An Execration upon Vulcan.

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Nd why to me this, thou lame Lord of Fire,
What had I done that might call on thine Ire?
Or urge thy greedy Flame, thus to devour
So many my Years-labours in an hour?
I ne’re attempted Vulcan ‘gainst thy Life;
Nor made least Line of Love to thy loose Wife;
Or in remembrance of thy afront, and scorn
With Clowns, and Tradesmen, kept thee clos’d in Horn.
‘Twas Jupiter that hurl’d thee headlong down,
And Mars, that gave thee a Lanthorn for a Crown:
Was it because thou wert of old denied
By Jove to have Minerva for thy Bride.
That since thou tak’st all envious care and pain,
To ruine any Issue of the Brain?
Had I wrote Treason there, or Heresie,
Imposture, Whitchcraft, Charms, or Blasphemy?

I had deserv’d then, thy consuming Looks,
Perhaps, to have been burned with my Books.
But, on thy Malice, tell me, didst thou spy
Any, least loose, or surrile Paper, lye
Conceal’d, or kept there, that was fit to be,
By thy own Vote, a Sacrifice to thee?
Did I there wound the Honours of the Crown?
Or tax the Glories of the Church and Gown?
Itch to defame the State? or brand the Times?
And my self most, in some self-boasting Rhimes?
If none of these, then why this Fire? Or find
A Cause before; or leave me one behind.
Had I compil’d from Amadis de Gaule,
Th’ Esplandians, Arthur’s, Palmerins, and all
The learned Library of Don Quixote;
And so some goodlier Monster had begot,
Or spun out Riddles, and weav’d fitty Tomes
Of Logogriphes, and curious Palindromes,
Or pomp’d for those hard Trifles Anagrams,
Or Eteostichs, or those finer Flams
Of Eggs, and Halberds, Cradles, and a Hearse,
A pair of Scisars, and a Comb in Verse;
Acrostichs, and Telestichs, on jump Names,
Thou then hadst had some colour for thy Flames,
On such my serious Follies; But, thou’lt say,
There were some Pieces of as base allay,
And as false stamp there; parcels of a Play,
Fitter to see the Fire-light, than the day;

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Adulterate Moneys, such as might not go:
Thou should’st have stay’d, till publick Fame said so.
She is the Judge, Thou Executioner,
Or if thou needs would’st trench upon her Power,
Thou mightst have yet enjoy’d thy Cruelty
With some more thrift, and more variety:

Thou mightst have had me perish, piece by peice,
To light Tobacco, or save roasted Geese.
Sindge Capons, or poor Piggs, droping their Eyes;
Condemn’d me to the Ovens with the Pies;
And so, have kept me dying a whole Age,
Not ravish’d all hence in a Minutes rage.
But that’s a mark, whereof thy Rights do boast,
To make Consumption, ever where thou go’st;
Had I fore-known of this thy least desire
T’ have held a Triumph, or a Feast of Fire,
Especially in Paper; that, that steam
Had tickled your large Nostril: many a Ream
To redeem mine, I had sent in enough,
Though should’st have cry’d, and all been proper Stuff.
The Talmud, and the Alcoran had come,
With Pieces of the Legend; The whole sum
Of Errant Knight-hood, with the Dames, and Dwarfs;
The charmed Boats, and the inchanted Wharfs,
The Tristram’s, Lanc’lots, Turpins, and the Peer’s,
All the mad Rolands, and sweet Oliveer’s;
To Merlins Marvails, and his Caballs loss,
With the Chimæra of the Rosie-Cross,
Their Seals, their Characters, Hermetick Rings,
Their Jem of Riches, and bright Stone, that brings
Invisibility, and strength, and Tongues:
The Art of kindling the true Coal, by Lungs,
With Nicholas Pasquill’s, Medle with your match,
And the strong Lines, that so the time do catch,
Or Captain Pamphlets Horse, and Foot; that sally
Upon th’ Exchange, still out of Popes-head-Alley.
The weekly Corrants, with Poules Seal; and all
The admir’d discourses of the Prophet Ball:
These, had’st thou pleas’d either to dine or sup,
Had made a Meal for Vulcan to lick up.
But in my Desk, what was there to accite
So ravenous and vast an Appetite?
I dare not say a Body, but some Parts
There were of search, and mastry in the Arts.
All the old Venusine, in Poetry,
And lighted by the Stagerite, could spy,
Was there mad English: with the Grammar too,
To teach some that their Nurses could do.
The purity of Language; and among
The rest, my Journey into Scotland Song,
With all th’ Adventures; Three Books not afraid
To speak the Fate of the Sicilian Maid
To our own Ladies; and in Story there
Of our Fifth Henry, eight of his nine year;
Wherein was Oil, beside the Succour spent,
Which Noble Carew, Cotton, Selden lent:
And twice-twelve-years stor’d up Humanity,
With humble Gleanings in Divinity;
After the Fathers, and those wiser Guides
Whom Faction had not drawn to study sides.
How in these Ruins Vulcan, thou dost lurk,
All Soot and Embers! odious, as thy work!
I now begin to doubt, if ever Grace,
Or Goddess, could be patient of thy Face.
Thou woo Minerva! or to wit aspire!
‘Cause thou canst halt, with us in Arts and Fire!
Son of the Wind! for so thy Mother gone
With Lust conceiv’d thee; Father thou hadst none.
When thou wert born, and that thou look’st at best,
She durst not kiss, but flung thee from her Breast.
And so did Jove, who ne’re meant thee his Cup:
No marl the Clowns of Lemnos took thee up.
For none but Smiths would have made thee a God.
Some Alchimist there may be yet, or odd

