I have but one word more to fay, and that is this: we have great caufe to rejoyce in the happy fettlement of this common-wealth, but I fear we shall not be quiet yet. God bless us from outward dreams and restless nights; and send us well to digeft this thanksgiving dinner, and to have no more of them, nor occafion for them in hafte: for the frights they put us into before-hand are terrible, and the dinners themselves are chargeable, and will prove chargeable indeed, if malignants ipeak truth, who fay this very day's thanksgiving will coft no less than our heads, if not our fouls too into the bargain. Therefore, gentlemen, in a word, I think we have but one play, and that is to hold up the ftate as long as we can, and to make fure of our heads and eftates, and pillage other mens, when we can hold it no longer. Hugh Peters's Thanksgiving Speech for a Farewel to the City, in the behalf of the General and Lieutenant-Genneral. Mr Alderman Pennington, I and the rest of the Reprefentatives of the City, MUST tell you, I have been half the world over, and yet. I am come back again; and by my faith, Sirs, I muit tell you, I never faw fuch a goodly jolly crew as are here, all hail fellows well met together. 'Tis merry when maltmen meet; and (they fay) fome of us here have been brewers, and worse trades too; but uh-uh----let that pafs. I defy brewing, for I have been all over your wine cellar, and that's another world, but 'tis as flippery a world as this, and runs too: what a Nicodemus is the butler! he was loth to own me but by night; he bad me ftay till night, and then I should have my bell-full, Now, Sirs, I conceive a belly-full, is a belly-full, and if a man have not his belly-full, it is no thanksgiving: and if you gentlemen of the city, have not a belly-full of this thankfgiving, I fay, may you have a belly-full. Had Dr Doriflaus been fo wife as to have ftaid at home, he might have had another kind of belly-full than he had at the Hague: but a belly-full ftill is a bellyfull; and Grocers-Hall is a better ordinary than a Dutch 2 ordinary ordinary for a belly-full. Pox o' your Dutch ordinaries, I thing they will become English, and give us all a bellyful; but in another kind, I fear, than I gave my Dutch land-lady and her daughter. But no matter for that, a belly-full is a belly-full; their bellies were empty, and fo was mine; for I had not fo much as a fiver to blefs myself, and they would never let me be quiet, and I fcor'd up ftill, and fo I got my belly-full, and they got their bellies full; which was one belly-full for another, and fo at length I was quit with them. Then I went to New-England, and there I saw a blesfed fight; a world of wild women and men lying round a fire in a ring ftark naked. If this cuftom fhould come up in London (as I fee no reafon but it may, if the state will vote it) then every woman may have her belly-full; and it would be a certain cure for cuckoldom and jealousy, and fo the city would lofe nothing by this thanksgiving. But now to come home to the point in hand: my lord mayor, and you gentlemen of the city, I am commanded to give you thanks: yes, I will, when I have my bellyfull; but your butler is no true Trojan; he knows not how to tap and tofs the fingo. Sure, he is fome prefbyterian spy that is flinkt into office; fome cowardly fellow that pines away at fcandalous fins, and the ftool of repen tance, and he will never do well till drench'd for the humour; fo that now I fee I am like to go away without my belly-full, and have never a jig to the tune of Arthur of Bradley, Sing O! brave Arthur of Brad ley --- Sing O! But if things go thus, what should I fee you for? the ftates forefaw what forry good-fellows you would be, or elfe fome of you had been knighted, as well as my lord of Pembroke. Nay, it was God's mercy you had not all been knighted: for it was put to the vote (I tell you) whether my lord mayor fhould be knighted; and whether, you alderman Pennington, and alderman Atkins, fhould be dubb'd Sir Ifaac and Sir Thomas of the state's own creation. But fince 'tis refolved otherwise, I pray you, bid the butler bring up his cannikins, and I'll make you all lords like myfelf, for now I am no lefs in title than Hugo de Santo Pietro Puntado, and every jot as merry as forty beggars. Now I warrant, you expect I fhould thank you for his excellency's golden bafon and ewer. 'Tis true, I was commanded to do fo; but what care I for a bafon and ewer? give me a pipe and a chamber-pot; I mean a pipe of canary into the bargain, or elfe it fhall be no thanksgiving-day for me. Oh! for a conduit from Malaga, and we knew how to convey Middleton's pipes to the Canary islands, then there would be no end of thanksgiving. I am commanded likewife to thank you for the Lieutenant-General's plate, and his purfe of gold: and I am fo much the more willing to do it, because I hope to have a feeling out of it anon when we come home: but (as I take it) you have more reason to thank him, than he you. For you gave him a little purfe of money, and 'tis his goodness he does not take all. I obferve too, you have given him but the value of 500 1. and his excellency, forfooth, as much more. Do you know what you do? could you not have askt my counsel before? you may chance to be switch't, 'faith, for not