We study thee, when we but play with them.
Sir JOHN BERKENHEAD.
Sir John Berkenhead was a Gentleman, whose Worth and deserts were too high for me to delineate. He was a constant Assertor of his Majesties Cause in its lowest Condition, painting the Rebels forth to the life in his Mercurius Aulicus and other Writings; his Zany Brittanicus who wrote against him, being no more his Equal, than a Dwarf to a Gyant, or the goodness of his cause to that of the Kings; for this his Loyalty he suffered several Imprisonments, yet always constant to his first Principles. His skill in Poetry was such, that one thus writes of him.
Whil'st Lawrel sprigs anothers head shall Crown,
Thou the whole Grove mayst challenge as thy Own.
He survived to see his Majesties happy Restoration, and some of them hanged who used their best endeavor to do the same by him. As for his learned Writings, those who are ignorant of them, must plead ignorance both to Wit and Learning.
Dr. ROBERT WILD.
He was one, and not of the meanest of the Poetical Cassock, being in some sort a kind of an Anti-Cleaveland, writing as high, and standing up as stifly for the Presbyterians, as ever Cleaveland did against them: But that which most recommended him to publick fame, was his Iter Roreale, the same in Title though not in Argument, with that little, but much commended Poem of Dr. Corbets mentioned before. This being upon General Monk's Journey out of Scotland, in order to his Majesties Restoration, and is indeed the Cream and flower of all his Works, and look't upon for a lofty and conceited Stile. His other things are for the most part of a tepid and facetious nature, reflecting on others, who as sharply retorted upon him, for he that throwes stones at other, 'tis ten to one but is hit with a stone himself; one of them playing upon his red face thus. I like the Man that carries in his Face, the tincture of that bloody banner he fights under, and would not have any Mans countenance, prove so much an Hypocrite to cross a French Proverb.