1

Fift-monarchy Cullys Religion did cry,
When as to get Plunder they purpos'd thereby ;
Though 'tis plain, if the Doctor does tell us but right,
The Jesuits back'd them and bid them to fight:
And now all the noise for Religion must be,
When by such as make the stir, none's us'd we see :

But those are good Subjects, etc. [And pray, etc.]

For Tories, whose fortunes Ill Husbandry made
Bare as their Conscience, are never afraid
To lose what they have, but would fain be at strife,
For why? 'tis Contention they love as their life;
What care they for peace or for quiet so they
Can Murther and Plunder, and for it have pay?

But those are good Subjects, etc. [And pray, etc.]

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56

1 The Fifth-Monarchy men looked for a personal reign of the Saints, their own kind of "Saints"; such as Burns in later days called the unco Guid and the rigidly Righteous." Fortunately, they were disappointed. They made a defeated attempt at insurrection on the 7th of January, 166f. after which Venner, Pritchard, etc., were executed. (For their trials, see Somers' Tracts, vii. 469.) 2 The "Salamanca Doctor," Titus Oates. It was noticed that, while the Popish Plot fever spread, many a fierce old Regicide and Fifth-Monarchy man, who had skulked from public view since the Restoration of 1660, again walked about boldly and unmolested, seeing his opportunity, and expecting a renewal of the old anarchy, to be brought about by the same means as before, but with the "little Machiavel" Shaftesbury in place of "King Pym."

Religion made a Cloak for Villainy.

In drinking of Healths they do take a great pride,
And swear they'l be Loyal if they were but try'd;
And that for the King and Religion they'l fight,
But this with their Actions can not agree right:
For why? they who Oaths against God do still fling,
Can ne'r be Religious, and true to their King:

But those are good Subjects, etc. [And pray, etc.]

Then were Whigg and Tory, that make all this noise,
And would at all honest men's downfalls rejoyce,
But once Unmasqu'd, and you plainly should see,
As to all Religion Imposters they be:

For from Geneva and Rome they are sent,
To trouble the Nation, and raise discontent:

But those are good Subjects, etc. [And pray, etc.]

Religion 'tis Sacred when rightly 'tis us'd,
But in no Age it was ne'r more abus'd; 1
For why, for the most part a Cloak it is made,2
To cover vile Treason, or else 'tis a Trade;
But Heaven defend it from such wicked men,

And make it to flourish and prosper agen:

Whilst those are good Subjects that from Clamour cease,
And pray for the King and the Nation's long peace.

[Printer's name cut off; but Wood's copy has "For J. Wright, J. Clarke, Willm. Thackeray, and T. Passinger."

In Black-letter. Date, about 1681.]

The woodcut of the Friar, here given, is a mutilated fragment of a large RobinHood engraving (the other three figures being Bowmen). We shall have it complete in Roxb. Coll., III. 456, "Sir Hugh of the Grime (i.e. Græme, or Grahame).

The left-hand woodcut (now on p. 252), of Charles I. enthroned, with sword-bearer and mace-bearer, had belonged to a Civil-War tract (E. 89, art. 10), A Perfect Tiurnall: or Welch Post: From Saturday the 4 of February, to Saturday the 11. 1643.

1 When reading early ballads, and old literature in general, we must beware of thinking that "two negations make one affirmation; except only in the case of a woman's denials: for two gainsays make a grant." Thus, par parenthese:

A little while she strove, and much repented;
And, murmuring "I will ne'er consent !"-consented.

2 There is evidently here an allusion to the popular "Ballad of the Cloak," elsewhere entitled "The Cloak's Knavery," beginning "Come, buy my new ballet." It was directed against the sectaries, is mentioned again on our next page, in second note, and will be given in the present volume, with "Loyalty Unfeigned."

A New Ballad, with the word “Tory.”

"Remember, ye Whiggs, what was formerly done,
Remember your mischiefs in Forty and One;
When friend oppos'd friend, and father the son,
Then, then the Old Cause went rarely on.
The Cap sat aloft, and low was the Crown,
The Rabble got up, and the Nobles went down.
Lay-Elders in Tubs

Ruled Bishops in robes,

Who mourn'd the sad fate
And dreadful disaster

Of their royal Master

By Rebels betray'd,

Then, London, be wise, and baffle their power,

And let them play the old game no more," etc.

-D'Urfey's Advice to the City, 1682.1

OF scarcely inferior interest to the "Group of Anti-Papal Ballads”

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would be a similar gathering of attacks and defences of "Jack "2 To several of these we shall come in our Presbyter." Group of Loyal Songs." In the mean time we give a connecting link between the two groups. It is entitled "A New Ballad, with a Definition of the word Tory." Roger L'Estrange is specially attacked in it, but we reserve (for our p. 310) a consideration of his position, and the course of action by which he drew upon himself the unscrupulous rancour of the rebellious pamphleteers.

Roger L'Estrange was accredited with the authorship of one spirit-stirring song, "The Imprisoned Royalist." It begins, "Beat on, proud billows! Boreas, blow!" The second verse may have been suggested by the close of Richard Lovelace's beautiful love-song "To Althea, from prison," while L'Estrange gives us,

That which the world miscalls a Gaol

A private closet is to me;

Whilst a good conscience is my Bail,

And innocence my Liberty.

