Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A86641
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A winter dreame.
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Howell, James, 1594?-1666.
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1648
(1648)
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Wing H3129; Thomason E472_16; ESTC R205786
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14,275
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22
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since to have been in the completest condition of happinesse of any part on earth insomuch that she was repin'd at for her prosperity and peace by all her neighbours who were plung'd in warre round about her but now she is fallen into as deep a gulf of misery and servitude as she was in a height of felicity and freedom before Touching the grounds of this change I cannot impute it to any other then to a surfet of happinesse now there is no surfet so dangerous as that of happines There are such horrid divisions here that if they were a foot in hell they were able to destroy the Kingdom of Satan truly Sir there are crep'd in more opinions among us about matters of Religion then the Pagans had of old of the Summum bonum which Varro saith were 300. the understandings of poor men were never so puzzled distracted a great while there were two opposit powers who swayed here in a kind of equality that people knew not whom to obey many thousands complied with both as the men of Calecut who adore God and the Devill Tantum Squantum as it is in the Indian language the one for love the other for feare there is a monstrous kind of wild liberty here that ever was upon earth that which was complained of as a stalking horse to draw on our miseries at first is now only in practice which is meer arbitrary rule for now both Law Religion and Allegiance are here arbitrary Touching the last 't is quite lost 't is permitted that any one may prate preach or print what they will in derogation of their anointed King which word King was once a Monosyllable of some weight in this I le but 't is as little regarded now as the word Pope among som which was also a mighty Monosyllable once among us the rule of the Law is that the King can do no wrong there is a contrary rule now crept in that the King can receive no wrong and truly Sir 't is a great judgement both upon Prince and peeple upon the one that the love of his vassalls shold be so alienated from him upon the other that their hearts shold be so poysond and certainly 't is the effects of an ill spirit both the one and the other in all probability tend to the ruine of this Kingdom I will illustrat this unto you Sir by an Apologue as followeth There happen'd a shrewd commotion distemper in the Body Naturall 'twixt the Head and the Members not onely the Noble parts som of them but the common inferior organs also banded against him in a high way of unnaturall presumption The heart which is the source of life with the Pericardiū about it did swell against him the Liver which is the shop of sanguification gather'd ill blood all the humors turn'd to Choler against him The Arms lift up themselfs against him neither back hams or knees wold bow to him nay the very feet offer'd to kick him The foure and twenty ribs the reines the Hypocondrium the Diaphragma the Miseraie Emulgent veins were fil'd with corrupt blood against him yea the Hypogastrium and the bowells made an intestin war against him While the feud lasted it hapned that these tumultuary Members fell out among themselfs The Hand wold have all the fingers equall nay the toes wold be of even length the rest of the subservient members wold be independent They grew so foolish that they wold have the fondament to be where the mouth is the brest where the back the belly where the braine and the yard where the nose the sholders shold be no more said to be backwards nor the leggs downwards A bloody quarrell fell 'twixt the Heart and Liver which of them receiv'd the first formation and whither of the two be the chiefest officine of sanguification which question bred so much gaul 'twixt the Aristotelians the Galenists While this Spleen strange tympany of pride lasted it cau'sd such an ebullition and heat in the masse of bloud that it put the Microcosm the whole Body in a high burning Feaver or Frenzy rather which in a very short time grew to be a Heptic and so all perish'd by a fatall consumption I fear the same fate attends this infortunate Iland for such as was the condition of that naturall head this Apolog speaks of the same is the case of the politic Head and Body of this Iland Never was Soverain Prince so banded against by his own Subjects never was the patience of a Prince so put upon the tenter He is still no lesse then a Captif his children are in banishment in one Countrey his Queen in another the greatest Queen of bloud upon earth a Queen that brought with her the greatest portion that ever Queen did in treasure yet in twenty yeers and upwards her jointure hath not bin setled as it shold be nor hath she bin crown'd all this while according to matrimoniall Articles notwithstanding that for the comfort of this Nation and the establishment of the Throne she hath brought forth so many hopefull Princes But now Sir because I see you are so attentive and seem to be much mov'd at this Discourse as I have discover'd unto you the generall cause of our calamities which was not onely a satiety but a surfeit of happinesse so I will descend now to a more particular cause of them it was a Northern Nation that brought these cataracts of mischief upon us and you know the old saying Out of the North All ill comes forth Far be it from me to charge the whole Nation herewith no but onely some pernicious Instruments that had insinuated themselfs and incorporated among us and sway'd both in our Court and Counsells They had a hand in every Monopoly they had out of our Exchequer and Customs neer upon 400000. Crowns in yeerly Pensions viis modis yet they could not be content but they must puzzle the peace and policy of this Church and State and though they are people of differing Intellectualls differing Lawes Customes and Manners unto us yet for matter of conscience they wold bring our necks into their yoak as if they had a greater talent of reason cleerer illuminations as if they understood Scripture better and were better acquainted with God Almighty then we who brought them first from Paganisme to Christianity and also to be reformed Christians but it seems matters have little thriven with them nay the visible hand of heaven hath bin heavily upon them divers wayes since they did lift their hands against their native King For notwithstanding the vast summs they had hence yet is the generality of them as beggarly as ever they were besides the Civill Sword hath rag'd there as furiously as here and did as much execution among them Moreover the Pestilence hath beene more violent and sweeping in their chief Town then ever it was since they were a peeple And now lately ther 's the notablest dishonour
