_ Good Mercury defend us.
_Pha._ From secret friends, sweet servants, loves, doves,
and such fantastique humours.
_Chorus._ Good Mercury defend us.
The same charitable allowance may be conceded to the songs composed by
the Cavaliers in the Civil War. We should not be surprised to find a
tone of levity in them, but they were certainly not intended to throw
any discredit on our Church. In "The Rump, or an exact collection of the
choicest poems and songs relating to the late times from 1639" we have
"A Litany for the New Year," of which the following will serve as a
specimen--
"From Rumps, that do rule against customes and laws
From a fardle of fancies stiled a good old cause,
From wives that have nails that are sharper than claws,
Good Jove deliver us."
Among the curious tracts collected by Lord Somers we find a "New
Testament of our Lords and Saviours, the House of our Lords and
Saviours, the House of Commons, and the Supreme Council at Windsor." It
gives "The Genealogy of the Parliament" from the year 1640 to 1648, and
commences "The Book of the Generation of Charles Pim, the son of Judas,
the son of Beelzebub," and goes on to state in the thirteenth verse that
"King Charles being a just man, and not willing to have the people
ruinated, was minded to dissolve them, (the Parliament), but while he
thought on these things.
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