their way The season wep't in rain and sigh'd in winde Our mother earth did great distempers finde At her great loss and with a pale wet face Did her dear Son in her cold armes embrace The rivers swell'd with rage and every hill Was with a vail of black mist covered still The leaves likewise fell trembling from their trees When first they heard news of his obsequies If Plato like the musick of the Sphaers We understood then might our nimble ears Perceive how they quiv'rd grief in mournfull tones Paused with sighs and bass'd with hollow grones Men thought Dame nature now being old and weak Durst nothing that was curious undertake Wherefore to shew men that they were mistaken That master piece was by her undertaken Which though it was presented as her last Shew she a printise was in making what was past And though in Eden commenc'd was the Creation Yet its accomplishment was from our British Nation His body shew'd to what perfection rare Dust might refined be by divine care And yet God thought it neither fit nor just That such a noble soul should lodge in dust Untill that dust by Death were more refin'd And fired to re-lodge so great a minde The Gods Apollo have deprived that he As the more learned should have his dietie But why should air lend mortals furder breath It s sure that they may still condole his death And may it coyne in termes of Highest praise And stamp that coyne with some heart brusting phrase But since he 's gone we may conclude that sure There is another world yet more pure Then ours or that Heavens quire did want a voice Which only could supplyed be by this choice And that God hath this Peer from earth's lower house transplanted To the high upper house of heaven for ever to be sainted To his ingenious Friend the Author of Aretina Thy beardless chin high voicedly doth declare That wisdoms strength lyes not in silvered hair And as few Ciphers rich sums does express So thy rich wit shines in a few years dress For as men did the Suns first light admire So art thou lov'd when thou dost first appear Yet shall thy Crocodil like fame still grow And on its shoar praises shall ever flow Reader Correct these Errors with thy Pen before thou read the Book Page Line Read 80 13 Agapeta 275 ult ominat 292 4 then 292 12 for to themselves 303 6 because 339 18 cannot 348 26 crown 364 1 longer able 419 9 Boute-feus ARETINA OR The Serious Romance MELANCHOLY having lodged it self in the generous breast of Monanthropus lately Chancellour of Egypt did by the chain of its Charms so fetter the feet of his Reason that nothing pleased him now but that whereby he might please that passion thinking all time mispent which was not spent in its service frequenting more Woods than Men deeming them the only fit grove to sacrifice in the choicest of his thoughts to the worst of passions Wherefore having one day wandred abroad in a neighbouring Desert he came at last to a deep Valley fruitfull of nothing but Trees and Trees fruitfull of nothing but Melancholy overlookt by Rocks in whose wrinkâ—ed faces aged Time had plowed thousands of deep furrows whose gloomy brows threatned perpetually to smother the subjacent Valleys a place fit only to be as it was presently the hermitage of Melancholy and stage of Cruelty He had not long stayed when his admiration was arrested by a noise blown in his ears as he thought by the bellows of Death yet seconded by a sight yet more horrid for he saw at some distance two Ladies loaded with Iron sheckles which chained them together stript of their cloaths above the middle and strypt by two cruel Rascals who albeit torture made the Ladies run yet equalled the number of their lashes to that of their paces and not far from them were ten Gentlemen as they seemed by their habits fighting against two Knights followed only by one Esquire where courage seemed to combat against number valour making the ten seem but three and fear making the three seem ten yet courage shew at last that it might be resisted by number but could not be overcome by it for the death of six forewarned the other four that it was not time to stay fear having left them only so much reason as to conclude that seing they could not resist them being ten how could they resist when they were but four wherefore leaving flouds of bloud to witnesse the gallantry of their conquering adversaries they posted away The Knights willing to pursue these run-awayes who had now added cowardisnesse to their former crimes yet more willing to rescue the miserable Ladies left these Rascals to be punished by a torturing conscience and the just gods and spurred after the Ladies who were presently abandoned by these Hangmen but Providence which had borrowed their swiftnesse to lend it to their adversarâ—es delivered these Villains into the hands of the pursuing Knights who brought them back where the Ladies were bathing themselves in their own innocent bloud who having fallen on their feeble knees the eldest of them weeping spoke thus O noble Gentlemen surely Providence had never created such silly creatures as weak women if they had not likewise provided such