Popery, &c." It is believed to have been translated into Latin by. Dr. Thomas Tully (either or both of the two ballads). But, if we cannot identify the Rome Ballad, we can, instead, testify to the existence of another by the same author, Dr. Walter Pope. It is entitled The Miser, and was set to music by Michael Wise (concerning whom see Bagford Coll., iii. 63). Dated 1684, and printed by J.P. for Charles Brome, it begins, "What ayles thee, old Fool? Why dost thou not drink of the best, and welcome thy friend?" Words and music are found at Oxford, in the Collection Ashm. G. article CLXXV.

We know not enough about Dr. Pope or Dr. Robt. Wilde (against whom is a controversial broadside, iii. 31), to feel certain of the strictures applying. But as Dr. Pope was an M.D., not a D.D., the balance seems finally to incline to Dr. Wilde,' whose "Combat of Cocks" proves him to be fully competent to have written "The Geneva Ballad." (But Wilde's authorship of the Combat has been questioned, and it is attributed to Thomas Randolph.) Few of the fugitive poems in those days can be "fathered" with certainty.

By whomsoever the "Geneva Ballad " may have been written, one thing is certain. It is a vigorous piece of invective, terse, bitter, and supremely contemptuous. It speaks indignant scorn against "Splay-mouth "-the representative of the Political Nonconformist-and offers or accepts no compromise.

1 Dr. Robt. Wild, or Wilde, was a D.D., and rector of Aynho, Northamptonshire. His comedy of "The Benefice," 4to., 1689, is partly adapted from “The Return from Parnassus," 1602, and is in Malone's Collection, at the Bodleian.

We are unwilling to believe that this is to be narrowed into mere personal invective against Edmund Calamy, or any other single person. It is the impersonation of the irreconcilable Nonconformist, especially the Presbyterian, which is here attacked. In the 86 Loyal Poems, p. 120, Bedloe calls Dr. Tonge "Thou splay-mouth'd Fiend," and couples him with his "Brother Baxter." Against Richard (political rancour disturbing the saint's everlasting rest) is one of the Loyal Songs, p. 142, A Conventicle Litany, beginning "Let Baxter teach Sedition; And self-willed Saints delude." Its date is of Shaftesbury's golden medal time, 1681.

[Bagford Collection, I. 78 (1705 edit.); III. 33.]

THE GENEVA BALLAD,

TO THE TUNE of 48.

OF all the Factions in the Town,

Mov'd by French Springs or Flemish Wheels,
None treads Religion upside down,

Or tears Pretences out at heels,

[qu. turns]

[qu. treads]

Like Splay-mouth with his brace of Caps,1

Whose Conscience might be scan'd, perhaps,
By the Dimensions of his Chaps.

He whom the Sisters so adore,

Counting his Actions all divine,

Who, when the Spirit hints, can roar,

7

And if occasion serves can whine;

Nay, he can bellow, bray, and bark,
Was ever such a Beuk-learn'd Clerk,
That speaks all linguas of the Ark?

14

To draw in Proselytes like Bees,
With pleasing Twang he tones his Prose,
He gives his Hand-kerchief a squeez,

And draws John Calvin through his Nose.
Motive on motive he obtrudes,
With Slip-stockin[g] Similitudes,
Eight Uses more and so concludes.

When Monarchy began to bleed,

And Treason had a fine new name;

When Thames was balderdash'd with Tweed,

And Pulpits did with Beacons flame;

When Jeroboam's Calves were rear'd,

21

And Laud was neither lov'd nor fear'd,

This Gospel-Comet first appear'd.

1 See note

on previous page. 1705 ed. gloss, "A Presbyterian Parson."

28

2 A Use, or hortatory application, as practical rider, after doctrine. Compare Bagford Coll., i. 84 verso, and Percy Soc., i. 67 (Apprentice Songs, etc.), for "A Use of Exhortation to the London Apprentices," by J. E. App.

Soon his unhallow'd Fingers strip'd
His Sov'reign Liege of Power and Land,
And having smote his Master, slipp'd
His Sword into his Fellow's hand.

But he that wears his Eyes may note,
Ofttimes the Butcher binds a Goat,
And leaves his Boy to cut her Throat.
Poor England felt his Fury then
Out-weigh'd Queen Mary's many grains;
His very Preaching slew more men,
Than Bonner's Faggots, Stakes, and Chains.

With Dog-star Zeal, and Lungs like Boreas,
He fought and taught; and, what's notorious,
Destroy'd his Lord to make him glorious!