squire of the Squibs, against the Pageant day,
May to thy name a Vulcanale say;
And for it lose his Eyes with Gun-powder,
As th’ other may his Brains with Quick-silver.
Well-fare the Wise-man yet, on the Banck-side,
My Friends, the Water-men! They could provide
Against thy Fury, when to serve their needs,
They made a Vulcan of a Sheaf of Reeds,
Whom they durst handle in their Holy-day Coats,
And safely trust to dress, not burn their Boats.
But, O those Reeds! thy meer disdain of them,
Made thee beget that cruel Stratagem,
(Which, some are pleas’d to stile but thy mad Pranck)
Against the Globe, the Glory of the Bank.
Which, though it were the Fort of the whole Parish,
Flanck’d with a Ditch, and forc’d out of a Marish,
I saw with two poor Chambers taken in
And raz’d; e’re thought could urge, this might have been!
See the World’s Ruines! nothing but the Piles
Left! and wit since to cover it with Tiles.
The Brethren, they streight nois’d it out for News,
‘Twas verily some Relick of the Stews.
And this a Sparkle of that Fire let loose,
That was lock’d up in the Winchestrian Goose,
Bred on the Banck, in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintain’d in Mystery.
But, others fell, with that conceit by the Ears,
And cry’d, it was a threatning to the Bears,
And that accursed Ground, the Parish Garden:
Nay, sigh’d, ah Sister ’twas the Nun, Kate Arden
Kindled the Fire! But, then did one return,
No Fool would his own harvest spoil, or burn!
If that were so, thou rather would’st advance
The Place, that was thy Wives Inheritance.
O no, cry’d all. Fortune, for being a Whore,
Scap’d not his Justice and Jot the more:
He burnt that Idol of the Revels too:
Nay, let White-Hall with Revels have to do,
Though but in Dances, it shall know his Power;
There was a Judgment shew’n too in an Hour.
He is true Vulcan still! He did not spare
Troy, though it were so much his Venus care.
Fool, wilt thou let that in Example come?
Did not she save from thence, to build a Rome?
And what hast thou done in these petty Spights,
More then advanc’d the Houses, and their Rights?
I will not argue thee, from those of guilt,
For they were burnt, but to be better built.
‘Tis true, that in thy wish they were destroy’d,
Which thou hast only vented, not enjoy’d.
So would’st th’ have run upon the Rolls by stealth,
And didst invade part of the Common-wealth,
In those Records, which were all Chronicles gone,
Will be remembred by Six Clerks, to one.
But, say all Six, Good Men, what answer ye?
Lyes there no Writ, out of the Chancery,
Against this Vulcan? No Injunction?
No Order? no Decree? Though we be gone
At Common-Law, Methinks in his despight
A Court of Equity should do us right.
But to confine him to the Brew-houses,
The Glass-house, Dye-fats, and their Furnaces;
To live in Sea-coal, and go forth in Smoke;
Or lest that Vapour might the City choak,
Condemn him to the Brick-kills, or some Hill-
Foot (out in Sussex) to an Iron Mill;
Or in small Fagots have him blaze about
Vile Taverns, and the Drunkards piss him out;
Or in the Bell-Mans Lanthorn like a Spy,
Burn to a Snuff, and then stink out and dye:
I could invent a Sentence, yet were worse;
But I’ll conclude all in a civil Curse.
Pox on your Flameship, Vulcan; if it be
To all as fatal as’t hath been to me,

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And to Pauls-Steeple; which was unto us
‘Bove all your Fire-works, had at Ephesus,
Or Alexandria; and though a Divine
Loss remains yet, as unrepair’d as mine.
Would you had kept your Forge, at Ætna still,
And there made Swords, Bills, Glaves, and Arms your fill.
Maintain’d the Trade at Bilbo; or else-where;
Struck in at Millan with the Cutlers there;
Or stay’d but where the Fryar, and you first met,
Who from the Divels-Arse did Guns beget,
Or fixt in the Low-Country’s, where you might
On both sides do your mischiefs with delight;
Blow up, and ruine, mine, and countermine,
Make your Petards, and Granats, all your fine
Engines of Murder, and receive the Praise
Of massacring Man-kind so many ways.
We ask your absence here, we all love Peace,
And pray the Fruits thereof, and the Increase;
So doth the King, and most of the Kings-men
That have good Places: therefore once agen,
Pox on thee Vulcan, thy Pandora’s Pox,
And all the Evils that flew out of her Box
Light on thee: Or if those Plagues will not do,
Thy Wives Pox on thee, and B. Bs. too.

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