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 seen 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 fong,

"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

415

On him in Mufes' deathlefs writ.

He had a weapon keen and fierce,

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,.

And would make three to cure one flaw.
Learned he was, and could take note,
Transcribe, colle&, tranflate, and quote:
But preaching was his chiefeft talent,
Or argument, in which being valiant,

435

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

66

66

mired by the mob. "I am to tell thee, Chriftian "Reader," (fays Dr. Featley, preface to his Dipper dipp'd, wrote 1645, and published 1647, p. 1.) “This 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 ftables "(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 priefts of the high places. "I wonder that our door-pofts and walls fweat not, 66 upon which fuch notes as these 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, inftead 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 stolen fhreds; if not only of the lowest "of the people, as in Jeroboam's time, priefts are con"fecrated to the Most High God-Do we marvel to "fee fuch confufion in the Church as there is!" They are humourously girded in a tract entitled, The Reformado, precisely character'd, by a modern Church-warden, p. 11. Here are felt-makers (fays he) who can "roundly deal with the blockheads and neutral dimis "cafters of the world; coblers who can give good “rules for upright walking, and handle Scripture to a "briftle; coachmen who know how to lash the beaftly "enormities, and curb the headstrong infolences of "this brutish age, ftoutly exhorting us to stand up for "the truth, left the wheel of deftruction roundly over"run us. We have weavers that can fweetly inform VOL. I. F

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 remorse.
That which of Centaur long ago
Was faid, and has been wrefted to
Some other knights, was true of this,
He and his horfe were of a piece;
One spirit 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:
Stran e food for horfe! and, yet, alas!
It may be true, for flefh is grafs.
Sturdy he was, and no less able
Than Hercules to clean a ftable;

"us of the shuttle swiftnefs 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 those of damnation, meafure 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."

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

More worshipful; till antiquaries

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

Did very learnedly decide

The business on the horfe's fide,

470

And prov'd not only horfe, 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:
Of. feveral counties round about,

From villages remote, and fhires
Of east and western hemispheres.

475

480

From foreign parishes and regions,

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

For fame and honour, fome for fight.

48.5

And now the field of death, the lifts,,

Were enter'd by antagonists,