Yet drew for King and Parlement,
As if the Wind could stand North-South;
Broke Moses' Law with blest intent,
Murther'd, and then he wip'd his mouth.
Oblivion alters not his case,

Not Clemency, nor Acts of Grace,
Can blanch an Ethiopian's Face.
Ripe for Rebellion he begins
To rally upon the Saints in swarms,
He bauls aloud, Sirs, leave your Sins;
But whispers, Boys, stand to your Arms.
Then he's grown insolently rude,
Thinking his Gods can't be subdu’d-
Money, I mean, and Multitude.
Magistrates he regards no more
Than St. George or the Kings of Colen;1
Vowing he'll not conform before

The Old-Wives wind their dead in Wollen.2
He calls the Bishop, Grey-beard Goff,
And makes his Power as mere a Scoff,
As Dagon, when his hands were off.

35

42

49

56

63

1 The Three Kings of Cologne, Gasper, Melchoir, and Balthazar = The Magi. 2 This came to pass. An Act of Parliament, on 5th July, 1678, for the encouragement of the woollen trade, commanded that the dead should be buried in woollen. The Act was deemed "very serviceable to the flannel manufacture, and consequently made a great consumption of wool." An addition to the Act

Hark! how he opens with full Cry! Halloo, my Hearts, beware of ROME!

Cowards that are afraid to die

Thus make domestick Broils at home.

How quietly Great CHARLES might reign, ["Anne;" 1705.]
Would all these Hotspurs cross the Main,

And preach down Popery in Spain.

The starry Rule of Heaven is fixt, There's no Dissension in the Sky:

And can there be a Mean betwixt Confusion and Conformity?

A Place divided never thrives:

"Tis bad where Hornets dwell in Hives,

But worse where Children play with Knives.

I would as soon turn back to Mass,

Or change my Phrase to Thee and Thou;

Let the Pope ride me like an Ass,

And his Priests milk me like a Cow:

70

17

77

passed in January 1680-1. Our old church registers are full of records of the certificated compliance: ex grat., that of Molash parish, in Kent, which is perfect from 1557 to the present year.

1 The followers of Robert Brown, who died in 1630: afterwards called Independents. He boasted that he had been committed to thirty-two prisons. See Neal's Hist. Puritans, vol. i.

2 Woad, the dye anciently used to colour the native Britons, when garments were dispensed with, and afterwards employed like other dyeing materials.

3 Bernard Knipperdolling, a leader of the Anabaptists at Münster (where his bones are kept in an iron cage: C. Hardwick, Chr. Church, ii. 275), under John Bockhold of Leyden. He was tortured to death, with red-hot pincers, 23rd January, 1535-6.

"The Solemn League and Covenant Churchyard, Edin., Sunday, 1 Mar., 1633. were Alex. Henderson, David Dickson, and

was publicly signed, in Greyfriars "The three Apostles of the Covenant" Andrew Cant of Pitsligo, in Buchan.

Yet they all cry, They love the King,
And make boast of their Innocence:
There cannot be so vile a thing,
But may be colour'd with Pretence.

Yet when all's said, one thing I'll swear,
No Subject like th' Old Cavalier,
No Traitor like Jack [Presbyter].

98

LONDON: Printed for H. Brome, at the Gun at the West

end of St. Pauls, M.DC.LXXVIII.

[In White-letter.

True date, not later than 1673-4.]

Answer to the Geneva Ballad.

""Twas too provoking!

My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it,
So, saying, like Eve when she plucked the apple,
'I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,'
I flung out of the little chapel."

Browning's Christmas Eve,' of '49.

We know not another copy, beside our Bagford ballad, of

this angry rejoinder to the "Geneva Ballad" which precedes it. Full of cynical bitterness and inexcusable personalities, it tries to balance or outweigh the fourteen verses of a witty antagonist by its own twenty. So the smaller Parliament members, who lack power of reasoning and eloquence to convince a wearied House, assert their strength of lungs and unflagging verbosity to compel a surrender.

The attack on the writer of the "Geneva Ballad " as infected with Popery, because he had denounced the mischievous pranks of the sectaries and "Jack Presbyter," is a stale device. Any body who interposes between Anti-Romanists and their quintain must expect to receive such rude knocks. Even the present Editor (who has not the faintest "backslidings" towards Popery) may chance to be suspected of such jesuitry, for daring to rebuke the "Protestant" fervour shown two hundred years ago, by men who had no religion whatever.

1 66

And if any blames me,

Thinking that merely to touch in brevity
The topics I dwell on, were unlawful,-
Or, worse, that I trench, with undue levity,
On the bounds of the holy and the awful,-

I praise the heart, and pity the head of him."—Ibid.