FRENCH DECLARATION OF WAR,
IN ALLIANCE WITH THE DUTCH AND DANES, IN THE YEAR 1665.
London: Printed for the Author, in 1665-6, on a Broad-side.
HE heavens look big with wonder, and inform
Our expectations of some present storm.
French, Dutch, and Dane too, all at once? Why then
'Tis time to shew that we are Englishmen.
They say, at foot-ball, three to one is odds;
But this is nothing, for the cause is God's.
Have at them all, we care not where we come,
Since gracious heaven is reconcil'd at home.
Courage, brave Britons, then, we do no more
But fight with those whom we have beat before.
And now, methinks, much better may we, since
We fight for such an all-accomplish'd prince,
Who the world's conquest is as fair to get
As Alexander, like himself, the great.
Talk not of ten to one, pitiful story,
Alas! the odds does but increase the glory:
Besides the English from their ancestry
Derive themselves the heirs of victory.
Where should the sons of honour, if they die,
But in the field, the bed of honour, lie?
The world will know, when time shall serve, we dare
Come out, and meet that prince of pitch and tar ;*
Bring your wind-selling Laplanders too, do,
Sure we shall deal + with you, and board + you too;
And you will tell us,
when this comes to pass,
Your Bergen bus'ness no such bargain was.
Danes! we don't fear you; come, alas! ye know
Our women beat you once, and so may now.
Nor value we that kingdom of kick-shaws,§
We come not to receive, but give them laws;
We shall provide 'em such a fricasee
Of legs and arms, ¶ they'll scarce be glad to see.
They now must understand with whom they cope,
A mighty prince,** and not a miter'd Pope; ++
*The King of Denmark, to whom Norway is subject, from whence comes our pitch and tar. + Two epithets intimating that, although we trade with him for deal and boards, yet we are able to deal, or behave manfully in fight with him, and upon occasion board his ships.
Viz. When they in one night conspired to cut all the Danish men's throats throughout England, thereby to deliver their country from their government; upon which account it is said, that the Englishmen have ever since given the women the wall, and the most honourable places at all times. France. Of soldiers slain in battle.
**The King of Great Britain.
+ Alluding to the dispute which then subsisted between the French king and the Pope,
One that will otherwise the matter handle,
With glitt'ring swords, and not bell, book, and candle;
One that shall anathematise you worse,
Not to pronounce, but execute your curse.
He'll bring you Jeggery home to your door;
Instead of Bulls you'll hear his cannons roar;
And I make bold to tell you in the close,
Although no Popes, we'll make you kiss our toes.
An English monarch + (monsieur) no new thing,
Has sent his son to fetch him a French king;
If ye suspect, or scruple our report,
Enquire at Poictiers, Cressy, Agincourt,‡
That place § never to be forgotten, where
The prisoners more than we that took them were:
The French shall know it too, as we advance,
'Tis we, not they, fight for the king I of France.
Ye boast of gold and silver, and such stuff,
We'll bring you pockets for it sure enough.,
And, if we meet ye on the foaming source,
We'll have a word or too of deep ++ discourse.
A fig for France, or any that accords
With those low-country leather-apron ‡‡ lords.
THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND.
London: Printed by T. Mabb for Robert Horn, at the Angel in Pope's-HeadAlley, 1665. Folio, containing eight Pages.
TOLLAND, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th' off-scowring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots, when they heav'd the lead;
Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell
Of shipwreck'd cockle and the muscle shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners that have found the ore,
They with mad labour fish'd the land to shore;
And div'd as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergris ;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those piles which sordid beetles roul
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
At which place the English have given the French total overthrows in battle. Because the King of Great Britain still maintains his title of King of France. ++ Equivocally signifying both serious and on the sea; for the deep is the sea.
§ Agincourt.
**The sea.
The Dutch.
How did they rivet with gigantick piles
Thorough the center their new-catched miles:
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground;
Building their wat'ry Babel far more high
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky?
Yet still his claim the injur'd ocean laid,
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples play'd,
As if on purpose it on land had come
To shew them what's their Mare Liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boil:
The earth and water play at level-coil.
The fish oft-times the burgher dispossest,
And sat not as a meat, but as a guest:
And oft the Tritons and the sea-nymphs saw
Whole sholes of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillau.
Or, as they over the new level rang'd,
For pickled Herring, pickled Heeren chang'd.
Nature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake,
Would throw their land away at duck and drake.
Therefore necessity, that first made kings,
Something like government among them brings.
For as with pygmies, who best kills the crane;
Among the hungry, he that treasures grain;
Among the blind, the one-ey'd blinkard reigns;
So rules, among the drowned, he that drains.
