Our Coblers shall translate their soules
From Caves obscure and shady;
Wee' make Tom T—— as good as my Lord,
And Joan as good as my Lady.
Wee'l crush and fling the marriage Ring
Into the Romane See;
Wee'l ask no bans, but even clap hands;
And, hey! then up goe we.
By "Barow," named in the second stanza, is intended, no doubt, Henry Barrow, the Nonconformist enthusiast who was executed at Tyburn in 1592. A follower of Robert Browne, founder of the Brownists, whence sprang the sect of Independents, he brought upon himself, by his zeal and imprudence, a vengeance which his wary leader contrived to evade. Browne himself is alluded to punningly in The Shepheards Oracles, where Philorthus, at sight of Anarchus approaching, asks whether he is "in a Browne study." Anarchus replies:
"Man, if thou be'st a Babe of Grace,