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[Title-page of Original Edition.]

The Medall.

A

SATYRE

AGAINST

SEDITION

By the Authour of Absalom and Achitopbel.

Per Graiûm populos, mediæque per Elidis Urbem
Ibat ovans; Divumque fibi pofcebat Honores.

LONDON,

Printed for Jacob Tonfon at the Judge's Head in
Chancery-lane, near Fleet-ftreet. 1682.

EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS.

For to whom can I dedicate this Poem, with so much justice, as to you? 'Tis the representation of your own Heroe: 'tis the Picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your Ornaments are wanting; neither the landscap of the Tower, nor the Rising Sun, nor the Anno Domini of your New Sovereign's Coronation. This must needs be a gratefull undertaking to your whole Party: especially to those who have not been s happy as to purchase the Original. I hear the Graver has made a good Market of it all his Kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so inhanc'd, that many a poor Polander who would be glad to worship the Image is not able to go to the cost of him: But 10 must be content to see him here. I must confess I am no great artist; but Signpost painting will serve the turn to remember a Friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet for your comfort the lineaments are true; and though he sale not five times to me, as he did to B., yet I have consulted History, as the Italian Painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula; though they have not seen the Man, they can help their Imagination by a Statue of him, and find out the Colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spar'd one side of your Medall: the Head wou'd be seen to more advantage, if it were plac'd on a Spike of the Tower; a little nearer to the Sun. Which wou'd then break out to beller purpose. You tell us in your Preface to the No-Protestant Plot, that you shall be forc'd hereafter to leave off your Modesty: I suppose you mean that little which is left you ; 20 for it was worn to rags when you put out this Medall. Never was there practis'd such a piece of notorious Impudence in the face of an Establish'd Government. I believe, when he is dead, you will wear him in Thumb-Rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg; as if there were virtue in his Bones to preserve you against Monarchy. Yet all this while you pretend not onely zeal for the Publick good; but a due veneration for the person of the King. But all men who can see an inch before them, may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it is necessary for men in your circumstances to prelend both, is granted you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a Faction. But I would ask you one civil question, what right has any man among you, or any Association of men, (to come nearer to you,) who out of Parliament cannot be consider'd in a publick Capacity, to meet, as you daily doe, in Factious Clubs, to vilify 30 the Government in your Discourses and to libel it in all your Writings? Who made you Judges in Israel? or how is it consistent with your Zeal of the publick Welfare to promote Sedition? Does your definition of loyal, which is to serve the King according to the Laws, allow you the licence of traducing the Executive Power with which you own he is invested? You complain that his Majesty has lost the love and confidence of his People; and by your very urging it you endeavour what in you lies, to make him lose them. All good Subjects abhor the thought of Arbitrary Power, whether it be in one or many: if you were the Patriots you would seem, you would not at this rate incense the Multitude to assume it; for no sober man can fear it, either from the King's Disposition, or his Practice, or even, where you would odiously lay it, from his Ministers. Give us leave to enjoy the Government and the benefit of laws under 40 which we were born, and which we desire to transmit to our Posterity. You are not the Trustees of the Publick liberty: and if you have not right to petition in a Crowd, much less have you to intermeddle in the management of Affairs, or to arraign what you do not like: which in effect is everything that is done by the King and Council. Can you imagine that any reasonable man will believe you respect the person of his Majesty, when 'tis apparent that your Seditious Pamphlets are stuff'd with particular Reflexions on him? If you have the confidence to deny this, 'tis easy to be evinc'd from a thousand Passages, which I onely forbear to quote, because I desire they should die and be forgotlen. I have perus'd many of your Papers: and to show you that I have, the third part of your No-Protestant Plot is much of it stolen, from your dead Authour's Pamphlet, called the Growth of Popery, as manifestly as Milton's defence of

the English People is from Buchanan, de Jure regni apud Scotos, or your First Covenant and new Association, from the holy League of the French Guisards. Any one who reads Davila may trace your Practices all along. There were the same pretences for Reformation, and Loyalty, the same Aspersions of the King, and the same grounds of a Rebellion. I know not whether you will take the Historian's word, who says it was reported that Poltrot, a Hugonot, murthered Francis, Duke of Guise, by the instigations of Theodore Beza: or that it was a Hugonot Minister, otherwise call'd a Presbyterian (for our Church abhors so devilish a Teneni) who first writ a Treatise of the lawfulness of deposing and murthering kings of a different Perswasion in Religion: But I am able to prove from the doctrine of Calvin, and Principles of Buchanan, that they set the People above the Magistrate; which if I mistake not, is your 10 own Fundamental, and which carries your Loyalty no farther than your liking. When a vote of the House of Commons goes on your side, you are as ready to observe it as if it were pass'd into a Law: But when you are pinch'd with any former, and yet unrepealed Act of Parliament, you declare that, in same cases, you will not be oblig'd by it. The Passage is in the same third part of the No-Protestant Plot; and is too plain to be denied. The late Copy of your intended Association you neither wholly justify nor condemn; But, as the Papists, when they are unoppos'd, fly out into all the Pageantry's of Worship; but in times of War, when they are hard press'd by Arguments, lie close intrench'd behind the Council of Trent; So, now, when your Affairs are in a low condition, you dare not pretend that to be a legal Combination, but whensoever you are afloat, I doubt not but it will be maintain'd and justify'd to purpose. 20 For indeed there is nothing to defend it but the Sword: 'tis the proper time to say anything, when men have all things in their power.

