Our play's a parallel: the Holy League
Begot our Covenant: Guisards got the whig:
Whate'er our hot-brained sheriffs did advance,
Was, like our fashions, first produced in France;
And, when worn out, well scourged, and banished there,
Sent over, like their godly beggars, here.
Could the same trick, twice played, our nation gull?
It looks as if the devil were grown dull;
Or served us up, in scorn, his broken meat,
And thought we were not worth a better cheat.
The fulsome Covenant, one would think in reason,
Had given us all our bellies full of treason;
And yet, the name but changed, our nasty nation
Chews its own excrements, the Association[1].
'Tis true, we have not learned their poisoning way,
For that's a mode but newly come in play;
Resides, your drug's uncertain to prevail,
But your true protestant can never fail
With that compendious instrument, a flail[2].
Go on, and bite, even though the hook lies bare;
Twice in one age expel the lawful heir;
Once more decide religion by the sword,
And purchase for us a new tyrant lord.
Pray for your king, but yet your purses spare;
Make him not two-pence richer by your prayer.
To show you love him much, chastise him more,
And make him very great, and very poor.
Push him to wars, but still no peace advance;
Let him lose England, to recover France.