Part 7

Smectymnuus! The goblin makes me start! I' th' name of Rabbi Abraham, what art? Syriac? or Arabic? or Welsh? what skill't? Ap all the bricklayers that Babel built, Some conjurer translate and let me know it; Till then 'tis fit for a West Saxon poet. But do the brotherhood then play their prizes Like mummers in religion with disguises, Out-brave us with a name in rank and file? A name, which, if 'twere trained, would spread a mile! 10 The saints' monopoly, the zealous cluster Which like a porcupine presents a muster And shoots his quills at bishops and their sees, A devout litter of young Maccabees! Thus Jack-of-all-trades hath devoutly shown The Twelve Apostles on a cherry-stone; Thus faction 's _à la mode_ in treason's fashion, Now we have heresy by complication. Like to Don Quixote's rosary of slaves Strung on a chain; a murnival of knaves 20 Packed in a trick, like gipsies when they ride, Or like colleagues which sit all of a side. So the vain satyrists stand all a row As hollow teeth upon a lute-string show. Th' Italian monster pregnant with his brother, Nature's diæresis, half one another, He, with his little sides-man Lazarus, Must both give way unto Smectymnuus. Next Sturbridge Fair is Smec's; for, lo! his side Into a five-fold lazar's multiplied. 30 Under each arm there 's tucked a double gizzard; Five faces lurk under one single vizard. The Whore of Babylon left these brats behind, Heirs of confusion by gavelkind. I think Pythagoras' soul is rambled hither With all the change of raiment on together. Smec is her general wardrobe; she'll not dare To think of him as of a thoroughfare. He stops the gossiping dame; alone he is The purlieu of a metempsychosis; 40 Like a Scotch mark, where the more modest sense Checks the loud phrase, and shrinks to thirteen pence: Like to an ignis fatuus whose flame, Though sometimes tripartite, joins in the same; Like to nine tailors, who, if rightly spelled, Into one man are monosyllabled. Short-handed zeal in one hath cramped many Like to the Decalogue in a single penny. See, see how close the curs hunt under sheet As if they spent in quire and scanned their feet. 50 One cure and five incumbents leap a truss; The title sure must be litigious. The Sadducees would raise a question Who must be Smec at th' Resurrection. Who cooped them up together were to blame. Had they but wire-drawn and spun out their name, 'Twould make another Prentices' Petition Against the bishops and their superstition. Robson and French (that count from five to five, As far as nature fingers did contrive-- 60 She saw they would be 'sessors, that 's the cause She cleft their hoof into so many claws) May tire their carrot-bunch, yet ne'er agree To rate Smectymnuus for poll-money. Caligula--whose pride was mankind's bail, As who disdained to murder by retail, Wishing the world had but one general neck,-- His glutton blade might have found game in Smec. No echo can improve the author more Whose lungs pay use on use to half a score. 70 No felon is more lettered, though the brand Both superscribes his shoulder and his hand. Some Welshman was his godfather, for he Wears in his name his genealogy. The banns are asked, would but the times give way, Betwixt Smectymnuus and Et Caetera. The guests, invited by a friendly summons, Should be the Convocation and the Commons. The priest to tie the foxes' tails together Mosely, or Sancta Clara, choose you whether. 80 See what an offspring every one expects, What strange pluralities of men and sects! One says he'll get a vestry, but another Is for a synod; Bet upon the mother. Faith, cry St. George! Let them go to 't and stickle Whether a conclave or a conventicle. Thus might religions caterwaul, and spite Which uses to divorce, might once unite. But their cross fortunes interdict their trade; The groom is rampant but the bride displayed. 90 My task is done, all my he goats are milked. So many cards i' th' stock, and yet be bilked? I could by letters now untwist the rabble, Whip Smec from constable to constable; But there I leave you to another dressing; Only kneel down and take your father's blessing. May the Queen Mother justify your fears And stretch her patent to your leather ears!

