DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO HORSES.

1674.

THE INTRODUCTION.

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, as 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 who 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 Osborn did buy and provide 'em*
For the two mighty monarchs who now do

bestride 'em.

The stately brass stallion, and the white marble steed,

The night came together, by all 'tis agreed; When both kings were weary of sitting all day, They stole off, incognito, each his own way; And then the two jades, after mutual salutes, Not only discoursed, but fell to disputes.

*The statue at Charing-Cross was erected by the Lord Danby; that at Wool-Church by Sir Robert Viner, then lord-mayor.

17

THE DIALOGUE.

QUOTE 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.

Alluding to the failure of the bankers.

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 might 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 the 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.*

* Alluding to our ships being burned by the Dutch.