Our callings and estates we flung away; Our plate, our coin, our jewels, and our rings, As if they had old rusty horse-shoes been." Did start up living men as soon.] A contemporary author observes, "That the Parliament were able to raise forces, and arm them well, by reason of the great masses of plate which to that purpose were heaped up in Guildhall, where not only the wealthiest citizens and gentlemen, who were near dwellers, brought in their large bags and goblets, but the poorer sort presented their mites also, insomuch that it was a common jeer of men disaffected to the cause to call it "the Thimble and Bodkin Army.". The same farce was acted at the commencement of the French revolution, when the Parisian women carried their trinkets to the bar of the National Convention, and the church plate and bells were ordered to be melted down for the service of the armies. V. 572. Just like the dragon's teeth b'ing sown.] Alluding to the fable of Cadmus, who having slain a dragon which had killed many of his companions, he took the teeth and sowed them in the ground, out of each of which sprung an armed man. V. 575. Like th' Hebrew salf, and down before it.] The molten calf which the Israelites set up in the wilderness. The author of a book entitled English and Scotch Presbytery, observed upon the Parliamentary ordinance commanding the people to bring in their plate, “That the seditious zealots contributed as freely as the idolatrous Israelites, to make a golden calf; and those that did not bring in their plate, they plundered their houses, and took it away by force: and at the same time commanded the people to take up arms, under pain of being hanged." V. 578. Made that sarcasmus, &c.] To heighten the ridicule of the knight's character, he is continually coining or using uncommon words. The phrase here means nothing more than insulting or abusive. V. 581. Have powerful preachers ply'd their tongues.] The preachers were indefatigable in their endeavours to prevail on the people to grant voluntary loans for the use of the Parliament. One of them, preaching upon this subject at Guildhall, used the following expressions: “If ever, gentlemen, you might use this speech of Bernardius Ochinus, (which he hinted at before,) O happy penny, you may use it now! Happy money, that will purchase religion, and purchase a reformation for my posterity! O happy money, and blessed to God, I have it to lend! and I 'count it the greatest opportunity that God did ever offer to the godly of this kingdom, to give them some money to lend to this cause: and I remember in this ordinance of Parliament it is called advance money it is called an ordinance to advance money towards the maintaining the Parliament forces; and truly it is the highest advance of money to make money an instrument to advance religion: the Lord give your hearts to believe this. For my part, I speak it in the name of myself, and in the names of these reverend ministers; we will not only speak to persuade you to contribute, but every one of us that God hath given any estate to, we will all to our utmost power; we will not only say ite, but venite." V. 585. Have they invented tones to win.] Alluding to the whining tones in which puritanical teachers were accustomed to deliver their discourses. V. 587-8. The men, as Indians with a female Tame elephant inveigle the male.] The following account of taking and taming wild elephants is to be found in Bewick's History of Quadrupeds. "In the midst of a forest abounding with elephants, a large piece of ground is marked out, and surrounded with strong palisades, interwoven with branches of trees: one end of the inclosure is narrow; from which it widens gradually, so as to take in a vast extent of country. Several thousand men are employed on the occasion, who place themselves in such a manner as to prevent the wild elephants from making their escape: they kindle large fires at certain distances, and make a dreadful noise with drums and various kinds of discordant instruments, calculated for the purpose of stunning and terrifying the poor animals: whilst another party, consisting of some thousands, with the assistance of tame female elephants, trained for the purpose, drive the wild elephants slowly towards the great gate of the inclosure, the whole train of hunters closing in after them, shouting and making a great noise, till they are driven, by insensible degrees, into the narrow part of the inclosure, through which there is an opening into a smaller space, strongly fenced in and guarded on all sides. As soon as one of the elephants enters this strait, a strong bar closes the passage from behind, and he finds himself completely environed. On the top of this narrow passage some of the huntsmen stand with goads in their hands, urging the creature forward to the end of the passage, where there is an opening just wide enough to let him pass. He is now received into the custody of two females, who stand on each side of him, and press him into the service. If he be likely to prove refractory, they begin to discipline him with their trunks, till he is reduced to obedience, and suffers himself to be led to a tree, where he is bound by the leg with stout thongs, made of untanned elk or buck-skin. The tame elephants are then led back to the inclosure, and others are made to submit in the same manner. They are all suffered to remain fast to the trees for several days. Attendants are placed by the side of each animal, who supply him with food by little and little, till he is brought, by degrees, to be sensible of kindness and caresses, and allows himself to be led to the stable. In the space of fourteen days his absolute submission is completed. During