This disproportion is their punishment; for it must be anxious to the last degree, to fall so low even beyond a possibility of rising again. That is the advantage of moving in an humble sphere; they are not capable of those enormities that the great ones can hardly avoid; for temptation will generally have the better of mankind.
I rest,
Yours in haste.
Perkin Warbeck to the pretended Prince of Wales. By Capt. Ayloff.
Dear Cousin Sham,
WE had a fierce debate here on the 13th passato, between my lord Fitz-Walter, Sir Simon Mountford, Sir William Stanley, and myself; whether by a parity of reason, England might not once more have the same card trumpt up upon them? In a word, we were consulting your affairs, and they were most of ’em of opinion, that there could not be any good success expected from your personal endowments, and princely qualifications. For you must give me leave to tell you, Cuz, that I was a smart child, and a smock-fac’d youth; I had not the good luck to kill a wild boar at your years, but I could sit the great horse before I could go alone, I had all the advantages of friends that you have, and the interest of my good aunt the duchess or Burgundy, let me tell you, was as capable of seconding me, as the house of Modena is you: Nay, I had the Scotch on my side, assistance from Ireland, and not without a party, you see, even in England too. But the English mob is the most giddy, wretched, senseless mob of all the mobs in the world. How they crowded into me at Whitsand-Bay, and in their first fury fought well enough before Exeter: But when they heard of an army coming against ’em, the scoundrels ran away and left me; all my blooming hopes and fancied kingdoms dwindled away in a sanctuary, that I exchanged for a prison, and brought my Habeas Corpus, and so turn’d myself over to Tyburn, and am now in the rules of Acheron. Our kinsman Lambert Simnel and I, drank your health t’other morning in a curious cup of Styx, and the arch sawcy rogue, said, how he should laugh to see his brother of Wales succeed him in this great employment at court; continually turning a spit would harden and inure you, and so prepare you for these smoaky and warmer climates: not but that there is matter of speculation in it too. The turning a spit is an emblem of the vicissitude of human affairs. But before I take my leave, good cousin, I must offer a little of my advice to you, if it be possible any ways to meliorate your destiny; and that is, that you would make a campaign or two in Italy: Marshal Villeroy will shew you what it is to be well beaten; and till then you’ll never be a great general. But Charon is just landing a multitude of French from those parts; I must go see what news, and inform myself further of your welfare and prosperity.
Adieu.
Mr. Dryden, to the Lord—— By Capt. Ayloff.
My lord,