And e’en to rob the chequer shall be just,
  When declarations, lies and every oath
  Shall be in use at court, but faith and troth. 
  When two good kings shall be at Brentford town,
  And when in London there shall not be one: 
  When the seat’s given to a talking fool,
  Whom wise men laugh at, and whom women rule;
  A minister able only in his tongue
  To make harsh empty speeches two hours long
  When an old Scots Covenanter shall be
  The champion for the English hierarchy: 
  When bishops shall lay all religion by,
  And strive by law to establish tyranny,
  When a lean treasurer shall in one year
  Make himself fat, his King and people bare: 
  When the English Prince shall Englishmen despise,
  And think French only loyal, Irish wise;
  When wooden shoon shall be the English wear
  And Magna Charta shall no more appear: 
  Then the English shall a greater tyrant know,
  Than either Greek or Latin story show: 
  Their wives to ’s lust exposed, their wealth to ’s spoil,
  With groans to fill his treasury they toil;
  But like the Bellides must sigh in vain
  For that still fill’d flows out as fast again;
  Then they with envious eyes shall Belgium see,
  And wish in vain Venetian liberty. 
  The frogs too late grown weary of their pain,
  Shall pray to Jove to take him back again.

JOHN CLEIVELAND.

(1613-1658.)

XVII.  THE SCOTS APOSTASIE.

    From Poems and Satires, posthumously published in 1662.

  Is’t come to this?  What shall the cheeks of fame
  Stretch’d with the breath of learned Loudon’s name,
  Be flogg’d again?  And that great piece of sense,
  As rich in loyalty and eloquence,
  Brought to the test be found a trick of state,
  Like chemist’s tinctures, proved adulterate;
  The devil sure such language did achieve,
  To cheat our unforewarned grand-dam Eve,
  As this imposture found out to be sot
  The experienced English to believe a Scot,
  Who reconciled the Covenant’s doubtful sense,
  The Commons argument, or the City’s pence? 
  Or did you doubt persistence in one good,
  Would spoil the fabric of your brotherhood,
  Projected first in such a forge of sin,
  Was fit for the grand devil’s hammering? 
  Or was’t ambition that this damned fact
  Should tell the world you know the sins you act? 
  The infamy this super-treason brings. 
  Blasts more than murders of your sixty kings;
  A crime so black, as being advisedly done,
  Those hold with these no competition. 
  Kings only suffered then; in this doth lie
  The assassination of monarchy,
  Beyond this sin no one step can be trod. 
  If not to attempt deposing of your God. 
  O, were you so engaged, that we might see
  Heav’ns angry lightning ’bout