Next Fleetwood and Vane with their rascally pack,
Would every one put their feet in the stirrup;
But they pull’d the saddle quite off of her back,
And were all got under her before they were up.
At last the King mounts her, and then she stood still;
As his Bucephalus, proud of this rider,
She cheerfully yields to his power and skill
Who is careful to feed her, and skilful to guide her.
A CATCH.
By Alex. Brome. A.D. 1660.
Let’s leave off our labour, and now let’s go play,
For this is our time to be jolly;
Our plagues and our plaguers are both fled away,
To nourish our griefs is but folly:
He that won’t drink and sing
Is a traytor to’s King,
And so he that does not look twenty years younger;
We’ll look blythe and trim
With rejoicing at him
That is the restorer and will be the prolonger
Of all our felicity and health,
The joy of our hearts, and increase of our wealth.
’Tis he brings our trading, our trading brings riches,
Our riches brings honour, at which every mind itches,
And our riches bring sack, and our sack brings us joy,
And our joy makes us leap and sing,
Vive le Roy!
THE TURN-COAT.
By Samuel Butler. 1661.
Several lines in this song were incorporated in the better-known ballad of the Vicar of Bray, said by Nichols in his Select Poems to have been written by a soldier in Colonel Fuller’s troop of dragoons, in the reign of George I. Butler’s ballad, though unpublished, must therefore have been known at the time.
To the tune of “London is a fine town.”
I loved no King since forty-one,
When Prelacy went down;
A cloak and band I then put on
And preach’d against the crown.
A turn-coat is a cunning man
That cants to admiration,
And prays for any king to gain
The people’s approbation.