thank you for the caution for I confess I have spoke more affronting words against the King than I dare speak of a Peer Po. But Dukes and Peers apart What hopes have you in a Parliament I know you have been us'd to Worship the Gods of the Valley and if the Numen's of the Lower House deceive you you have nothing to expect but Ruine Ph. It is not long since that I was as much afraid of a Parliament as ever you were of a General Councel for the first discovery of our Conspiracy fill'd the Nation with so much noise and horrour that all my Esquadron Volante of Neuters and Trimmers deserted me and I was forced to live in Chimnies and Grott's and wished my self in Coal-mines and if the King had called a Parliament at That juncture I durst not have appeared in Elections and all my Patriots had such a Panick fear of Carts and Scaffolds that they could not have been perswaded to mount the Chair in that unlucky Crisis but since that storm is so happily blown over I 'm even resolv'd for England again and when the Law of necessity shall oblige the King to Summon a Parliament to cry To your Tents O Israel and if it be in the power of Purse or Perjury I will take such a course that the Blood of the Commons shall be Enquir'd for without giving one Penny to the Crown Po. But do you think the King will ever give you the advantage to sit at Westminster Ph. Alas our Old seat at Westminster is now no great advantage for the True-Protestant part of the City is grown so Tame that they could see their Charter condemned without the Gallantry of a Tumult though the passing that sentence was a greater Judgment than the Plague London has lost her Old brave Cries of Justice Justice no evil Councellors Will you buy any Crown and Bishops Lands The City Trained-hands as the Case stands now would be more ready to Guard the five Members to the Tower than to secure them in the Town My only hope is in another House of One and Forty for Stephens Chappel is as Sacred to me as the Chappel of Loretto is to you It has been Antiently the Shrine of the Good Old Cause and like the Senate-house at Rome it has been Consecrated with the Blood of Caesar Here has been so much Breath exhaled in Popular Harangues that the inner Plaister of the Walls is nothing but Congealed Treason and hence proceeds that Magical power that the very Air of the Old-house has left a Republican Tincture behind it and no Member can escape that Influence but such as are drunk with Elixir Regale I have known several Gentlemen in former times who when they were first chosen Members of Parliament could discourse of nothing but Monarchy and Prerogative but after they had breathed a few months in this Temple of our Diana they returned with as cool and popular a temper as if they had sat in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam But I am much concerned at the decays of this House I am afraid it should presage the declining of the sovereignty of the Commons elsewhere and the ruine of the Good Old Cause and therefore I intend to advise my Representatives to vote the Repair of those dilapidations for fear the walls should drop and Stephen should Stone the Elders But if the Majority of the next house of Commons should be adorers of the Crown and Church I might be ruined by my own precedents for such a House may pack a Tory Committee of Elections and I have taught That Divan in former Times such an Arbitrary way of proceeding that they had got a Trick to Elect and Reprobate whom they pleased without any Appeal from their supreme judgment and so by my own method all my Members would be excluded and not one Saint left in the Sanhedrim but there are so many mischievous consequences of a Cavaliering House of Commons that I dare not fancy the Possibility of such an Assembly Po. Well I see but small hopes of effecting our designs in this Age but pray Study some Arts to keep up the Good Old Cause that it may not sink into its Primitive Nothing but may be preserved in being 'till a more fortunate juncture for as the Good Old Cause can never prosper in England without the Name and Noise of Popery so Popery cannot work without the Fanatick Tools of the Good Old Cause Ph. Never fear I don't question but to continue the Existence of the Good Old Cause as long as you can maintain your Succession to the Triple Crown for I have many Artifices to this purpose Po. Pray let me understand your Arts. Ph. First then in all that Noble Science of Popular Delusion there is not a greater charm than Religious Cant for you know the greatest part of Mankind are most influenced by Passion and Fancy and there are few such Sages as to regard the dull Oracles of Truth and Sobernesses for suppose I should teach my Disciples that the great design of Christianity was to teach the World the serious pursuit of Peace and Holiness and that a holy and peaceable Temper would best serve the quiet of our own Minds the Interest of Society and Government and would be the most Rational