noble Champions as ye are to be guardians to their weak innocencie and innocent weaknesse We acknowledge we are yours if bloud be a price able to buy things of small value neither can those to whom we belonged formerly pretend right any longer to us no more than the first owners can pretend right to their goods which being robbed from them by unjust Pirats are after some time and danger regained by other true Conquerours or Land taken by Vsurpers is to be restored by a third Conquerour to its first masters Happie we who cannot by any postliminius right return to our former liberty seing to be slaves to such masters is to be no slaves at all But seing our tears are no fit recompence for those tears of bloud which your bodies both have shed and yet do shed for us we shall cease to trouble you whom we cannot requite But whilest they were admiring what was already spoken wherein she shewed much Learning from whom no Learning could be expected and whilst she was about to add more Monanthropus by his coming interrupted both the admiration of the one and the discourse of the other who puzled whether to congratulate the good fortune of the Knights to regrate the misery of the Ladies or to accuse the cruelty of those Rascals with whom the Knights had made them to exchange fetters who were now standing accused by their own roguish looks yet at last he accosted the Knights thus Gentlemen albeit I might accuse you as strangers for exercing any jurisdiction much more the highest jurisdiction in a stranger Nation yet your valour your successe and your cause obligeth me to believe that ye are commissionated by the immortal gods to
past altogether from the superfluous desire to derive them to posterity or at least might have superceded the prosecution of his royal prerogative till a more favourable occasion wherein his treasure might be richer at home his affairs in better order obroad and the grievances of his people fewer and till he had been more surely fixt himself in his newly mounted throne and that for the present he might have acquiesced to a personal concession of those taxes which they could not refuse him more than to his predecessors seing his necessities were as if not more urgent than theirs Others advised him not to passe from but to change these taxations in others as lucrative and lesse odious such as the imposition of a tenth part of all pleas and legal pursuits as should be found to be calumniatory and intended to vex litigiously their honest neighbours which would be both profitable to the treasury and pleasing to the subject both because these taxes seem alwayes most tolerable which are least universal and which the subjects may evite and which if they evite not not the Prince who is the imposer but the subjects who are the contraveeners are to be blamed as also because those taxes are for repressing of vice and so must be in themselves good seing they are contrary to what is evil He was likewise desired to change all corporeally-penal Statutes unto pecunial mulcts as the cutting off of an arm unto so many crowns for by cutting off the arm in place of satisfying the Commonwealth which is offended by the crime the Common-wealth is yet more wronged by augmenting the number of her beggars such as those are who being mutilated of their members cannot employ them for to gain their bread and so necessitated in charity to aliment those who have wronged her in malice There is also another mean whereby this grievance of levying money by taxes may be averted and that galling sore cured by an easier remedy which is By heightning the Crown Rents to the true avail whereby the King's purse may be fed with what growes upon his own ground but the Officers of State have alwayes opposed this as an enemy to their expectations for if this were used then should not Courtiers get Lands worth five hundred pounds yearly as if they amounted not to three hundred pounds nor should they exchange or buy Lands from the Prince at so easie a rate as now they do Princes likewise should hear the meanest grievance of the poorest subject against Toll-masters themselves and not refer the cognizance of such debates to his Courtiers who being pensioners to these money-suckers cannot but acquit themselves as favourable Judges where their interest is debateable As also by such Delegations Customers are encouraged to fleece the poor people who like sheep dare not open their mouthes and the Prince is robbed of the right of appellations which should be accounted one of the chief Jewels of his Crown besides this many judge it expedient that the Prince should after that such taxes are granted to him by the people assign portions of it to those to whom he is debitor as to Ambassadors to Merchants to his Navie c. whereby he may save the expenses of Collectors as also he may obviate the importunity and avarice of Courtiers who absorbes it often in gifts and pensions before the King receives it in to his coffers Others alledge that the Prince should compel those who having farmed the customs have inriched themselves hereafter to be his Customers allowing