Can fit you with what heirs we please;
And force you t’ own ’em, though begotten
By French valets, or Irish footmen.
Nor can the rigoroursest course
Prevail, unless to make us worse;
Who still, the harsher we are us’d,
Are further off from b’ing reduc’d,
And scorn t’ abate, for any ills,
The least punctilios of our wills.
Force does but whet our wits t’ apply
Arts, born with us for remedy;
Which all your politics, as yet,
Have ne’er been able to defeat:
For when y’ have try’d all sorts of ways,
What fools d’ we make of you in plays!
While all the favours we afford,
Are but to girt you with the sword,
To fight our battles in our steads,
And have your brains beat out o’ your heads;
Encounter, in despite of nature,
And fight at once with fire and water,
With pirates, rocks, and storms, and seas,
Our pride and vanity t’ appease;
Kill one another, and cut throats,
For our good graces, and best thoughts;
To do your exercise for honour,
And have your brains beat out the sooner;
Or crack’d, as learnedly, upon
Things that are never to be known;
And still appear the more industrious,
The more your projects are prepost’rous;
To square the circle of the arts,
And run stark mad to shew your parts;
Expound the oracle of laws,
And turn them which way we see cause;
Be our solicitors and agents,
And stand for us in all engagements.
And these are all the mighty pow’rs
You vainly boast to cry down ours,
And what in real value’s wanting,
Supply with vapouring and ranting;
Because yourselves are terrify’d,
And stoop to one another’s pride,
Believe we have as little wit
To be out-hector’d, and submit;
By your example, lose that right
In treaties which we gain’d in fight;
And, terrify’d into an awe,
Pass on ourselves a Salique law:221
Or, as some nations use, give place,
And truckle to your mighty race;
Let men usurp th’ unjust dominion,
As if they were the better women.
Glossary
- Advowtry
-
Adultery.
- Animalia
-
Animals.
- Arsie-versie
-
Upside-down.
- Aruspicy
-
Prophesying, fortune-telling.
- Bachrach
-
Wine from Bacharach, in Germany.
- Bavin
-
A bundle of firewood.
- Boutefeu
-
Arsonist or (literal or metaphorical) firebrand.
- Cacodaemon
-
An evil Spirit.
- Caldes’d
-
Cheated.
- Calendae
-
The 1st or 2nd of the month.
- Calleche
-
A carriage with two wheels and a folding hood.
- Camelion
-
A giraffe.
- Camisado
-
An attack by night, during which the attackers wore shirts over their armour so they could recognise one another.
- Cane et angue pejus
-
Worse than a dog or a snake.
- Caperdewsie
-
The stocks.
- Capoch’d
-
Pulled off the hoods.
- Caprich
-
A caprice.
- Carbonading
-
Thrashing, beating.
- Carroch
-
A stately or luxurious carriage.
- Catasta
-
The stocks.
- Cawdle
-
Soup or gruel.
- Ceruse
-
White lead used as a cosmetic.
- Champaign
-
Champagne wine.
- Chous’d, choust, chows’d
-
Cheated.
- Chouse
-
A cheat’s victim.
- Classis
-
The elders and pastors of all the Presbyterian congregations in a district.
- Coincidere
-
To come together.
- Congees
-
Bows, curtseys.
- Conster
-
Construe, explain.
- Conventicle
-
Secret or illegal religious meetings.
- Covins
-
Conspiracies.
- Cucking-stool
-
A stool to which a malefactor (often an unfaithful wife) was tied, to be exposed to public ridicule, or ducked in a pond or river.
- Curship
-
The title of being a cur—pun on “worship.”
- Curule
-
An ivory chair used as a mayor’s throne.
- Deletory
-
That which wipes out or destroys.
- Deodand
-
In English law an article which had caused a man’s death was ordered by the court to be a forfeited as a deodand (Ad Deodandum—to be given to God). Before the reformation it or its value was given to the Church; afterwards to the local landowner.
- Dewtry
-
A stupefying drink made from the Indian thorn-apple fruit.
- Dialectico
-
A philosophical point of argument.
- Dictum factum
-
No sooner said than done.
- Disparo
-
To separate.
- Donzel
-
A young page or squire.
- Drazel
-
A slut.
- Ducatoon
-
An Italian silver coin, worth about 6 shillings.
- Ejusdem generis
-
Of the same kind.
- Enucleate
-
To explain the meaning of.
- Ex parte
-
On behalf of.
- Exaunt
-
A religious establishment not under the authority of the local bishop.
- Fadging
-
Fitting.
- Feme-covert
-
A woman under the protection of a husband (a legal term)
- Ferk
-
Beat, whip.
- Festina lente
-
Make haste slowly.
- Fingle-fangle
-
A whimsical or fantastic idea.
- Fother
-
A cartload.
- Fulhams
-
Loaded dice.
- Ganzas
-
The birds which the hero of a popular romance harnessed to take him to the moon.
- Genethliack
-
A caster of horoscopes.
- Geomancy
-
Divination by interpreting the patterns of lines drawn at random on the ground or on paper.
- Gleave
-
A spear or halberd.
- Granado
-
A grenade.
- Grilly’d
-
Grilled.
- Grincam
-
Syphilis.
- Guep
-
Go on!—said to a horse or as an expression of derision.
- Habergeon
-
A chain-mail shirt.
- Haut-gouts
-
Tasty things.
- Headborough
-
A constable.
- Hiccius Doctius
-
A nonsense word used by jugglers, conjurers etc., hence, any kind of trick or dishonest dealing.
- Hight
-
Called, named.
- Hoccamore
-
Wine from Hochheim, in Germany.
- Horary
-
Hourly.
- Huckle
-
The hip.
- Huguenots
-
French Calvinists.
- Hypocondries
-
The upper abdomen, between the breastbone and the navel.
- Id est
-
That is.
- Idem
-
The same.
- Illation
-
Inference, deduction.
- In eodem subjecto
-
Thrown together in the same place.
- In querpo
-
Naked.
- Jobbernol(e)
-
A thick head or blockhead.
- Jure divino
-
By God’s law.
- Langued
-
Heraldic term meaning, with a tongue of a particular colour e.g. langued gules—with a red tongue.
- Lathy
-
Thin, like a lath.
- Linsey-woolsey
-
A cloth of mixed wool and linen threads.
- Linstock
-
A stick for holding a gunner’s match.
- L’Ombre
-
A card game.
- Longees
-
Lunges.
- Lustrations
-
Ceremonials of ritual purification by washing.
- Mainprize
-
To stand surety for someone.
- Manicon
-
A plant (deadly nightshade) or its extract, believed