Preparation for that Life and Communion of Angels alass Sir such solemn Divinity as this spoken with an Apostolical Gravity would have no more effect upon the Crowd than the Kings Speeches have had sometimes upon the House of Commons but by my Theatrical Arts and Enthusiastick Divinity I can Preach the Throng into Raptures and Extacies and mount their Souls three Stories higher than Pauls and then with One sad Grimace and Lureing Tone make them Stoop in a Moment I can when I please Preach them into Conflagrations of Zeal or Inundations of Tears or howle them into Hurricanes and Storms of Sighs and Groans and all this by a mysterious Screw of the Face and the Eccho's of a Passionate Noise Po. I have heard that you do equal if not excell my Jesuits in this Art of Popular Enchantment pray give me the diversion of a short Essay of this nature Ph. Well then first for the true set of the Face D' you mark the Semicircles of the Eyes the Triangles and Parallelograms of the Mouth and Face Po. Ha ha ha bring your Face to rights again for I shall laugh lowd enough for a discovery But now let 's have a tast of your Canting Ph. Be not troubled in mind to be sad and sorrowful is the sign of an ill-thriving Christian Crying is a Childish trick a Christian out of long Coats would be asham'd on 't Do but wait a while the day is coming when Christ shall play no more at hide and seek with his Saints when all Christs business beyond Sea shall be done When he shall say come Jaylors bring all those my Enemies before me Prelates Malignants Kings Nobles Gentry Po. This Cheat must do I
not you as much Antichrist as the Turk or the Jew and more than the Devil when you vented that blasphemous saying O quantum nobis profuit haec fabula Christi I confess the Kingdom of Christ was the Title to my Holy War but I never gain'd so much by that Name as you have done alas what were the Spoils and Plunders of three Kingdoms compar'd to the vast Revenues of your Triple Crown Well I don't question but in this Age to see the downfall of Rome And tho' the Grand Visir was the last year unfortunate yet remember that your Peters Cathedral hath a Cupola after the mode of the Turkish Moschs and it may yet follow the Fate of Sancta Sophia Po. If Rome be Mystical Babylon or the chief seat of the Beast as the Hereticks phrase it My comfort is that the Turk and You are the Half-moons and Out-works of Antichrist You must be first batter'd down before the fall of Babylon But I am weary of this raillery let us return to your unfortunate Conspiracy Did Your Martyrs go off with as much Gallantry as mine Those Roman Heroes whom you offer'd up in Sacrifice to your Moloch tho' they were persons of different Education and Tempers yet had so clear an innocence that with dying Vows they disown'd the whole Scene of the Popish Plot The Lord Stafford's Speech look'd like the plain meaning of dying innocence and not like the Artificial composure of any Northern Jesuit Ph. Your Doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation have possest the People with such an inveterate prejudice that the Papists can have no method of Credibility Suppose the Lord Stafford had out-done the Legend of your St. Dennis and after the Axe had given the fatal blow should have leapt upright and taken his Head under his Arm and walk'd in solemn Parade from the Scaffold to the House of Commons and with the Tongue of Men and Angels should have spoken his innocence I could easily have shamm'd the Miracle and perswaded the people it was no more than one of the deceivable works or lying wonders of Antichrist Thess. 2. 2. For I have this advantage that the Populace will believe a Presbyterian as much as Moses and the Prophets but they will not be perswaded that a Papist spake true tho' he rose from the dead Po. But were none of your Martyrs Conf â—ssors Ph. Truly Sir I begin to have a very favourable opinion of Auricular Confession for I see no publick mischief in those private whispers but as for that lowd Confession from Carts and Scaffolds before Guards and Lictors and throngs of Observators this is base Unpolitick and Treacherous but the fatal discovery forced me into a nice dilemma for there was so much honourable Evidence against me that if I had denied the whole matter I must have been suspected for an Atheist and if I had confess 't the whole Plot I must have been Branded for a Fool therefore to avoid the Imputations of Atheisme and Imprudence I advised my Protomartyrs to make such cloudy confessions and mystical denials that the Tories thought there was enough confest to believe the whole conspiracy and my Whigs and Trimmers thought there was so much denied as they saw reason to believe there was no Plot at all But alas Sir though popular delusion be an easie Art yet I find it impossible to put a Sham upon the King or the Blazing Star I can't impose upon the wisdom of the one nor escape the influence of the other Po. But what have you no Crutches