A Dialogue between Two Horses.

We read, in profane and sacred records,
Of beasts which have uttered articulate words:
When magpies and parrots cry, walk, knaves, walk!
It is a clear proof that birds too may talk;
And statues, without either windpipes or lungs,
Have spoken as plainly as men do with tongues.
Livy tells a strange story, can hardly be fellowed,
That a sacrificed ox, when his guts were out, bellowed;
Phalaris had a bull, which grave authors tell ye,
Would roar like a devil with a man in his belly;
Friar Bacon had a head that spake made of brass;
And Balaam the prophet was reproved by his ass;
At Delphos and Rome stocks and stones, now and then, sirs,
Have to questions returned articulate answers.
All Popish believers think something divine,
When images speak, possesseth the shrine;
But they that faith catholic ne'er understood,
When shrines give an answer, a knave's on the rood.
Those idols ne'er spoke, but are miracles done
By the devil, a priest, a friar, or a nun.
If the Roman church, good Christians, oblige ye
To believe man and beast have spoke in effigy,
Why should we not credit the public discourses
In a dialogue between two inanimate horses?
The horses I mean of Wool-Church and Charing,
Who told many truths worth any man's hearing,
Since Viner and Osborne did buy and provide 'em
For the two mighty monarchs who now do bestride 'em.
The stately brass stallion and the white marble steed
One night came together, by all 'tis agreed;
When both Kings were weary of sitting all day,
Were stolen off, incognito, each his own way;
And then the two jades, after mutual salutes,
Not only discoursed, but fell to disputes.

Quoth the marble horse,

Wool-Church.
It would make a stone speak,
To see a Lord Mayor and a Lombard Street break,
Thy founder and mine to cheat one another,
When both knaves agreed to be each other's brother. —
Here Charing broke forth, and thus he went on:

Charing.
My brass is provoked as much as thy stone,
To see church and state bow down to a whore,
And the King's chief minister holding the door;
The money of widows and orphans employed,
And the bankers quite broke to maintain the whore's pride.

Wool-Church.
To see Dei Gratia writ on the throne,
And the King's wicked life say, God there is none.

Charing.
That he should be styled Defender of the Faith,
Who believes not a word what the Word of God saith.

Wool-Church.
That the Duke should turn papist, and that Church defy
For which his own father a martyr did die.

Charing.
Though he changed his religion, I hope he's so civil
Not to think his own father is gone to the devil.

Wool-Church.
That bondage and beggary should be in a nation
By a cursed House of Commons, and a blessed Restoration.

Charing.
To see a white staff make a beggar a lord,
And scarce a wise man at a long council-board.

Wool-Church.
That the Bank should be seized, yet the 'Chequer so poor,
" Lord have mercy!" and a cross may be set on the door.

Charing.
That a million and half should be the revenue,
Yet the King of his debts pay no man a penny.

Wool-Church.
That a King should consume three kingdoms' estates,
And yet all the Court be as poor as church rats.

Charing.
That of four seas dominion, and of all their guarding,
No token should appear, but a poor copper farthing.

Wool-Church.
Our worm-eaten ships to be laid up at Chatham,
Not our trade to secure, but for fools to come at 'em.

Charing.
And our few ships abroad become Tripoli's scorn,
By pawning for victuals their guns at Leghorn.

Wool-Church.
That making us slaves by horse and foot guard,
For restoring the King, shall be all our reward.

Charing.
The basest ingratitude ever was heard!
But tyrants ungrateful are always afeared.

Wool-Church.
On Harry the Seventh's head he that placed the crown
Was after rewarded by losing his own.

Charing.
That Parliament-men should rail at the Court,
And get good preferments immediately for 't;
To see them that suffered for father and son,
And helped to bring the latter to his throne,
That with lives and estates did loyally serve,
And yet for all this can nothing deserve;
The King looks not on 'em, preferments denied 'em,
The Roundheads insult, and the courtiers deride 'em,
And none get preferments, but who will betray
Their country to ruin; 'tis that opes the way
Of the bold-talking members.

Wool-Church.
If the bastards you add,
What a number of rascally lords have been made.

Charing.
That traitors to the country, in a bribed House of Commons,
Should give away millions at every summons.

Wool-Church.
Yet some of those givers, such beggarly villains,
As not to be trusted for twice fifty shillings.

Charing.
No wonder that beggars should still be for giving,
Who out of what's given do get a good living.

Wool-Church.
Four knights and a knave, who were burgesses made,
For selling their consciences were liberally paid.

Charing.
How base are the souls of such low-prized sinners,
Who vote with the Court for drink and for dinners!

Wool-Church.
'Tis they who brought on us this scandalous yoke,
Of excising our cups, and taxing our smoke.

Charing.
But thanks to the whores who made the King dogged,
For giving no more the rogues are prorogued.

Wool-Church.
That a King should endeavour to make a war cease,
Which augments and secures his own profit and peace.