them a petty sallary and so to inform him how he may inrich himself with his own as they have inriched themselves with what is his and in my own judgement I prefer either of these wayes to that way which hath been formerly practised by the Lacedemonian Senate in deputing some of their number to distribute what is granted for either these will condescend through complacency or fear to follow the current of the Kings inclinations and in that case are superfluous or else the King and Court will become their implacable enemies in which case all become factilus There were many other advices furnished to his Majesty but his Courtiers pressed him not to suffer his Royal Prerogative to be so obumbrated and that he who yeelds once ground is alwayes followed and is glossed to be of kin to a coward This grievance in the State was seconded by many grievances in the Church the Church and State being like the soul and body whereof the one followeth alwayes the temperament of the other Pretended zeal is alwayes the step-mother of true loyalty and such a crime as treason would seem horrid if it were not palliated by imaginary Religion and many Statesmen perpending how many Religions have been at first hatch't meerly to tame wild humours which albeit they have been known to their first founders to be the product of their own brains yet have thereafter been by their posterity imbraced as sacred truths and the violaters of them punished as blasphemers do therefore conclude that possibly if not probably these truths which they now profess are come from the same mint-house since they carry the same impressa and therefore are meerly subservient to their secular ends and that seing they cheat others in making profession of their zeal for Religion when really they have none nor cares for none Why may it not be probable that others have after the same way hatch'd these opinions which they and others do in a manner believe as also these Statists see that events ordinarily answer their expectation and are consequential to their designs which induceth them to believe that providence and policy differs only as do two words as also these two maxims That all men have more or lesse of implicit faith which obliges them to believe what Ecclesiasticks say and that other That we ought not to confine Religion within the narrow boundaries of reason I say these two induces men oft to anchor their faith upon that which is in it self most unreasonable and stimulates men to act many things not only without asking a reason why they should do so but even oft-times when there are many pregnant reasons tendered them why they should not do so and when men are once engaged in these bigot quarrels their order is both inexprimable and irresistable they fear not death since they expect to be covered by the target of providence or if they fall under Religions Standard they are confident that their cause will canonize them they respect not friends nor spare not their relations as thinking themselves more nearly realted to the gods than to any else and thus oft-times the gods are made the patrons of rebellion and their temples asyles in which the wickedest offender dare sanctuary himself This was one of those pretended quarrels which both the Lacedemonians and Athenians incensed the people by against Anaxagius the Nobles in both Nations finding that the Mufties did enhance all preferments and were beginning to
seek restitution of those church-Church-lands which had at first been doted to pious uses and which were thereafter because of the debordings of Churchmen taken by the State and bestowed upon the Nobles because else they had never condescended that old abuses should be reformed seing they were still disposers of those Church Revenues themselves before that innovation the Nobles therefore resolved that they would pull away those Mufties from about the Throne pretending Religion and intending gain alledging that these were innovators and did busie themselves only in State affairs These were the main hinges of all the Lacedemonian troubles yet they were not the sole for besides these may be numbred the nimious clemency of the Prince and the depraved factiousness of the subjects As for the Prince he was a superstitious adorer of his subjects repose and desired rather to have his own than his subjects bloud spilt and albeit it was oft remonstrated to him that the surest way to reign was by the scepter rather of power than of love for power and austerity was in his own hand and depended upon none else whereas the scepter of love was swayed by the hand of a popular affection which was as volatile as themselves and by it he was rather their slave than their Prince and that his rigidity if it were a fault yet was but personal and infected none besides himself but his clemency was the nursery of all those enormities wherewith the Land swarmed and seing vicious persons sinned not more through fear of punishment than through love to vertue that Prince who bewrayed too much clemency did proclaim an imâ—unity to all vice and that subjects were like a top which did run the