for the Good Old Cause to support her in her decrepit Age but will you suffer her to drop and dye Ph. Truly I begin to despond for in the days of Charles the First our designs met such a prosperous and prodigious success that I thought Providence it self had taken the Covenant but now fortune runs counter to all my Old Stratagems as if the Stars were turned Tories and all the Angels Abhorrers When first my Scottish Brethren took Arms and Covenant in defence of Kirk and Conscience and Charles the First marched down with a Potent Army able to have swallowed any thing in Scotland but the Covenant then he was Graciously pleased to make a civil Pacification with my Pious dissemblers and that peace was the first piece of his Scaffold but now when my Field-Conventiclers of Scotland Preached up their Natural Religion of Reb â—llion upon the head of a Drum and for an use of Terror took Sword and Musquet to assert their Champain Divinity presently Charles the Second sends express order to fight them and which is worse he beat them too Charles the First was so confiding that he trusted the Parliament with those Royal trifles Magazines and Militia But Charles the Second like the Politick Philistine hath disarm'd the people of the Lord and would not have one Sword nor Sphere found in all the hands of Israel but as for himself he is so far from being unguarded that White-hall looks more like a Garrison than a Palace and the Tower more formidable than your Castle of St. Angelo and if his Exchequer were as full as his Magazines and his Plate-fleet were proportioned to his Men of War he would affright both Rome and Carthage Monsieur and Mahomet Charles the First did grant us that mighty power to dissolve the King and perpetuate the Parliament but now I am afraid this King will live for ever while Parliaments like Mortal Creatures are exposed to the frailties of Prorogations and Dissolutions and the fainting fits of Trienninal Intervals There was a time when Charles the First was so contemptible that we look't upon him as the meer Signe of the Kings Head and then my Heroick Commons could pass that daring Vote of Non-addresses but the Life and Honour of this King is valued at such a Rate that we are plagued with Addresses from all Quarters and such Addresses too as tend more to make him a Sultan than a Sacrifice for a long time our Gazets were so crowded with County and Corporation-Addresses that there was no room for the Imperial Army or the French Troops nay the Turk and the Dutch were excluded as if there had been no business in the World but Addressing we had nothing but Lost Dogs Straied Horses and Renegado's to bring up the rear of the Tory Addressers In our prosperous days the very Tail of the Commons could whip off the Head of a King but now the hand of the King hath taken off the Head of the Commons thus my fortune is reverst and I fear I shall be forced either to repent or despair and those are both desperate extremities Po. I remember that in our first conference you made your Critical remark upon that Crucifying Lesson which by the course of the English Calendar falls upon the 30th of January and next upon the 29th of May and did conclude upon this unforeseen appointment that Providence had design'd you to act over the same Tragedy again
but I did then interpret that notable accident to a contrary Sense and told you that it might rather indicate that Charles the Second was Born to revenge the Blood of the First and now I believe you will find me a truer Prophet than your dear Mahomet and be made sensible of my Infallibility truly Brother I begin to fear that Monarchy will at last prove more jure divino than you and I. But notwithstanding your droll upon the Throng of Addressers yet I look upon that proceeding as a very Politick Stratagem for they have rendred the King Great and Formidable and have firmly establisht that Church which you and I have laboured to destroy you may remember that your flourishing Address to Oliver in LIII did help to make him as great as the Mogul for those Magnificent Strains and Titles awed the people into as great an opinion of Cromwell as if he had been Brother to the Sun Kinsman to the Moon and Cozen German to the Stars and therefore sure this publick artifice of Popular Addresses must have as Glorious an effect upon a lawful Prince as it had in the Case of an Usurper for I am afraid the King hath Listed more men by the Rolls of Addresses than ever you did by the Musters of Petitions Ph. Give me once more but a Rampant and Sitting-house of Commons and I will not value all the ranting Addresses of England for many of those men who now adore the King as the Pagans did their Jupiter would then Worship our God Mercurius and fall down before the chief Speaker of the People I know several in the List of Addressers who inserted their names in a meer Trimming compliance to Tantivy Times but if ever occasion serves will with more chearfulness subscribe a Petition