Merry Drollery Compleat (1691)/The Power of the Sword
For other versions of this work, see Law lies a Bleeding.
The Power of the Sword.
Lay by your pleading, Law lies a bleeding,Burn all your Studies down, & throw away your reading;Small power the Word has, & can afford usNot halfe so many Priviledges as the Sword has:It fosters your masters, it plaisters disasters,And makes your servants, quickly greater than their Masters;It venters, it enters, it circles, it centers,And makes a Prentice free in spight of his Indentures.
This takes off tall things, and sets up small things,This masters Money, though Money masters all things; ’Tis not in season to talk of Reason,Or call it legal, when the Sword will have it treason;It conquers the Crown too, the Furs & the Gown too;This set up a Presbyter, and this pull’d him down too;This subtill Deceiver turn’d Bonnet to Beaver,Down drops a Bishop, and up starts a Weaver.
This fits a lay-man to preach and to pray man,’Tis this can make a Lord of him that was a dray-man,Forth from the dull pit of Follies full pit;This brought an Hebrew Ironmonger to the Pulpit,Such pittiful things be more happier then Kings be;This got the Herauldry of Thimblebee & Slingsbee;No Gospel can guide it, no Law can decide it,In Church or State untill the Sword hath sanctifi’d it.
Down goes the Law-tricks, for from that MatrixSprung holy Hewsons power, and tumbled down St. Patricks;The sword prevails so highly in Wales too,Shinkin ap Powel cries, and swears Cuts-plutter-nails, too;In Scotland this Waster did make such disaster,They sent their money back for which they sold their Master;It batter’d so their Dunkirk, and did so the Don firkeThat he is fled, and swears, the devil is in Dunkirke.
He that can tower o’er him that is lower,would be but thought a fool to put away his power. Take books and rent ’um, who would invent ’um,When as the Sword replies, negatur argumentum?Your grand Colledge Butlers must stoop to your sutlers,There’s not a Library living like the cutlers;The bloud that is spilt, sir, hath gaind all the guilt, sir,Thus have you seen me run the Sword up to the hilts Sir.