Locks, bars, walls, leanness, though together met,
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

This unconciliating political manifesto was not only sung before Charles the Second, by honest Tom, its author, but he held the roll of music in company with the Merry Monarch; who had no false pride, and scorned the affectation of such cold dignity as afterwards suited William of Orange. D'Urfey is careful to record this: "Set to a Tune of Signior Opdar, so remarkable that I had the honour to sing it with King Charles at Windsor: he holding one part of the paper with me." It would make a delightful picture, for Horsley, or Frith. There will naturally be included "State-Cases put to Jack Presbyter," beginning, "Jack, if you have one grain of common sense"; "The Cloak's Knavery" (Roxb. Coll., IV. 32; Bagford Coll., I. 70), beginning, “Come, buy my new ballet, it is in my wallet;" with "Geneva and Rome; or, the Zeal of both boiling over," which begins, “Jack Presbyter and the sons of the Pope."

Roger L'Estrange, the Royalist Licenser.

255

He had experienced the horrors of a dungeon in Cromwell's time, and we see no reason to doubt his courage, or the sincerity of his loyal attachment to the throne. He was calumniated by those whom he had offended as a Licenser of the press (an office not too strictly exercised, as we may see by the many questionable works that bear his Imprimatur). He was often accused of having turned Papist, because he would not join in the insane persecution of the sham Popish-Plot victims, but he persistently denied the charge; although his daughter became a convert to Rome.

He was attacked in "Strange's Case, strangely altered," about October, 1680, and shown as a dog Towzer, with a fiddle tied to his tail (see our p. 244), in allusion to the nickname of "Oliver's Fiddler:" Was ever Gallows better set,

Where Hangman, Rope, and Roger met?
No fault at all (save one).

The Curr by chance the Noose did slip,
By help of Devil and his Whip

Ill luck as could have come.

This Towzer, "The Tantivee Cur," "Oliver's Fiddler," "Clodpate's Fiddler" (Clodpate was a nickname given to Scroggs, after having been used for Oliver Cromwell), Roger Trusty," "Hodge," "Observator," and Heraclitus Ridens (from L'Estrange's newspapers, so signed), "The Fetter-Lane Loyalist-a true son of Rome," "English Bellarmine (but on this see our page 259), are among the other flowers tost to him. Calumny asserted that he had assailed Cook's wife, and been cudgelled by the husband. Born in December, 1616, and proving the sincerity of his monarchical attachment by encountering many dangers, imprisonments, and much suffering, he had the honour of being burnt in effigy in the Anti-Papal Demonstration of November 17, 1680 (see the "London's Drollery" ballad, pp. 218, 222). He ceased to act as Press-Licenser after August, 1685, was knighted by James the Second, and, of course, lost all political influence at the Revolution. He died in December, 1704, having nearly finished his eighty-eighth year. Burnet, as might be expected, disparages him; but Nahum Tate, in the continuation of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, November, 1682, describes L'Estrange as Sheva :

Than Sheva none more Loyal Zeal have shown,
Wakeful as Judah's Lion for the Crown,

Who for that cause still combats in his age,
For which his youth with danger did engage.
In vain our factious priests the Cant revive,
In vain seditious scribes with Libel strive

To enflame the crowd, while he with watchful eye
Observes, and shoots their Treasons as they fly:
Their weekly frauds his keen Replies detect
He undeceives more fast than they infect.
So Moses, when the Pest on Legions prey'd,
Advanc'd his Signal, and the Plague was stay'd.

1025

1030

[Observator

1035

256 "Whig and Tory now agree, to drop their Whigmagorum."

Pepys, first meeting L'Estrange in December, 1664, thought him "a man of fine conversation, but, I am sure, most courtly, and full of compliments." (Diary, iii. 87.) He is caricatured on pp. 244, 257; and mentioned with Tom D'Urfey in the twelfth line of this Answer to "Sawney will ne'er be my Love again :'

An answer to the Tories' Pamphlet called The Loyal Feast. To the Tune of, Sauney will never be my Love again.

are Tools of Irish Race,

Triend well below'd by Blades of the Town;

They've Irish Hearts, but an English Face,

And "Damme" and "Huzza" is all their tone.
With Abhorring and Addressing their time is spent,
Quaffing and Cursing, though all in vain :

But the main thing they fear is an honest Parliament,
For Tory will still be a Rogue in Grain.

Tories are made like Bristol Cans,

Round and hollow, but I'le tell you more anon;
The word is, " Dammee, Jack! meet me at Sam's;
There's honest Roger, and Flat-footed Tom."

Huffing and swearing in Silk so fine,

Black Coats, Red Coats, Lord and Swain;

E're long they'l Petition Cæsar to resign,

8

[Charles II.

[Four more verses, on the Feast. Date, before Nov. 1682.]

32

D'Urfey's original "Sawney" suited parodists on both sides (See pp. 80-89.) Whig partizans affected righteous indignation against Tory banter. They were quite as scurrilous themselves.

1 Stuart Succession. 2 For the death of Bedloe! 3 Covenanters', to wit.