ANOTHER
BALLAD:
Called the
Libertines Lampoone:
OR,
The Curvets of Conscience.
To the Tune of, Thomas Venner, Or 60.
Written by the Authour of the Geneva Ballad
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AS I examin'd my Conscience,
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All by myself;
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My head was full of Nonsence:
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After seven times turning,
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Worse then a burning,
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I found she was a Wayward Elf.
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Ceremonious Oaths, and humane Laws offend her,
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She's constant as a Weather-cock, and as a Milstone tender;
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E'ne such another Protestant, as the old Witch of Ender.
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Halloo my Conscience whither wilt thou go.
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Treason she says is Religion,
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Sacriledge Zeal;
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A Crow she calls a Pidgeon:
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She tells you further,
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Plundering and Murther,
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Do Service to the Common-weal.
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Justice she esteemeth to be a very slow thing,
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Power Ecclesiastick, she reckons as a low thing,
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And for an Act of Parliament she counts it next to nothing;
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Halloo my Conscience, etc.
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A Nonconformist to please her,
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Lately declar'd:
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She's more a Prince then Caesar;
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Say what she will say,
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These fellows still say,
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She must and ought to be heard.
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Though Mallice can corrupt her, and Avarice can taint her,
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Pride can blow her up, and Hypocrisie can paint her,
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And when Truth cryes her down Sedition can Saint her.
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Halloo my Conscience, etc.
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Changes she can Ring a hundred
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More then are good,
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Else it might be wondred,
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In the mutations,
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Of these three Nations
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How upon her Legs she hath stood.
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For under the old Rumpers she was enforc'd to truckle,
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Cromwel and his Janisaries made her glad to buckle,
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And when the King came in, she got the trick to smuckle.
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Halloo my Conscience, etc.
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When Smec and the Independant
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Began to Clash:
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She could foresee the end on't;
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And as soon as the day
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First brake at Breda,
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She kept herself out of the lash.
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Although of the Surplice she never had a Rag on,
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Of all her nimble tricks, this she hath cause to brag on,
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She pitcht upon her Feet when Bell fought with the Dragon
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Halloo my, etc.
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Quite from bending and bowing,
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She is declin'd:
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To Theeing, and to Thouing,
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Sects and perswasions
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All Modes and Fashions,
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Of every sort and kind.
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She was a Brownist lately, an Anabaptist newly,
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And then she fell to plainly, Verily and Truly:
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But errors have no end, and factions want a Thule.
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Halloo my, etc.
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Such is her intricate winding
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No Man can trace,
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She loaths to hear of binding:
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She's free and willing,
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Although it be by killing
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To run the Fanatick Race.
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He that can restrain her, may fix the stars that wander,
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Cure the fits of Jealousie, or gag the Mouth of Slander:
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Sail without a Rudder, and rectifie Meander.
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Halloo my, etc.
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Drunk with the Doctrine of Tub-men
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See how she reels,
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From Men of Law to Club-men,
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This way and that way,
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No man knows what way,
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Unsteadfast as Phaetons Wheels:
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In Faith none more fervent, in Charity none colder,
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As fiery as Bucephalus, and then blind Byard bolder:
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She's too untame for Earth, and none but Hell can hold her.
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I, I, 'tis thither, thither, she may go.
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