The works of Mr. John Cleveland containing his poems, orations, epistles, collected into one volume, with the life of the author.

The Mixt Assembly.

FLea-bitten Synod, an Assembly brew'd Of Clerks and Elders ana, like the rude Chaos of Presbyt'ry, where Lay-men guide With the tame Wool-pack Clergy by their side. Who ask'd the Banes 'twixt these discolour'd Mates? A strange Grotesco this; the Church and States, Most Divine Tick-Tack in a Pye-bald Crew To serve as Table-men of divers Hue. She that conceiv'd an Aethiopian Heir By Picture, when the Parents both were fair, At sight of you had born a dapled Son, You chequering her Imagination.

Had Iacob's Flock but seen you sit, the Dams Had brought forth speckled and ring streaked Lambs: Like an Impropriator's Motley kind, Whose Scarlet Coat is with a Cassock lin'd: Like the Lay-Thief in a Canonick Weed, Sure of his Clergy e'er he did the Deed. Like Royston Crows, who are (as I may say) Fryars of both the Orders, Black and Gray. So mixt they are one knows not whether's thicker, A Layre of Burgess, of a Layre of Vicar.

Have they usurp'd what Royal Iudah had, And now must Levi too part stakes with Gad? The Scepter and the Crosier are the Crutches, Which if not trusted in their pious Clutches Will fail the Cripple State. And wer't not pity That both should serve the Yardwand of the City? That Isaac might go stroke his Beard, and sit Judge of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and Elegerit. O that they were in Chalk and Charcoal drawn! The Miscellany-Satyr and the Fawn, And all th' Adulteries of twisted Nature But faintly represent this ridling Feature, Whose Members, being not Tallies, they'll not own Their Fellows at the Resurrection. Strange Scarlet Doctors these; they'll pass in Story For Sinners half refin'd in Purgatory; Or parboyl'd Lobsters, where there joyntly rules The fading Sables, and the coming Gules. The Flea that Falstaff damn'd thus lewdly shows Tormented in the Flames of Bardolph's Nose; Like him that wore the Dialogue of Clokes, This Shoulder Iohn-a-Stiles, that Iohn-a-Nokes. Like Jews and Christians in a Ship together, With an old Neck-Verse to distinguish either.

Like their intended Discipline to boot, Or whatsoe'er hath neither Head nor Foot: Such may these strip'd Stuff-hangings seem to be, Sacrilege match'd with Codpiece Simony. Be sick and dream a little, you may then Phancy these Linsey-Woolsey Vestry-men.

Forbear good Pembroke, be not over-daring, Such Company may chance to spoyl thy Swearing; And thy Drum-Major Oaths (of bulk unruly) May dwindle to a feeble, By my truly; He that the Noble Percie's Blood inherits, Will he strike up a Hot-Spur of the Spirits? He'll fright the Obadiah's out of tune With his uncircumcised Algernoon; A Name so stubborn, 'tis not to be scan'd By him in Gath with the six finger'd Hand: See they obey the Magick of my Words, Presto; they'r gone: and now the House of Lords Looks like the wither'd Face of an old Hag, But with three Teeth like to a triple Gag.

A jig a jig, and in this Antick Dance, Fielding and Doxie Marshal first advance. Twisse blows the Scotch pipes, and the loveing Brace Puts on the Traces and treads Cinque-a pace. Then Say and Seal must his old ham-strings supple, And he and rumpled Palmer make a Couple. Palmer's a fruitful Girl, if he'l unfold her, The Midwife may find work about her Shoulder. Kimbolton, that Rebellious Boanerges Must be content to saddle Doctor Burges. If Burges get a Clap, 'tis ne'er the worse, But the fifth time of his Compurgators. Nol Bowls is coy, good sadness cannot dance, But in obedience to the Ordinance.

Here Wharton wheels about, till Mumping Lidie Like the full Moon hath made his Lordship giddy. Pym and the Members must their Giblets levy T'encounter Madam Smec, that single Bevy: If they two truck together, 'twill not be A Child-birth, but a Goal-delivery. Thus every Gibelline hath got his Guelf; But Selden he's a Galliard by himself; And well may be; there's more Divines in him, Than in all this their Iewish Sanhedrim; Whose Canons in the Forge shall then bare date, When Mules their Cosin Germans generate. Thus Moses Law is violated now, The Ox and Ass go yoak'd in the same Plough. Resign thy Coach-box Twisse, Brook's Preacher, he Would sort the Beasts with more Conformity. Water and Earth make but one Globe, a Roundhead Is Clergy-Lay, Party-per-pale compounded.