that time he is fed daily with cocoa-nut leaves, and led once a day to the water by the tame ones. He becomes accustomed to the voice of his keeper, and at last quietly resigns his prodigious powers to the dominion and service of man." V. 589. Have they told Prov'dence what it must do.] It was a common practice for the preachers in their sermons to inform God of the transactions of the times. "Oh! my good Lord God," says Mr. G. Swathe, Prayers, p. 12, "I hear the king hath set up his standard at York against the Parliament and city of London.Look thou upon them, take their cause into thine own hand; appear thou in the cause of thy saints; the cause in hand :-It is thy cause, Lord; we know that the king is misled, deluded, and deceived by the popish, arminian, temporising, rebellious, malignant, faction and party," &c. To such a height did their extravagancies proceed, "that they would," says Dr. Echard, "in their prayers and sermons, tell God, that they would be willing to be at any charge and trouble for him, and to do, as it were, any kindness for the Lord; the Lord might now trust them, and rely upon them, they should not fail him: they should not be unmindful of his business: 'his work should not stand still, nor his designs be neglected. They must needs say, that they had formerly received some favors from God, and have been, as it were, beholden to the Almighty, but they did not much question but that they should find some opportunity of making some amends for the many good things, and (as I may so say) civilities, which they had received from him: indeed, as for those that are weak in the faith, and are yet but babes in Christ, it is fit that such should keep at some distance from God, should kneel before him, and stand (as I may so say) cap in hand to the Almighty: but as for those that are strong in all gifts, and grown up in all grace, and are come to a fulness and ripeness in the Lord Jesus, it is comely enough to take a great chair, and sit at the end of the table, and, with their cocked hats on their heads, to say, God, we thought it not amiss to call upon thee this evening, and let thee know how affairs stand; we have been very watchful since we were last with thee, and they are in a very hopeful condition; we hope that thou wilt not forget us, for we are very thoughtful of thy concerns: we do somewhat long to hear from thee; and if thou pleasest to give us such a thing (victory) we shall be (as I may so say) good to thee in something else when it lies in our way." V. 602. They will not, cannot acquiesce.] Alluding probably to their blasphemous expostulations with God from the pulpit. Mr. Vines, one of the pulpit-orators of those distracted times, used the following words in St. Clement's church, near Temple Bar: "O Lord, thou hast never given us a victory this long while, for all our frequent fastings: what dost thou mean, O Lord, to fling into a ditch, and there to leave us?" And one Robinson, in his prayer, at Southampton, August 25, 1642, expressed himself in the following manner: "O God, O God! many are the hands that are lift up against us, but there is one God, it is thou thyself, O Father, who does us more mischief than they all." Another of them, one Harris, in a fast sermon preached before the Commons, said to them, “Gather upon God, and hold him fast as Jacob did; press him with his precepts, with his promises, with his hand, with his seal, with his oath, till we (if I may speak it reverently enough) VOL. I. N put the Lord out of countenance, put him, as you would say, to the blush, unless we be masters of our requests." V. 609. The Parliament drew up petitions.] When the seditious members of the House of Commons wanted to have any thing pass the House, which they feared would meet with opposition, they would draw up a petition to the Parliament, and send it to their friends in the country to get it signed, and brought it up to the Parliament by as many as could be prevailed on to do it. Their way of doing it, as Lord Clarendon observes in his History of the Rebellion, was to prepare a petition, very modest and dutiful for the form, and for the matter not very unreasonable; and to communicate it at some public meeting, where care was taken it should be received with approbation: the subscription of a very few hands filled the paper itself where the petition was written, and therefore many more sheets were annexed for the reception of the numbers, which gave all the credit, and procured all the countenance to the undertaking. When a multitude of hands were procured, the petition itself was cut off, and a new one framed, agreeable to the design in hand, and annexed to a long list of names which was subscribed to the former; by this means many men found their names subscribed to petitions of which they before had never heard." V. 621. Velis et remis, omnibus nervis.] With both sails and oars, their whole strength. V. 637-8. For to subscribe, unsight, unseen, To an unknown church-discipline.] Lord Clarendon, in his Observations on the Solemn League and Covenant, says, "They promised to reform the church according to the best reformed churches, though none of them knew, neither could they agree, which churches were best reformed, and very few, if any, of them knew which was the true form of those churches." V. 639-40. What it is else, but beforehand T'engage and after understand?] Of this kind was the casuistry of the mayor and jurates of Hastings, one of the Cinque Ports, who would have had some of the assistants to swear in general to assist them, and afterwards they should know the particulars; and when they scrupled, they told them, "They need not be so scrupulous, though they did not know what they |