[_Smectymnuus, &c._ (_1647_.) Whether this lively skit on the five 'reverend men whose friend' Milton was (as far as he could be proud of being anything but himself) proud of being was in Milton's own mind when he wrote his _Apology_ for the acrostically named treatise, one cannot say. It is a lively 'mime' enough, and he seems to throw back that word with some special meaning. Cleveland's poem may have appeared in the summer of 1641. Naturally, it is in the _Rump_ poems.]

[Line: 3 All editions 'skilt'. It apparently must be as in text: 'skill't' for 'skill'st' = 'dost thou [or 'does it'] signify?']

[Line: 4 _1677_, &c. 'Ape', but 'Ap' in the Welsh sense (Welsh having just been mentioned) does well enough. It would go, not too roughly for Cleveland's syntax, with 'conjurer'. Let some wizard, descended from all these, _and therefore knowing all tongues_, translate.]

[Line: 6 This is rather interesting. Does it refer to Wessex or Devonshire dialect of the day, or to old West Saxon? Junius did not edit Cædmon till fourteen years later, but there was study of Anglo-Saxon from Parker's time at Cambridge.]

[Line: 7 the brotherhood] 'Brother' and 'sister' being constant sneers at the Puritan.

play their prizes] = 'fight'.]

[Line: 10 Perhaps another sneer at the 'train-bands' of the City.]

[Line: 15 'distinctly' _1677_.]

[Line: 16 '_in_ a' _1677_.]

[Line: 18 I suppose _à la mode_, which is in _1677_, is right; but the '_all_-a-mode' of _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ is tempting.]

[Line: 20 'murnival' or 'mournival'. Four aces, kings, &c., especially at gleek.]

[Line: 22 _1677_, &c. 'Or like _the College_'.]

[Line: 24 'h_a_llow' _1653_.]

[Line: 25 I knew not this monster, and suspected that he would not be a delicate monster to know. But Mr. Thorn-Drury has found him in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1777, p. 482. Lazarus Collondo, a Genoese, had a small brother growing out of his side, with one leg, two arms, &c., &c.]

[Line: 29 'Smec' will now be an even greater attraction at the Sturbridge fair at Cambridge. All fairs rejoiced in monsters.]

[Line: 36 '_The_ change', as in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ and its group, including the _Rump_ version, is not so good as 'her', which _1677_ reads.]

[Line: 38 i.e. 'to go on to any _other_ body'.]

[Line: 40 'Purlieu' seems to be used in the sense of 'precinct' or 'province'.]

[Lines: 41-2 These lines are in all the seventeenth-century editions I have seen, but not in Mr. Berdan's. The Scots pound was of course only twenty English pence, and so the mark (two thirds) 'shrank' accordingly.]

[Line: 49 _1647_, _1651_, _1677_ insert 'a' before 'sheet'. The metaphor is probably as old as hunting. 'Spend', as Professor Case reminds me, has had already in _The Miser_, l. 67, the sense of 'give tongue'. 'Scanned their feet' for 'kept pace' is good enough; but why the five should leap a truss, and why this should be litigious, I again frankly confess myself to have been ignorant. Mr. Simpson, however, quotes R. Fletcher in _Ex Otio Negotium_, 1656, p. 202, 'The model of the new Religion':

How many Queere-religions? clear your throat, May a man have a penyworth? four a groat? Or do the _Iuncto_ leap at truss a fayle? Three tenents clap while five hang on the tayle?

Cleveland seems to have tried in this piece to equal the mystery of the title of 'Smec' by his own matter, and to have succeeded very fairly.]

[Line: 54 _1677_, &c. '_shall_ be'. 'at th'' _1647_, _1677_: 'at the' _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 55 cooped] cooked _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 56 _1677_, &c. '_the_ name'.]

[Line: 57 An absurd, but doubtless in the circumstances dangerous, document of the kind was actually disseminated, in which the prentices bold engaged 'to defend his Sacred Majesty against Popish innovations such as archbishops and bishops appear to be'.]

[Line: 63 carrot-bunch] Cant for 'fingers'.]

