To government, which they fuppofe
Can never be upheld in profe;
Strip Nature naked to the skin,

You'll find about her no fuch thing.
It may be fo, yet what we tell
Of Trulla, that's improbable,
Shall be depos'd by those have feen 't,
Or, what's as good, produc'd in print ;
And if they will not take our word,
We'll prove it true upon record.

The upright Cerdon next advanc't,
Of all his race the valiant'ft:

400

405

410 'Cerdon

Ver. 409. Cerdon] A one-eyed cobler, like his brother Colonel Hewfon. The Poet obferves, that his chief talent lay in preaching. Is it not then indecent, and beyond the rules of decorum, to introduce him into fuch rough company? No; it is probable he had but newly fet up the trade of a Teacher; and we may conclude that the Poet did not think that he had fo much fanctity as to debar him the pleasure of his beloved diverfion of Bear-baiting.

Cerdon the Great, renown'd in song,
Like Herc❜les, for repair of wrong:
He rais'd the low, and fortify'd

The weak against the strongest side :
Ill has he read that never hit

On him in Mufes' deathlefs writ.

He had a weapon keen and fierce,

415

That through a bull-hide fhield would pierce,
And cut it in a thousand pieces,

Though tougher than the Knight of Greece's,

420

With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor

Was comrade in the ten-years? war :

For when the reftlefs Greeks fat down
So many years before Troy town,

And were renown'd, as Homer writes,

425

For well-fol'd boots no less than fights,

Transcribe, colle&t, tranflate, and quote :
But preaching was his chiefest talent,

435

Or argument, in which being valiant,

He

Ver. 435.] Mechanics of all forts were then Preachers, and fome of them much followed and ad

He us'd to lay about and stickle,

Like ram or bull at Conventicle:

For

mired by the mob. "I am to tell thee, Chriftian “Reader,” (says Dr. Featley, preface to his Dipper dipp'd, wrote 1645, and published 1647, p. 1.)" This 86 new year of new changes, never heard of in former ages, namely, of ftables turned into temples, and I "will beg leave to add, temples turned into stables "(as was that of St. Paul's, and many more), ftalls "into quires, fhopboards into communion-tables, tubs "into pulpits, aprons into linen ephods, and mecha"nics of the lowest rank into priests of the high places."I wonder that our door-pofts and walls fweat not, upon which fuch notes as thefe have been lately af"fixed; on fuch a day, fuch a brewer's clerk exer"cifeth; fuch a tailor expoundeth; fuch a waterman "teacheth.-If cooks, instead of mincing their meat, "fall upon dividing of the Word; if tailors leap up "from the fhopboard into the pulpit, and patch up "fermons out of ftolen fhreds; if not only of the lowest "of the people, as in Jeroboam's time, priefts are con"fecrated to the Moft High God-Do we marvel to "fee fuch confufion in the Church as there is!" They are humourously girded in a tract entitled, The Refor mado, precisely character'd, by a modern Church-warden, p. II. "Here are felt-makers (fays he) who can "roundly deal with the blockheads and neutral dimi"cafters of the world; coblers who can give good "rules for upright walking, and handle Scripture to a "briftle; coachmen who know how to lafh the beaftly "enormities, and curb the headstrong infolences of "this brutifh age, ftoutly exhorting us to ftand up for "the truth, left the wheel of deftruction roundly overWe have weavers that can fweetly inform

"run us. VOL. I.

For difputants, like rams and bulls,

Do fight with arms that spring from fculls.
Laft Colon came, bold man of war,
Deftin'd to blows by fatal star;
Right expert in command of horse,
But cruel, and without remorfe.
That which of Centaur long ago
Was faid, and has been wrested to
Some other knights, was true of this,
He and his horfe were of a piece;
One fpirit did inform them both,
The felf-fame vigour, fury, wroth:
Yet he was much the rougher part,
And always had a harder heart,
Although his horfe had been of those
That fed on man's flesh, as fame goes:
Strange food for horfe! and, yet, alas !
It may be true, for flesh is grass.
Sturdy he was, and no less able
Than Hercules to clean a ftable;

440

445

450

455

As

"us of the shuttle fwiftnefs of the times, and practi"cally tread out the viciffitude of all fublunary things "till the web of our life be cut off: and here are me"chanics, of my profeffion, who can feparate the "pieces of falvation from thofe of damnation, mea "fure out every man's portion, and cut it out by a "thread, fubftantially preffing the points, till they "have fashionably filled up their work with a well-bot "tomed conclufion."

ver. 441. Colon.] Ned Perry, an hoftler.

As great a drover, and as great

A critic too, in hog or neat.

460

He ripp'd the womb up of his mother,

Dame Tellus, 'cause she wanted fother,

And provender, wherewith to feed

Himself and his lefs cruel fteed.

It was a question whether he

465

Or 's horse were of a family

More worshipful; till antiquaries

(After they 'ad almost por'd out their eyes)}

Did very learnedly decide

The business on the horse's fide,

470

And prov'd not only horse, but cows,.

Nay pigs, were of the elder house :
For beasts, when man was but a piece
Of earth himself, did th' earth poffefs..
Thefe worthies were the chief that led
The combatants, each in the head
Of his command, with arms and rage:
Ready, and longing to engage.
The numerous rabble 'was drawn out
Qf feveral counties round about,

475

48€

From villages remote, and shires
Of east and western hemispheres.
From foreign parishes and regions,

Of different manners, speech, religions,,
Came men and mastiffs; some to fight

485

For fame and honour, fome for fight.
And now the field of death, the lifts,,
Were enter'd by antagonists,