for a Parliament than ever they did an Address to the King And besides there are many of these promising Addressers who are men of so little and narrow Souls that they value their Blood and their Gold at the same rate and would not part with three Drops of the one nor three Scruples of the other to save the King and his Three Crowns and what an empty Complement is the promise of Lives and Fortunes from Cowards and Misers But I will grant that there are vast numbers of Addressers who are men of Resolution and such Simplicity of Conscience as to think themselves obliged by their promise to Sacrifice both Men and Money in defence of the King but suppose we had dispatched the King and the Duke at the Rye and there had been no right Heir to the Crown within the compass of the four Seas then all the Addresses would have been Impertinent extravagancies for you know that he who destroys the King dissolves the whole Militia and in this Case the Addressers would have demurred upon Punctilio's of Law and would not have dared to beat a Drum and Rendesvouz'd without Commission but by virtue of our Covenant and Association we should have had the grace to have taken Arms and embodied without and against Authority and thus in that Critical Interregnum we would have possess 't our selves of the Kingdom and Massacred the Divided Addressers before ever they could have agreed upon a method of defence Po. I confess this would have been a very difficult dilemma especially if you had nois'd it for a Popish Plot for if you had reported that the Assassins were Papists that rumour would have amuzed the Addressers and so alarm'd the Vulgus that you might have effected your designs before the discovery of the Cheat. Ph. You may be sure we would have used that customary Artifice Po. But upon further Consideration I fancy that the Addressers having engag'd in defence of the Monarchy and Lineal Succession and knowing their Lives and Fortunes were at Stake in such a desperate Crisis would have had the wisdom to Arm and Unite and secured their respective Counties 'till the quiet Inauguration of the next Successor and tho' this proceeding had been Illegal yet they should have hoped that the Merit of the Service would have pleaded their Impunity You know that in the Hurricane of the Popish Plot the Commons resolved that if the King had been Assassinated they would have revenged his Blood with a Massacre of all the Papists in England and now your Conspiracy is so notorious that should the King dye by Violence the Vengeance might fall upon your own heads and Enraged Addressers would cry in your own Language Down with them Root and Branch Ph. Indeed if it could be supposed that ever the Cavaliers could be wise and resolute I must despair but oh that London were as nigh Constantinople as Larissa I would soon persuade my Turkish Brethren to take the Covenant and Court the Sultan into the Association I would soon send Charles to visit the Seraglio and the Duke to the Dardanels Pauls should be a Mosquee and brave Ferguson a Mufti Po. But can it be reconciled to any Christian pretensions to make a League with Infidels Ph. Why did not your most Christian King make a League with the most Turkish Solyman against Charles the Fifth and why might not I by the same Christian Policy make an Alliance with the Turk against Charles the Second does not the Turk frequently confederate with Christians to serve the Ottoman Interest and I have heard of a Pope who made a League with the Devil to gratify his Romish Ambition and why should a True Protestant have less freedom to serve his Interest than the Pope the Turk or the Devil Come come say what you will Interest is the greatest Sultan in the World and hath a larger dominion than Religion Po. I confess that what you have said is so severely True that I will not dispute your Right to a Turkish Alliance but however 't is unpracticable and distance denies you that advantage for it is a long journey from Edghill to Mount Olympus But I would gladly understand what hopes and Intrigues you have at home to prop a declining Cause Ph. This last Age has been a meer Game at Chesse between the King and the Punies the Crown and the Commons and I have made my advantage of every motion but Charles the Second hath moved with so much caution and judgment that we must have yeilded the Game if the Two Dukes had not Po. Hold have a care don't whisper the least Scandalum Magnatum Ph. This is very pleasant indeed that You whose Title and Frontispiece is Blasphemy should caution me against Humane Scandal Po. I shall not now dispute who looks most like the Blaspheming Beast in the Revelations you or I but I am sure You may Blaspheme God and the King at a Cheaper rate than touch the honour of a Peer you may with more indempnity Steal the Crown than Spit upon a Coronet Remember that Scandalum Magnatum amounts to more than 20 l. a Month and will more certainly ruine you than all the Poenal Laws Ph. Well I