[Line: 70 'pay' _1653_, _1677_: 'pays' _1647_, _1651_. _1677_ '_and_ use'.]

[Line: 75 'Banns' _1677_: 'Banes' in earlier texts. _1653_ 'time'.]

[Line: 78 The Convocation which had been guilty of '&c.', and the Commons who mostly sympathized with 'Smec'.]

[Line: 79 foxes' tails] As at Samson's marriage (Judges xv. 4-7.)]

[Line: 80 Mosel[e]y, Milton's printer; and Sancta Clara, the Jesuit?]

[Line: 82 _1677_ 'plurality'.]

[Line: 83 'Vestry, but' _1677_: 'Vestery' _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 84 _1677_ 'Bets'.]

[Line: 90 The heraldic terms are pretty plain, but _1677_ reads 'is spade' i.e. 'spayed', as in _The Hecatomb to his Mistress_, l. 2.]

[Line: 94 Rhyme here really badly managed.]

[Line: 95 _1677_ 'another's'.]

[Line: 97 The fear and dislike of Henrietta Maria (whom Mr. Berdan supposes to be meant) among the disaffected is only too certain: and the fate of Prynne's ears for his scandal of her is notorious. But why _at this time_ she should be called a Queen Mother (it was her proper title afterwards, and she was one of the very few to whom it was actually given), and what the last line means, I know not. Nor does Professor Firth, unless Marie de Médicis (who _was_ Queen Mother in France and had visited England) had, as he suggests, a share in some leather patent, and is meant here. Smec's ears are 'vellum' in _Rupertismus_, 169 (_v. inf._, p. 67).]

The Mixed Assembly.

Flea-Bitten synod, an assembly brewed Of clerks and elders _ana_, like the rude Chaos of Presbyt'ry, where laymen guide With the tame woolpack clergy by their side. Who asked the banns 'twixt these discoloured mates? A strange grotesco this; the Church and states, Most divine tick-tack, in a piebald crew, To serve as table-men of divers hue! She, that conceived an Ethiopian heir By picture, when the parents both were fair, 10 At sight of you had born a dappled son, You checkering her imagination. Had Jacob's flock but seen you sit, the dams Had brought forth speckled and ring-streakéd lambs. Like an impropriator's motley kind Whose scarlet coat is with a cassock lined; Like the lay-thief in a canonic weed, Sure of his clergy ere he did the deed; Like Royston crows, who are (as I may say) Friars of both the Orders, Black and Gray; 20 So mixed they are, one knows not whether 's thicker, A layer of burgess, or a layer of vicar. Have they usurped what Royal Judah had, And now must Levi too part stakes with Gad? The sceptre and the crosier are the crutches, Which, if not trusted in their pious clutches, Will fail the cripple State. And were 't not pity But both should serve the yardwand of the City? That Isaac might stroke his beard and sit Judge of [Greek: eis Haidou] and _elegerit_? 30 Oh that they were in chalk and charcoal drawn! The miscellany-satyr and the faun And all th' adulteries of twisted nature But faintly represent this riddling 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 refined in Purgatory, Or parboiled lobsters, where there jointly rules The fading sables and the coming gules. 40 The flea that Falstaff damned thus lewdly shows Tormented in the flames of Bardolph's nose. Like him that wore the dialogue of cloaks This shoulder John-a-Stiles, that John-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 their stript-stuff-hangings seem to be, Sacrilege matched with codpiece simony. 50 Be sick and dream a little, you may then Fancy these linsey-woolsey vestry-men. Forbear, good Pembroke, be not over-daring. Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing, And thy drum-major oaths, of bulk unruly, May dwindle to a feeble 'By my truly'! He that the noble Percy's blood inherits, Will he strike up a Hotspur of the spirits? He'll fright the Obadiahs out of tune With his uncircumciséd Algernoon; 60 A name so stubborn, 'tis not to be scanned By him in Gath with the six-fingered hand. See, they obey the magic of my words! Presto! they're gone, and now the House of Lords Looks like the withered face of an old hag, But with three teeth like to a triple gag. A jig! a jig! and in this antic dance Fielding and Doxie Marshall first advance. Twisse blows the Scotch-pipes, and the loving brace Puts on the traces and treads cinque-a-pace. 70 Then Saye and Sele must his old hamstrings supple, And he and rumpled Palmer make a couple. Palmer 's a fruitful girl if he'll unfold her; The midwife may find work about her shoulder. Kimbolton, that rebellious Boanerges, Must be content to saddle Dr. Burges. If Burges get a clap, 'tis ne'er the worse, But the fifth time of his compurgators. Noll Bowles is coy; good sadness, cannot dance But in obedience to the ordinance. 80 Here Wharton wheels about till mumping Lidy, 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 gaol-delivery. Thus every Ghibelline hath got his Guelph But Selden,--he 's a galliard by himself; And well may be; there 's more divines in him Than in all this, their Jewish Sanhedrim: 90 Whose canons in the forge shall then bear date When mules their cousin-germans generate. Thus Moses' law is violated now; The ox and ass go yoked in the same plough. Resign thy coach-box, Twisse; Brooke'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.

