Little Hill, [90] since set in the House, is to a mountain grown;
Not that which brought forth the mouse, but thousands the year of his own.
The purchase that I mean, where else but at Taunton Dean;
Five thousand pounds per annum, a sum not known to his grannam.
Sing hi, the Good old Cause, [91] ’tis old enough not true
You got more by that then the laws, so a good old cause to you.
Sing hi ho, etc.
Master Cecil, [92] pray come behind, because on your own accord
The other House you declined, you shall be no longer a lord;
The reason, as I guess, you silently did confess,
Such lords deserved ill the other House to fill.
Sing hi ho, Mr Cecil, your honour now is gone;
Such lords are not worth a whistle, we have made better lords of our own.
Sing hi ho, etc.
Luke Robinson [93] shall go before ye, that snarling northern tyke;
Be sure he’ll not adore ye, for honour he doth not like;
He cannot honour inherit, and he knows he can never merit,
And therefore he cannot bear it that any one else should wear it.
Sing hi ho, envious lown, you’re of the beagle’s kind,
Who always bark’d at the moon, because in the dark it shined.
Sing hi ho, etc.
’Tis this that vengeance rouses, that, while you make long prayers,
You eat up widows’ houses, and drink the orphan’s tears;
Long time you kept a great noise, of God and the Good old Cause;
But if God to you be so kind, then I’me of the Indian’s mind.
Sing hi ho, Sir Harry, [94] we see, by your demeanour,
If longer here you tarry, you’ll be Sir Harry Vane, Senior.
Sing hi ho, etc.
Now if your zeal do warme ye, pray loud for fairer weather;
Swear to live and die with the army, for these birds are flown together;
The House is turn’d out a doe, (and I think it was no sin, too);
If we take them there any more, we’ll throw the House out of the window.
Sing hi ho, Tom Scot, [95] you lent the Devil your hand;
I wonder he helpt you not, but suffred you t’ be trapand.
Sing hi ho, etc.
They’re once again conduced, and we freed from the evil
To which we long were used; God blesse us next from the Devil!
If they had not been outed the array had been routed,
And then this rotten Rump had sat until the last trump.
But, hi ho, Lambert’s here, the Protector’s instrument bore,
And many there be who swear that he will do it no more.
Sing hi ho, etc.
Come here, then, honest Peters, [96] say grace for the second course,
So long as these your betters must patience have upon force,
Long time he kept a great noise with God and the Good old Cause,
But if God own such as these, then where’s the Devil’s fees?
Sing hi ho, Hugo, I hear thou art not dead;
Where now to the Devil will you go, your patrons being fled?
Sing hi ho, my honey, my heart shall never rue,
Four-and-twenty now for a penny, and into the bargain Hugh.
THE TALE OF THE COBBLER AND THE VICAR OF BRAY.
Rara est concordia fratrum. Ovid.
By Samuel Butler.