Charing.
And plenipotentiaries sent into France,
With an addle-headed knight, and a lord without brains.

Wool-Church.
That the King should send for another French whore,
When one already had made him so poor.

Charing.
The misses take place, each advanced to be duchess,
With pomp great as queens in their coach and six horses;
Their bastards made dukes, earls, viscounts, and lords,
And all the high titles that honour affords.

Wool-Church.
While these brats and their mothers do live in such plenty,
The nation's impoverished, and the 'Chequer quite empty;
And though war was pretended when the money was lent,
More on whores, than in ships or in war, hath been spent.

Charing.
Enough, my dear brother, although we speak reason,
Yet truth many times being punished for treason,
We ought to be wary, and bridle our tongue,
Bold speaking hath done both men and beasts wrongs.
When the ass so boldly rebuked the prophet,
Thou knowest what danger had like to come of it;
Though the beast gave his master ne'er an ill word,
Instead of a cudgel, Balaam wished for a sword.

Wool-Church.
Truth's as bold as a lion, I am not afraid;
I'll prove every tittle of what I have said.
Our riders are absent, who is 't that can hear?
Let's be true to ourselves, whom then need we fear?
Where is thy King gone?

Charing.
To see Bishop Laud.

Wool-Church.
Mine to cuckold a scrivener's in masquerade;
For on such occasions he oft strays away,
And returns to remount me about break of day.
In very dark nights sometimes you may find him,
With a harlot got up on my crupper behind him.

Charing.
Pause, brother, awhile, and calmly consider
What thou hast to say against my royal rider.

Wool-Church.
Thy priest-ridden King turned desperate fighter
For the surplice, lawn-sleeves, the cross, and the mitre;
Till at last on the scaffold he was left in the lurch,
By knaves, who cried up themselves for the church.

Charing.
Archbishops and bishops, archdeacons and deans!
Thy King will ne'er fight unless 't be for his queans.

Wool-Church.
He that dies for ceremonies, dies like a fool.

Charing.
The King on thy back is a lamentable tool.

Wool-Church.
The goat and the lion I equally hate,
And freemen alike value life and estate;
Though the father and son be different rods,
Between the two scourgers we find little odds;
Both infamous stand in three kingdoms' votes,
This for picking our pockets, that for cutting our throats.

Charing.
More tolerable are the lion-king's slaughters,
Than the goat making whores of our wives and our daughters;
The debauched and cruel, since they equally gall us,
I had rather bear Nero than Sardanapalus.

Wool-Church.
One of the two tyrants must still be our case,
Under all who shall reign of the false Stuart's race.
De Witt and Cromwell had each a brave soul,
I freely declare it, I am for old Noll;
Though his government did a tyrant resemble,
He made England great, and his enemies tremble.

Charing.
Thy rider puts no man to death in his wrath,
But is buried alive in lust and in sloth.

Wool-Church.
What is thy opinion of James, Duke of York?

Charing.
The same that the frogs had of Jupiter's stork.
With the Turk in his head, and the Pope in his heart,
Father Patrick's disciples will make England smart.
If e'er he be King, I know Britain's doom,
We must all to a stake, or be converts to Rome.
Ah, Tudor! ah, Tudor! we have had Stuarts enough;
None ever reigned like old Bess in the ruff.
Her Walsingham could dark counsels unriddle,
And our Sir Joseph write news, books, and fiddle.

Wool-Church.
Truth, brother, well said; but that's somewhat bitter;
His perfumed predecessor was never more fitter:
Dialogue Between Two HORSES, in
Yet we have one Secretary honest and wise;
For that very reason, he's never to rise.
But canst thou devise when things will be mended?

Charing.
When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended.

Conclusion.

If speeches from animals in Rome's first age
Prodigious events did surely presage,
That should come to pass, all mankind may swear
That which two inanimate horses declare.
But I should have told you, before the jades parted,
Both galloped to Whitehall, and there humbly farted;
Which tyranny's downfall portended much more,
Than all that the beasts had spoken before.
If the Delphic Sibyl's oracular speeches
(As learned men say) came out of their breeches,
Why might not our horses, since words are but wind,
Have the spirit of prophecy likewise behind?
Though tyrants make laws, which they strictly proclaim,
To conceal their own faults and to cover their shame,
Yet the beasts in the field, and the stones in the wall,
Will punish their faults and prophesy their fall;
When they take from the people the freedom of words,
They teach them the sooner to fall to their swords.
Let the city drink coffee and quietly groan,
They who conquered the father won't be slaves to the son.
For wine and strong drink make tumults increase,
Chocolate, tea, and coffee are liquors of peace;
No quarrels or oaths are among those who drink 'em,
'Tis Bacchus and the brewer swear, damn 'em! and sink 'em!
Then, Charles, thy late edict against coffee recall,
There's ten times more treason in brandy and ale.