire the City Alas it s fired already First by wilde fire Sects and Schisms flaming like a sulphureous Aetna unquenchable as the coals of Jumper yea wel nigh as hell-fire either by the milk of the Word or the waters of the sanctuary still fuellized by zealous ignorance and arrogance the divisions of Reuben being great thoughts of heart Iudges 5. Most blinded Sectaries rather breaking like Oaks chiefly Hereticks like Arrius Nestorius Anastasius Valens Marcion Manes and others who all came to tragical ends then bowing like Reeds shutting their eyes against the Sun of truth Secondly fired by wilde-fire wrath and spleen burning and raging inwardly like fire close smothered in divided hearts breaking out into fiery factions and fractions in houses and families amongst those that are neerest united in the bonds of blood marriage nature consanguinity and affinity Withall the phrase of firing the City makes me start back as Moses from his rod turn'd serpent makes my hand stupid et vox faucibus haret and my tongue speechless as if I had seen a fiery-eyed Wolf and it speaks demonstratively to me that there is no sin so gross so grievous so hainous so
Themistocles cannot sleep for the envied Trophies of Miltiades and Alexander weeps at the Tomb of Achilles so famoused by the Muse of a Homer O doxa doxa oh glory glory cries the Orator how dost thou boyl in the hearts of men Oh how the honor of men hath been and is aymed at by such Souldiers as Dias and his camped fellows more then the Glory of God Immensum gloria calcar babet Oh what a spur hath this vain-glory to be the subject of a story This is the whetstone to the Decians Horatians Scipioes Codrus Timoleon Anstogiton Scevola and millions moe of all other Heriock acts not so much undergone for the love of their Country as for the lust of vain-glory For this purchase Hannibal makes his way through the Alpes Cesar pitcheth so main battails the three Herods our Richard the third and thousand moe swim to Crowns through Hecatombs and Seas of blood the Aegyptian Kings build their Pyramides Absolon rears a Pillar and every man doth something from the Court to the Cart for this aery bubble this windy blather this vulgar vote this Plebeian puff called honor Some in the Army you see if Dias be not Monsieur Mendax will cross the publike good of a Kingdom in reducing the King rather then the City should monopolize this poor Punctillio of honor from them on which they stand so much as on their tiptoes as many Victories have been obstructed many Battails lost many Armies routed yea often Expeditions of Christian Princes against the Turk annihilated as I could bring in a Cloud of Histories meerly by the wild-fire Emulations of commanders about the Honors of several services Oh that as Iordan was turned bickward we could turn the stream of our boundless ambitions after humane Honors meerly to the Honor and Glory of God then in a good Cause should the swords of our Martialists like the swords of Ionathan and Saul return gloriously with the blood of the slain if with David and Jashuah they sought the Lords battels and not their own sought his honor not their own And that the Parliament did vote the Personal Treaty only to delude the people But how knows he this hath he some Mephistophiles like Faustus some familiar spirit as some Italian in a ring some devil like Cornelius Agrippa in the form of a dog or some lylng spirits like Ahabs prophets to acquaint him with this or is it his own mad imagination or as the Country-man mis called it madg-mason but till he prove this what slit deserves the scandalizing tongue of this reviling Shimei this railing Rabshekah if scandalum magnatum in slandering one noble man be so poenal what is it for this whelp of Cerberus to bite with his Theonine teeth a whole Parliament for this malevolent to cast his soul aspersions on so many selected Senators throughout the Kingdom but mens tongues are now more then ever their own what Law yea what Lord can controul them Psa 12. this were to tame Panthers and to shackle the Hellespont He likewise said He should or hoped to see the City on fire shortly Yet more fire more ire still the same Arminian Dragon spitting fire At dabit Deus his quoque funem God will cast on such a spirit lightening and thunder storm and tempest fire and hail Psa II. Satia te sanguine quem satisti Nestorius tongue that fired that world was scorched in his mouth Valens that fired so many Christians was at last fired by the Gothes But he hopes to see it fired His is such a hope as will never help him to heaven it will melt as snow to dirt and perish with himself as an embrio or the grass on the house top which withereth Oh the poor hopes of the wicked like the Romanized Religion founded in blood and watered with blood He further said That if the Kings revenue were ten times so much the more in were the better for them for the Crown Land would make many of the Souldiers Gentlemen And so indeed it would make not only Jack but Jackie too a Gentleman if he had the conscience to purse it Lastly this windy-bags venting That if they conquer us we shall be their slaves even slaves to such as he as Sicilian Lords once were opposed by their servants Soepe bilem soepeque risum vestri movere tumultus the humor of this fellow personating that bragging Thraso in Terence and Peripolinices in Plautias and of Bragauacheo in Spencers Fairy Queen I know not whether I should laugh at him pity him or be angry with him Thus having in this Rapsody gathered some grapes of political observances from his thorns and some gold of good counsels from his dross I sheath my pen from running any further Tilt with the pike of his tongue having unhorssed though not un-assed him enough already for abusing as a bold Buffoon even his own Army as well as King Kingdom and Parliament Imprimatur John Downame July the 26. 1648. FINIS