[_The Mixed Assembly_ (_1647_.) This was the famous 'Westminster' Assembly which met in July, 1643--a hodge-podge of half a score peers, a score of commoners, and about four times as many divines as laymen. Tanner MS. 465, of the Bodleian, has a poor copy of this poem; but some transpositions and omissions suggest that it preserves an earlier draft. Lines 63-6 follow 52; 71-8, 81-2, are omitted.]

[Line: 1 Flea-bitten] As of a horse--the laymen appearing like specks on the body of clergy.]

[Line: 2 _ana_] Usually interpreted in the apothecary's sense, 'in equal quantities', written so in prescriptions and said to be from the Greek--[Greek: ana] being thus used.]

[Lines: 6, 7 'Church and State's, Most divine' _MS._]

[Line: 19 In a fable a Royston crow (the town being on the way to Cambridge had probably a bad reputation for fleecing the guileless undergraduate) advised an innocent of his kind to drop a shellfish from a height on rocks where the Royston bird was waiting and secured the meat.]

[Line: 28 _1677_ changes 'But' to 'That'.]

[Line: 29 _1677_ inserts '_go_' before 'stroke'. But Cleveland probably scanned 'I-sa-ac'. The reference is to Isaac Pennington: cf. _The Rebel Scot_, l. 79.]

[Line: 30 The phrase is of course Homeric (_sc._ [Greek: domous]) and with its companion combines the idea of an ecclesiastical condemnation ('delivering over to Satan') and a civil execution, a writ of _elegit_.]

[Line: 32 faun] All old editions, I think, and Mr. Berdan, 'fa_w_n'. But the _animal_ (always now indicated by that spelling) is not of a 'twisted nature', the half-god is.]

[Line: 40 One of those that taught Dryden something.]

[Line: 41 Cleveland, like most Royalists and their master, was evidently sound on Shakespeare. A copy of _1677_ in my possession has a manuscript list of references on the fly-leaf.]

[Line: 46 'neck-verse'] = for benefit of clergy.]

[Line: 49 'Stript', _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, is evidently 'striped', and is printed 'strip'd' in _1677_.]

[Line: 53 Philip Herbert, fourth Earl of Pembroke, though a patron of literature and the arts, was a man of bad character and a virulent Roundhead.]

[Line: 55 'thy' _1677_: 'these' _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.

of bulk unruly] if Vulcan rule you _MS._]

[Line: 59 _1647_, _1651_ 'Obadiahs': _1653_ and its group 'Obadiah': _1677_ 'Obadiah's'.]

[Line: 60 Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland--who repented too late of his rebellion and tried to prevent the consequences--seems to have joined the Roundheads out of pique (his pride was notorious) at neglect of his suggestions and interference with his powers as Lord High Admiral. By putting the fleet into the hands of the Parliament he did the King perhaps more hurt than any other single person at the beginning of the war. 'Algernoon' _1647_, _1651_: later texts spoil the point of the next line by using the conventional form.]