In the mean time, you wou'd fain be nibbling at a parallel betwixt this Association and that in the time of Queen Elizabeth. But there is this small difference betwixt them, that the ends of the one are directly opposite to the other: one with the Queen's approbation and conjunction, as head of it; the other, without either the consent, or knowledge of the King, against whose Authority it is manifestly designed. Therefore, you doe well to have recourse to your last Evasion, that it was contriv'd by your Enemies, and shuffled into the Papers that were seiz'd; which yet you see the nation is not so easy to believe as your own Jury; But the matter is not difficult, to find twelve men in New-gate, who would acquit a Malefactour.

30

I have one onely favour to desire of you at parting, that when you think of answering this Poem, you wou'd employ the same Pens against it who have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel: for then you may assure yourselves of a clear Victory, without the least reply. Raile at me abundantly; and, not to break a Custome, doe it without wit: By this method you will gain a considerable point, which is wholly to wave the answer of my Arguments. Never own the botome of your Principles, for fear they shoud be Treason. Fall severely on the miscarriages of Government: for, if scandal be not allow'd, you are no freeborn subjects. If God has not bless'd you with the Talent of Rhiming, make use of my poor Stock and wellcome: let your Verses run upon my feet; and for the utmost refuge of notorious Block-heads, reduc'd to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me; and, in utter 40 despaire of your own Satyre, make me Satyrize my self. Some of you have been driven to this Bay already; But above all the rest commend me to the Non-conformist Parson, who writ the Whip and Key. I am afraid it is not read so much as the Piece deserves, because the bookseller is every week crying help at the end of his Gazette, to get it off. You see I am charitable enough to doe him a kindness, that it may be publish'd as well as printed; and that so much skill in Hebrew Derivations may not lie for Wast-paper in the Shop. Yet I half suspect he went no farther for his learning, than the Index of Hebrew Names and Etymologies, which is printed at the end of some English Bibles. If Achitophel signify the Brother of a Fool, the Authour of that Poem will pass with his Readers for the next of kin. And perhaps 'tis the Relation that makes the kindness. Whatever the Verses are, buy 'em up I beseech you out 50 of pity; for I hear the Conventicle is shut up, and the Brother of Achitophel out of service.

9 and Principles of Buchanan] The editors give and the principles of Buchanan

Now Foolmen, you know, have the generosity to make a Purse for a Member of their Society, who has had his Livery pull'd over his Ears; and even Protestant Socks are bought up among you, out of veneration to the name. A Dissenter in Poetry from Sense and English will make as good a Protestant Rhymer, as a Dissenter from the Church of England a Protestant Parson. Besides, if you encourage a young Beginner, who knows but he may elevate his stile a little above the vulgar epithets of prophane and sawcy Jack, and Atheistick Scribler, with which he treats me, when the fit of Enthusiasm is strong upon him: by which well-mannered and charitable Expressions I was certain of his Sect, before I knew his name. What would you have more of a man? he has damn'd me in your Cause from Genesis to the Revelations : 10 And has half the Texts of both the Testaments against me, if you will be so civil to your selves as to take him for your Interpreter; and not to take them for Irish Witnesses. After all, perhaps you will tell me, that you retain'd him onely for the opening of your Cause, and that your main Lawyer is yet behind. Now if it so happen he meet with no more reply than his Predecessours, you may either conclude that I trust to the goodness of my Cause, or fear my Adversary, or disdain him, or what you please, for the short on't is, 'tis indifferent to your humble servant, whatever your Party says or thinks of him.

THE MEDALL.

A SATYRE AGAINST SEDITION.

Of all our Antick Sights and Pageantry
Which English Idiots run in crowds to see,
The Polish Medal bears the prize alone :
A Monster, more the Favourite of the Town
Than either Fairs or Theatres have shown.)
Never did Art so well with Nature strive,
Nor ever Idol seem'd so much alive;
So like the Man; so golden to the sight,
So base within, so counterfeit and light.
One side is fill'd with Title and with Face; 10
And, lest the King shou'd want a regal
Place,

On the reverse, a Tow'r the Town surveys,
O'er which our mounting Sun his beams dis-
plays.

The Word, pronounc'd aloud by Shrieval voice,

Lætamur, which in Polish is rejoyce,

Oh, cou'd the Style that copy'd every grace
And plough'd such furrows for an Eunuch
face,

Cou'd it have formed his ever-changing Will,
The various Piece had tir'd the Graver's
Skill!

A Martial Heroe first, with early care
Blown, like a Pigmee by the Winds, to war.
A beardless Chief, a Rebel e'er a Man,
(So young his hatred to his Prince began.)
Next this, (How wildly will Ambition steer!)
A Vermin wriggling in th' Usurper's ear, 31
Bart'ring his venal wit for sums of gold,
IIe cast himself into the Saint-like mould;
Groan'd, sigh'd, and pray'd, while Godliness
was gain,

The lowdest Bag-pipe of the Squeaking train.
But, as 'tis hard to cheat a Juggler's Eyes,

The Day, Month, Year, to the great Act are His open lewdness he cou'd ne'er disguise.

join'd,

And a new Canting Holiday design'd.
Five daies he sate for every cast and look;
Four more than God to finish Adam took.
But who can tell what Essence angels are 20
Or how long Heav'n was making Lucifer?

Text from the second edition, 1683, except as
noted. The first edition was of 1682.
7 alive. 1682: alive? 1683.
21 Lucifer 1682: Lucifer! 1583.

There split the Saint: for Hypocritique Zeal
Allows no Sins but those it can conceal.
Whoring to Scandal gives too large a scope;
Saints must not trade; but they may inter-
lope.

4I

Th' ungodly Principle was all the same;
But a gross Cheat betrays his Partner's
Game.

Besides, their pace was formal, grave, and
slack;

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