fetting the faddle upon the right horfe and well you deserve it, if I be not furnish't with pipe of canary. Let me not be put off with nothing, like my lord prefident, and Mr Speaker; you know where to fend, Sirs, my lodging is fometimes at St James's, but most an end in ThamesStreet. There my maid, a handfome lafs, I tell you, will take it in as well as myself, or elfe I would ne'er keep her. Farewel, Sirs, here's nothing to do, I fee. A pox on your butler, and on his lean jowl, Thus it is in one of our modern authors; but I confefs I can have none of this liberty, tho' it be the first year of freedom; and than judge you, whether the state, or the state's servants have any cause of thanks. Farewel, Sirs, I am gone, O! for a milk-bowl, or his excellency's bafon and ewer now, to fpew in, and make an end of thanksgiving. A A Seafonable Speech spoken by Alderman Atkins in the Rump-Parliament. Mr Speaker, A FTER fo many difpenfations and out-goings of providence, we are now the third time return'd to fit in this honourable house again; but how long we shall do fo, I believe the wifeft of us all cannot tell for the foldiers have of late fet up governments, as boys do ninepins, to throw them down again. But how oft foever they turn us out hereafter, I fhall never doubt to get in again for I perceive thofe changes and revolutions (as they call them) are just like cafting of knaves at cards, where fome play, and fome fit out, till the fet be up, or till the gamfters fall out and throw up their cards, and then they ftand fair to be in again. But notwithstanding fo many interruptions and disturbances? many mighty and great works have been carried on by us worms and no men. You, Sir, have a new-wainscot chair, and our feats that were but covered with mats, when we came first to fit here, are now lined with good broad cloth of fixteen fhillings per yard, and the whole house is hang'd in a better manner, than any man expected. But this is not all that we have done; for we have reformed religion, and brought the church as nigh to what it was in the primitive times amongst the Jews and Pagans, as may be; for the Chriftians have fold all they have long fince, and laid it at our feet, and we begin once more to have all things in common. Befides, Sir, we have done ftrange juftice on the late tyrant, and transform'd the kingdom into a common-wealth, as Nebuchadnezzar was into a beaft. But there is one thing that we have omitted, and which indeed the people have much reason to expect from us; for reformation, as well as charity, begins at home: to hold forth my meaning in brief to you, Sir, 'tis the cleanfing of our house of office; and if that name be not mannerly enough for this place, it is in your power to help it: for there is a fpare name that hath been lately conferred upon this honourable houfe by the people, which was once called the houfe of parliament, as it is now the Rump. This name, in my opinion, we cannot better difpofe of, than in conferring it on the houfe I fpoke of; for not only that, but all other houses of the fame quality, (of which ours is the reprefentative) may in the right thereof hereafter he called a Rump, as being a name more proper and fignificant, in regard of the relation it hath to the part. And truly, Sir, I believe the wisdom and justice of this houfe can do no lefs, if you please but to confider the near and intimate correfpondence that houfe has ever held with this, as having ever been intrufted with the most urgent and weighty matters that we have ever carried on; and fo neceffary that I may boldly fay, without that recourfe which we have had to it in our greatest extremities, this houfe might have fuffer'd for it many a time and oft. It is now, Sir, as full as this honourable houfe was once of members, and as unufeful; until we take fome courfe to empty it, as we did this; which I humbly conceive, we can by no means avoid. For, under favour, I do not think we can ufe this houfe as we did the house of lords; I mean, vote it down, when it will ferve our turns no longer no, this is a matter of a higher nature, and more weighty concernment; and as the difference is great in reafon of state, so it is alfo in point of confcience for tho' it is true we engag'd and fwore to maintain the house of lords, yet we did it not after a right manner; for we read, it was a custom among the Jews, when they made any folem vow, to put their hands under one another's hams; and if we had done fo when we fwore that, and kiss'd the book, I grant, we had been bound in confcience to have upheld it longer than we did, I mean longer than we had need of it; but we, quite contrary, held up our hands, and fo were not bound to keep it otherwife than we took it, viz. hand over head; for unless we differ'd from the Jews in other matters more than we do, I know no reason why we fhould in this. But now I fpeak of the Jews, give me leave, by obferving one paffage in their hiftory, to hold forth unto you the danger of fuppreffing the aforefaid house. Saul, for want of fuch a convenience, going into a cave where David had hid himself, had like to have loft his life; for if David had been one of us, I know what would have become of Saul; he would rather have cut off his head, than a piece of his coat; as I wonder he did not |