Here’s a roll of the State’s tobacco,
If any good fellow will take it;
No Virginia had e’er such a Smack-o,
And I’ll tell you how they did make it:
’Tis th’ Engagement and Covenant cook’t
Up with the abjuration oath,
And many of them that have took’t
Complain it was foul in the mouth.
Says old Simon, etc.
Yet the ashes may happily serve
To cure the scab of the nation,
Whene’er’t has an itch to swerve
To rebellion by innovation.
A lanthorn here is to be bought,
The like was scarce ever gotten,
For many plots it has found out
Before they ever were thought on.
Says old Simon, etc.
Will you buy the Rump’s great saddle,
With which it jockey’d the nation?
And here is the bit and the bridle,
And curb of dissimulation;
And here’s the trunk-hose of the Rump,
And their fair dissembling cloak;
And a Presbyterian jump,
With an Independent smock.
Says old Simon, etc.
Will you buy a conscience oft turn’d,
Which served the High-Court of justice,
And stretch’d until England it mourn’d,
But hell will buy that if the worst is.
Here’s Joan Cromwell’s kitchen-stuff tub,
Wherein is the fat of the Rumpers,
With which old Noll’s horns she did rub,
When he was got drunk with false bumbers.
Says old Simon, etc.
Here’s the purse of the public faith;
Here’s the model of the Sequestration,
When the old wives upon their good troth
Lent thimbles to ruin the nation.
Here’s Dick Cromwell’s Protectorship,
And here are Lambert’s commissions,
And here is Hugh Peters his scrip,
Cramm’d with tumultuous petitions.
Says old Simon, etc.
And here are old Noll’s brewing vessels,
And here are his dray and his flings;
Here are Hewson’s [36] awl and his bristles,
With diverse other odd things:
And what is the price doth belong
To all these matters before ye?
I’ll sell them all for an old song,
And so I do end my story.
Says old Simon, etc.
THE CAVALIER’S FAREWELL TO HIS MISTRESS, BEING CALLED TO THE WARRS.
The following song was extracted from the MS. Diary of the Rev. John Adamson (afterwards Rector of Burton Coggles, Lincolnshire), commencing in 1658; by a correspondent of Notes and Queries, First Series, Jan. 18, 1851.
Fair Fidelia, tempt no more,
I may no more thy deity adore
Nor offer to thy shrine,
I serve one more divine
And farr more great than you:
I must goe,
Lest the foe
Gaine the cause and win the day.
Let’s march bravely on,
Charge ym in the van,
Our cause God’s is,
Though their odds is
Ten to one.
Tempt no more, I may not yeeld
Altho’ thine eyes
A kingdome may surprize:
Leave off thy wanton toiles,
The high-borne Prince of Wales
Is mounted in the field,
Where the royall gentry flocke.
Though alone
Nobly borne
Of a ne’re decaying stocke.
Cavaliers, be bold,
Bravely keep your hold,
He that loyters
Is by traytors
Bought and sold.