To the five Principal Members of the Honourable House of Commons

After so many Concurring Petitions

From all Ages and Sexes, and all conditions,

We come in the Rear to present our Follies

To Pym, Stroude, Haslerig, Hampden, and ———

And we hope for our labour we shall not be shent,

For this comes from Christendom, & not from Kent;

Though set form of Prayers be an Abomination

Set forms of Petitions find great Approbation:

Therefore, as others from th’ bottom of their souls,

So wee from the depth and bottom of our Bowles,

According unto the blessed form taught us,

We thank you first for the Ills you have brought us,

For the Good we receive we thank him that gave it,

And you for the Confidence only to crave it.

Next in course, we Complain of the great violation

Of Privilege (like the rest of our Nation)

But ’tis none of yours of which we have spoken

Which never had being, untill they were broken:

But our is a Privilege Antient and Native,

Hangs not on Ordinance, or power Legislative.

And first, ’tis to speak whatever we please

Without fear of a Prison, or Pursuivants fees.

Next, that we only may lye by Authority,

But in that also you have got the Priority.

Next, an old Custom, our Fathers did name it

Poetical license, and alwayes did claim it.

By this we have power to change Age in Youth,

Turn Non-sence into Sence, and Falshood to Truth;

In brief, to make good whatsoever is faulty,

This art some Poet, or the Devil has taught ye:

And this our Property you have invaded,

And a Privilege of both Houses have made it:

But that trust above all in Poets reposed,

That Kings by them only are made and Deposed,

This though you cannot do, yet you are willing;

But when we undertake Deposing or Killing,

They’re Tyrants and Monsters, and yet then the Poet

Takes full Revenge on the Villains that do it,

And when we resume a Scepter or a Crown,

We are Modest, and seek not to make it our own.

But is’t not presumption to write Verses to you,

Who make the better Poems of the two,

For all those pretty Knacks you do compose,

Alas, what are they but Poems in prose,

And between those and ours there’s no difference,

But that yours want the rhime, the wit and the sense:

But for lying (the most Noble part of a Poet)

You have it abundantly, and your selves know it,

And though you are Modest, and seem to abhor it,

’T has done you good service, and thank He’ven for it:

Although the old Maxime remains still in force,

That a Sanctified Cause, must have a Sanctified Course:

If poverty be a part of our Trade,

So far the whole Kingdome Poets you have made,

Nay even so far as undoing will do it,

You have made King Charles in manner a Poet,

But provoke not his Muse, for all the world knows,

Already you have had too much of his Prose.