fleetlier that it was sometimes lasht neither could that Prince expect to be obeyed who punished not disobedience notwithstanding of all those Remonstrances made to him by his friends and of all the dangers which were foreseen by his prying spirit yet he resolved stâ—ll rather to be good than great and to make the hearts of his subjects the throne whereon he would only sit saying that it was the part of a subject to revenge but of a King to pardon and seing the actions of predecessor Kings were the register of their successors he resolved to learn his posterity how to pardon knowing that revenge and corruption would teach them toâ— well how to punish that the gods whose vicegerents they were gloried more in this attribute than in any else and that the King of the Bees which is an hierogliphick of Monarchy wanted a sting these were his principles and proved his bane and he who was mistaken in nothing else was mistaken in this for albeit the gods arrogate clemency as their special attribute yet that is because the injuries of mortals cannot reach them whereas the rebellion of subjects can and oft doth ruine Princes and the omnipotent gods can at any time easily both foresee and repair those wrongs which they have suffered yet a King and his government may receive a wound which none will be able to cure and he may by the malice of his adversaries be thrown into a ditch out of which none can recover him And albeit a Prince may pardon those crimes which are committed against his own person yet he neither can nor should pardon those crimes which are perpetrated against his government and authority which since it is not his property and to which seing he is only administrator he can no more delapidate than a tutor can dispense with those who wrong his pupils estate As to the perversnesse of the subject it was also one of the cards wherewith this fatal game was played for albeit at first the crime resided in few yet did thereafter extend it self to all for albeit the number of those who disaffected the Royal interest in the Senate was but small yet those few vexed all and perverted many of those who were at first but neuters and those publick Conventions are like Watches which will not go soundly if but any wheele or piâ— be in disorder for as in the natural so in the politick body a sore in any part is able to disquiet all the other members thus it is here for those who were dissatisfied did so by the pestiferous breath of their treasonable discourses infect others that they became now as numerous as they were formerly viperous and at last dared to ventilate those treasonable discourses even in the Senate-house thinking that the only way to engage the remanent members in their quarrels Anaxagius challenging these discourses and desiring the authors should be put in the claws of justice this was refused him so that now the cancer of jealousie did begin to spread and one of the Senators when this debate was tabled enveighed thus against the Kings suite Gentlemen seing I am to enter the lists of this debate I am glad I should have Justice for my Client and you for my Judges not meerly because I know that ye are interested albeit that be likewise true but because I know you to be both judicious and experienced judicious whereby ye may know what is reasonable and experienced whereby ye may know what hath been the uncontroverted priviledge of this House and albeit all the Lacedemonians were assembled yet would I appeal by choice to your judgments to whom I must necessarily now appeal as being chosen by them to be their Representatives Gentlemen seing Liberty is that by which we are differenced from beasts it follows necessarily that the more free men are the more they are elevated above a brutal humour and the more Liberty they lose the nearer they verge upon brutishnesse how necessary must Freedom be to subjects seing without it they are rather slaves than subjects and of all the Liberty which subjects can contend for that of debating freely before any Taxation or Law be statuted which is our case is the most considerable for seing Kings are very apt to impose and exact Taxes without the assistance of a Law surely they will be more rigid when they will have the patronage of a Law to assist their rigidity and seinâ— after any Statute is once made the subject is not free to controll it it is necessary that he have some freedom indulged him in controlling it before it be statuted and who dare use this freedom when it is hedged-in on all sides by fear of Treason and of Court-hatred whereby he will certainly risk and may possibly lose both his life and fortune and albeit the marches of subject-priviledges be already narrow yet they will be more narrow when such precipices are the marches for then none will dare to approach the outmost lines fearing that fall which may prove irrecoverable and if it shal be licite to a King who may prove a Tyrant for goodnesse was never entailed uninterruptedly upon any one succession to challenge what is here debated freely may he not alwayes forge some quarrel to pick out alternatly those whom he