[Line: 68 Fielding] Basil, the degenerate son of the first Earl of Denbigh. He actually served in the Parliamentary Army, but like Northumberland, who did not go that length, repented too late.

Doxie Marshall] The Stephen Marshall of _Smectymnuus_ and the 'Geneva Bull' of _The Rebel Scot_, l. 21; exactly why 'Doxie' I do not know. Possibly 'prostitute' from his eager Presbyterianism. It is odd that Anne and Rebecca Marshall, two famous actresses of the Restoration to whom the term might be applied with some direct justification, used to be counted his daughters, though this is now denied.]

[Line: 69 Twisse] William (1578-1646), the Prolocutor of the Assembly.]

[Line: 71 Saye and Sele] William Fiennes, first Viscount (1582-1662). Of very bad reputation as a slippery customer.]

[Line: 72 rumpled] Mr. Berdan 'rumbled', on what authority and with what meaning I do not know. 'Rumpled', which is in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, and _1677_, no doubt refers to the untidy bands, &c. of a slovenly priest. Herbert Palmer (1604-1647) was a man of good family but a bitter Puritan. He was first Fellow and then President of Queens' College, Cambridge, where Cleveland doubtless knew him. The odd description reads like that of a sort of deformed dwarf.]

[Line: 75 Kimbolton] Edward, Lord (1602-1671), just about to become the well-known Earl of Manchester of the Rebellion. Like Northumberland and Denbigh, he repented, but only after he had been not too politely shelved for Fairfax and Cromwell.]

[Line: 76 Cleveland would have been delighted had he known the fate of Cornelius Burges (1589?-1665), of whom he evidently had a pretty bad idea. Burges, a Wadham and Lincoln man, was one of the leaders of the Puritans among the London clergy, and a great favourite with the House of Commons in the Long Parliament. He wanted to suppress cathedrals; and, being a practical man and preacher at Wells during the Commonwealth, did his best by buying the deanery and part of the estates. Wherefore he was promptly and properly ruined by the Restoration, and died in well-deserved poverty. He was vice-president of the Westminster Assembly.]

[Line: 79 Oliver Bowles, a Puritan divine. _1653_ omits the comma after 'sadness' found in _1651_,--a neat punctuation, meaning 'in good sadness, he cannot dance'. Phrases like 'in good truth', 'in good sadnesse' were the utmost licence of speech which the Puritans permitted themselves.]

[Line: 81 Philip, fourth Lord Wharton (1613-1696) took the anti-Royalist side very early, but cut a very poor figure at Edgehill and abandoned active service. He did not figure under the Commonwealth, but was a zealous Whig after the Restoration, and a prominent Williamite in the last years of his long life. Who 'Lidy' (_1653_) or 'Lidie' (_1677_) was seems unknown. Professor Firth suggests a misprint for 'Sidie,' i.e. Sidrach Simpson (1600?-1655), a busy London Puritan and member of the Assembly. Another ingenious suggestion made to me is that 'mumping Lid[d]y' may be one of the queer dance-names of the period, or actually a woman, Wharton being no enemy to the sex. But I do not know that there was such a dance, and as all the other pairs are males, being members of the Assembly, it would be odd if there were an exception here. For 'Here' _1647_, _1651_ read 'Her'.]

[Line: 88 The exceptional position of Selden is well hit off here. His character and his earning were just able to neutralize, though not to overcome, the curse of Laodicea.]

[Line: 95 'Brooke' is Robert Brooke, second Lord Brooke, cousin and successor of Fulke Greville--the 'fanatic Brooke' who had his 'guerdon meet' by being shot in his attack on Lichfield Cathedral. _Mercurius Anti-Britannicus_, 1645, p. 23, has:

Like my Lord Brooke's _Coachman_ Preaching out of a tub.

(I owe this citation to Mr. Simpson.)]

The King's Disguise.