Not who first sees the rising sun commands,
But who could first discern the rising lands,
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,
Him they their lord and country's father speak.
To make a bank was a great plot of state,
Invent a shovel and be magistrate.
Hence some small dyke-grave, unperceiv'd, invades
The power, and grows as 't were a king of spades:
But for less envy some joint state endures,
Who look like a commission of the sewers.
For these half-anders, half wet, and half dry,
Nor bear strict service nor pure liberty.
'Tis probable religion after this
Came next in order, which they could not miss :
How could the Dutch but be converted, when
Th' apostles were so many fisher-men ?
Beside, the waters of themselves did rise,
And, as their land, so them did re-baptise.
Though Herring for their God few voices mist,
And poor John to have been th' Evangelist.
Faith, that could never twins conceive before,
Never so fertile, spawn'd upon this shore:
More pregnant than their Marg'et, that laid down
For Hans-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town.
Sure, when religion did itself embark,
And from the east would westward steer its ark,
It struck; and, splitting on this unknown ground,
Each one thence pillag'd the first piece he found:
Hence
Amsterdam-Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew,
Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew;
That bank of conscience, where not one so strange
Opinion, but finds credit and exchange.
In vain for Catholicks ourselves we bear,
The universal church is only there.
Nor can civility there want for tillage,
Where wisely for their court they chose a village :
How fit a title clothes their governors!
Themselves the Hogs, as all their subjects Boors.
Let it suffice to give their country fame,
That it had one Civilis call'd by name,
Some fifteen-hundred and more years ago,
But, surely, never any that was so.
See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish
Reeking at church over the chafing-dish.
A vestal turf, enshrin'd in earthen ware,
Fumes through the loop-holes of a wooden square;
Each to the temple with these altars tend
(But still do place it at her western end)
While the fat steam of female sacrifice
Fills the priest's nostrils, and puts out his eyes.
Or what a spectacle the skipper gross,
A Water-Hercules, Butter-Coloss,
Tunn'd up with all their several towns of beer;
When, stagg'ring upon some land, Snick and Sncer,
They try, like statuaries, if they can
Cut out each other's Athos to a man;
And carve in their large bodies, where they please,
The arms of the United Provinces.
Vainly did this slap-dragon fury hope
With sober English valour e'er to cope;
Not though they prim'd their barbarous morning's draught
With powder, and with pipes of brandy fraught;
Yet Rupert, Sandwich, and of all, the Duke,
The Duke has made their sea-sick courage puke,
Like the three comets sent from heaven down,
With fiery flails, to swinge th' ungrateful clown.
BOTH HISTORICAL AND MORAL UPON THE
BURNING of LONDON, September, 1666..
With an Account of the Losses.
And a most remarkable Parallel between London and Moscow, both as to the Plague and Fire.
Also an Essay touching the Easterly Wind.
Written by Way of Narrative, for Satisfaction of the present and future Ages.
London, Printed by Thomas Ratcliffe, and are to be sold by Robert Pawlet, at the Bible in Chancery-Lane, 1667.
Quarto, containing Thirty-eight Pages.
MANY have written concerning this memorable Fire of London in 1666. But, I presume, they, that read this, will agree, that none has done it with more conciseness, impartiality, and perspicuity.
In the first place, The Author delivers the plain historical fact, without any exag geration or foreign insinuations, and then enquires, Who has done it? In which enquiry, he endeavours to shew, that it was a punishment sent by a good and wise God upon the City, for just, wise, and good causes.
Thirdly, Enquiring what hath done it? He endeavours to prove, that this was the greatest fire that ever happened upon the earth, since the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, and shews, at a moderate computation, that the loss amounted to, at least, 7,335,000 pounds. To which, by way of consolation, he adds an account of the greatness of the City of Moscow, and its visitation first with a raging plague, and in the year following with a consuming fire, contrived by the Tartars, who pursued the Czar to that City, and setting fire to it on all sides, which not only burnt the houses and stuff, but destroyed 200,000 people also in its flames, in less than four hours time.
Fourthly, He expatiates on the praise of this City of London, and then endeavours to find out the cause and accidents by which this fire was kindled and promo ted; and concludes with some proper reflections on the reason and time of this conflagration,
To his much honoured and respected Friend, John Buller, Esq. a worthy Member of the honourable House of Commons.
HIS little treatise having lain dormant in a corner of my ever since its birth (which was three weeks after the fire) hath got at last so much strength as to walk abroad. The reason of its long repose was, that I expected when some more pregnant
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