"Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the way of the Sacramentarians, not sat in the seat of the Zuinglians, or followed the counsel of the Zurichers."
Probably Ben Jonson saw nothing objectionable in the quaintly whimsical lines in Cynthia's Revels—
Amo. From Spanish shrugs, French faces, smirks, irps,
and all affected humours.
Chorus. Good Mercury defend us.
Pha. From secret friends, sweet servants, loves, doves,
and such fantastique humours.
Chorus. Good Mercury defend us.
The same charitable allowance may be conceded to the songs composed by the Cavaliers in the Civil War. We should not be surprised to find a tone of levity in them, but they were certainly not intended to throw any discredit on our Church. In "The Rump, or an exact collection of the choicest poems and songs relating to the late times from 1639" we have "A Litany for the New Year," of which the following will serve as a specimen—
"From Rumps, that do rule against customes and laws
From a fardle of fancies stiled a good old cause,
From wives that have nails that are sharper than claws,
Good Jove deliver us."
Among the curious tracts collected by Lord Somers we find a "New Testament of our Lords and Saviours, the House of our Lords and Saviours, the House of Commons, and the Supreme Council at Windsor." It gives "The Genealogy of the Parliament" from the year 1640 to 1648, and commences "The Book of the Generation of Charles Pim, the son of Judas, the son of Beelzebub," and goes on to state in the thirteenth verse that "King Charles being a just man, and not willing to have the people ruinated, was minded to dissolve them, (the Parliament), but while he thought on these things. &c."
Of the same kind was the parody of Charles Hanbury Williams at the commencement of the last century, "Old England's Te Deum"—the character of which may be conjectured from the first line
"We complain of Thee, O King, we acknowledge thee to be a Hanoverian."
Sometimes parodies of this kind had even a religious object, as when Dr. John Boys, Dean of Canterbury in the reign of James I., in his zeal, untempered with wisdom, attacked the Romanists by delivering a form of prayer from the pulpit commencing—