How durst th', I say, adventure thus695
T' oppose thy lumber against us?
Could thine impertinence find out
No work t' employ itself about,
Where thou, secure from wooden blow,
Thy busy vanity might show?700
Was no dispute afoot between
The caterwauling bretheren?
No subtle question rais'd among
Those out-o'-their wits, and those i' th' wrong?
No prize between those combatants705
O' th' times, the land and water saints;[1]
Where thou might'st stickle, without hazard
Of outrage to thy hide and mazzard,[2]
And not, for want of bus'ness, come
To us to be thus troublesome,710
To interrupt our better sort
Of disputants, and spoil our sport?
Was there no felony, no bawd.
Cut-purse,[3] nor burglary abroad?
No stolen pig, nor plunder'd goose,715
To tie thee up from breaking loose?
No ale unlicens'd, broken hedge,
For which thou statute might'st allege,
To keep thee busy from foul evil,
And shame due to thee from the devil?720
Did no committee sit,[4] where he
Might cut out journey-work for thee;
- ↑ That is, the Presbyterians and Anabaptists.
- ↑ Face or head, see Wright's Provincial Dict., sub voce. Mazer is used for a head, seriously by Sylvester, and ludicrously in two old plays. From mazer comes mazzard, as from visor, vizard.
- ↑ Men formerly hung their purses, by a silken or leathern strap, to their belts, outside their garments. Hence the term cut-purse.
- ↑ In many counties certain persons appointed by the parliament to promote their interest, had power to raise money for their use, and to punish their opponents by tine and imprisonment: these persons were called a Committee. Walker, in his History of Independency, says that "to historialise at large the grievances of committees would require a volume as big as the Book of Martyrs, and that the people might as easily expect to find charity in hell, as justice in any committee."