A WINTER DREAME Quae me suspensum Insomnia terrent Virg. Saepe futurarum praesagia Somnia Rerum Printed Anno Domini QuanDo ReX AngLoruM VectI vIctItabat CaptIvus 1649. The Printer to the Reader BEcause the Interpretation of this Dream may be obvious to all pacities I have presumed with the Authors leave to prefix here the names of those Countreys he hints at 1. The States of Holland 2. High Germany 3. The Kingdom of Naples 4. The Republic of Venice 5. The Kingdoms of Spain 6. The Kingdom of France 7. The Kingdoms of England and the confusions thereof by way of Apolog. 8. The Scots A Winter Dream IT was in the dead of a long Winter night when no eyes were open but Watchmen and Centinell's that I was fallen soundly asleep the Cinq out-Ports were shut up closer then usually and my sences so treble lock'd that the Moon had she descended from her watry Orb might have don much more to me then she did to Endymion when he lay snoaring upon the brow of Latmus Hill nay be it spoken without prophanenesse if a rib had bin taken out of me that night to have made a new model of a woman I shold hardly have felt it Yet though the Cousin-german of Death had so strongly seiz'd thus upon the exterior parts of this poore Tabernacle of flesh my inward were never more actif and fuller of employments then they were that night Pictus imaginibus formisque fugacibus adstat Morpheus variis fingit nova vultibus ora Me thought my soul made a sallie abroad into the world and fetch'd a vast compas she seem'd to soar up and slice the air to crosse seas clammer up huge Hills and never rested till she had arriv'd at the Antipodes Now som of the most judicious Geometricians and Chorographers hold that the whole Masse of the Earth being round like the rest of her fellow Elements ther be places and poizing parts of the Continent there be Peninsulas Promontories and Ilands upon the other face of the Earth that correspond and concenter with all those Regions and Iles that are upon this superficies which we tread Countries that symbolize with them in qualities in temperature of air and clime as well as in nature of soile The Inhabitants also of those places which are so perpendicularly opposit do sympathize one with another in disposition complexions and humors though the Astronomers wold have their East to be our West and so all things vice versa in point of position which division of the Heaven is only mans institution But to give an account of the strange progres my soule made that night the first Country she lighted on was a very low flat Countrey and it was such an odd amphibious Countrey being so indented up and down with Rivers and armes of the sea that I made a question whither I shold call it Water or Land yet though the Sea be invited and usher'd in into som places he is churlistly pen'd out in som other so that though he foam and swell and appeer as high Walls hard by yet they keep him out maugre all his roaring and swelling As I wandred up and down in this Watry Region I might behold from a streight long Dike whereon I stood a strange kind of Forrest for the trees mov'd up and down they look'd afar off as if they had bin blasted by thunder for they had no leafs at all but making a neerer approach unto them I found they were a nomberlesse company of Ship Masts and before them appeer'd a great Town incorporated up and down with Water As I mus'd with my self upon the sight of all this I concluded that the Inhabitants of that Countrey were notable industrious peeple who could give Law so to the angry Ocean and occupie those places where the great Leviathan should tumble and take his pastime in As my thought ran thus I met with a man whom I conjectur'd to be 'twixt a Marchant and a Mariner his salutation was so homely the air also was so foggie that me thought it stuck like cobbwebs in his Mustachos he was so dull in point of motion as if his veines had bin filld with buttermilk in lieu of blood I began to mingle words with him and to expostulate somthing about that Countrey and peeple and then I found a great deal of downright civilities in him He told me that They were the only men who did miracles of late yeers Those innumerable piles of stones you see before you in such comely neat fabriques is a place said he that from a Fish Market in effect is com to be one of the greatest Marts in this part of the world which hath made her swell thrice bigger then she was 50. yeers ago and as you behold this floating Forrest of Masts before her mole so if you could see the foundations of her houses you shold see another great Forrest being rear'd from under ground upon fair piles of timber which if they chance to sink in this Marshy soyl we have an art to scrue them up again We have for 70. yeers and above without any intermission except a short-liv'd truce that once was made wrastled with one of the greatest Potentates upon Earth and born up stoutly against him gramercy our two next neighbour Kings and their Reason of State with the advantage of our situation We have fought our selfs into a free State and now quite out of that ancient alleageance we ow'd him and though we pay 20. times more in taxes of all sorts then we did to him yet we are contented We have turn'd War into a trade and that which useth to beggar others hath benefited us Besides we have bin and are still the rendevous of most discontented Subjects when by the motions of unquiet consciences in points of Religion or by the fury of the sword they are forc'd to quit their own Countreys who bring their arts of Manufacture and moveables hither In so much that our Lombards are full of their goods and our banks superabound with their gold and silver which they bring hither in specie To secure our selfs and cut the Enemy more work and to engage our Confiderats in a war with him we have kindled fires in evry corner and now that they are together by the Eares we have bin content lately being long woo'd thereunto to make a peace with that King to whom we once acknowledged vassalage which King out of a height of spirit hath spent 500. times more upon us for our reduction then all our Countrey is worth But now he hath bin well contented to renounce and abjure all claimes and rights of Soverainty over us In so much that being now without an Enemy we hope in a short time to be masters of all the comerce in this part of the world and to eat our Neighbours out of trade in their own Comodities We fear nothing but that exces of Wealth and a surfet of ease may make