and therefore it is desired, that all words be written at length, and not in figures, for the conveniency of the benchers. 12. That it may be thought reason that the word Villenagium be utterly expunged out of the terms of the law, since we are all freemen, and no more slaves, than they which row in the Turks gallics. 13. That, by the motion of Mr. Peters, the term simony may be looked upon as convenient, if not lawful, since the first day he begun to sell the patronage of South-Wales. 14. That the right heir at law is he alone that is in possession: and as, by the outing of the best tenure in England, we see it apparent, inter arma silent leges, so, whosoever he be, that is born to an estate, unless he can derive his claim from the engagement, he is no longer to be suffered by the sheriff of the county to live in peace, till such time as he has run the gauntlope at Haberdashers-Hall, and then he shall be freely manumitted. 15. That an under-sheriff, a jailer, a catch-pole, and clerk of assize, being individuums in natura, or termini convertibiles, shall no more be dashed in their reputation with the circumflex of a K, but rather to be considered as publick officers, which, in this catching age, ought to have a little touch of hocus pocus in all their performances. 16. That the excise, notwithstanding there be no law extant, or conscience, to warrant so sore an imposition upon a free people, may be thought jure divino, because it enlarges the hawking-bags of the saints. 17. That no expedition be henceforth used in any court, practice, or procedure, but rather all delays and labyrinths to dwindle out a bumkin's patrimony to the last thread. That the puny clerks may be prevented in the vein of their spending money, and the masters of offices may be inriched with double fees, to the capacity of buying bishops lands and fee-farm rents; besides, the law being just shaking hands with us, it is necessary we make the most of it, while it is here. 18. That whereas a country sollicitor, vamped up to the singularity of a vinegar cloke, and a green bag, is wont to dun the offices with a pitiful importunity, more specially when his novice is at hand to quicken him with a piece of four; it is desired he may make the benefit of a fallacia signi, when the term is ended, to keep his under-vamper in town to bear his charges, until the poor fellow is compelled to pawn his cloke in Long-lane, to carry him home, and then take his leave, with a philosophical bill of charges at his back, like an indenture in folio, to bemoan his lawship to his admiring friends. 19. That the term prerogative, being a sequestrable phrase, a malignant and dangerous word, full of plots and treasons, a word prayed and preached against by many well-wishing and confiding divines, and godly souls of this nation, may be laid aside, and charmed into the happy conversion of the people's birth-right. And since the representatives of the plebeians have the managing of all delinquent incumbrances: Be it proposed to be enacted and made law, that all such tyrannical expressions, denominations, or inventions be pocketed up, to raise the wages, salaries, stipendiaries, or allowances of the aforesaid representatives from this time forth for evermore. T2 20. That whereas meum and tuum have been the old pronouns of distinguishing titles and claims in this blind and ignorant patch of the world, in regard they are Latin, and so of grievous consequence to a people new lighted, in respect of their alliance, relation, affinity, and consanguinity to the pope, being their countryman: Be it confirmed by a perpetual decree, that those words are no better than Jesuits, and have nothing to do with us in the decision of rights of the new model. 21. That the thing called a King, a title of usurpation, to whom, by compulsion and imminent necessity, men of greatest rank, nobility, and professions, took most formally the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; because we, that are wiser than our forefathers, know there is an inconvenience in having any one above us, to call us to an account, or controul the liberty of our concupiscence: It is beseeched, that all Britain, of what tongue, language, or speech soever, would be pleased to forget that obligation, and to acknowledge no supremacy but in themselves. 22. That, in all contracts, covenants, or agreements, it shall be considerable for every man to have a mental reservation, or intricate meaning, that upon advantages we may turn weather-cocks, and adore those mighty and modern deities, profit and self-ends. 23. That all records, or registers of antiquity, may be burnt and imbezzled, for fear, lest, in reading and turning over those slighted and moth-eaten papers, we may unwillingly be put in mind of a neglected and forgotten duty and obedience to magistracy, ministry, nay, I had almost said, sovereignty. 24. That every country-fellow may have the privilege of pleading his own cause, merely to humour the high shoes, notwithstanding we, in our known wisdom and integrity, shall give sentence according to our underfeeling and proper discretion. 25. That all committee-men shall be held forth saints at their death, and be inthroned in the church-windows, at the charge of the parish; because they have been most eminent instruments in the ingrossing and monopolising of all church-lands, glebe, and tythes. 26. That there may be a provincial pair-royal of judges selected for the determining of suits in the same country where they first take breath: Always provided, that if the parties be rich, fat, and well-liking, and of good credit in the sheriffs books, and withal able to endure the heat of a London trial: That, in such cases, there must and ought to be a further appeal to our palace at Westminster, where such differences are most peculiarly required to be decided with a wet finger. 27. That as the oath ex officio, or an injunction for a man to discover himself against himself, has always been held a most injurious circumventing and unjust invention amongst grandees (except in matters of sequestration) it shall be lawful henceforward for no man to unrip, untruss, or divulge the least syllable of his own privity or hidden know. ledge of deluding, deceiving, or cousening the commonalty, against his own conscience. 28. That the damnable expensive fees of all offices and officers shall be brought to an abatamentum, and be left to the pleasure of every man's heart to gratulate and requite his trustee; and so, the lawyers being brought into subjection to the mercy of the bores and swads, they may not flaunt so stately in their pontificalibus, being but publick servants, and a hickle of animals, which breathe by the iniquities of the land. 29. That, whereas incontinence has been evermore held by the ancients a most decried and punishable vice, and trick of youth in most countries, it is conceived fit to be esteemed venial, and more pardonable in this cold climate; and to permit all men, of experienced activity, the freedom of a wife and an intimate, for the fructifying of the sisterhood, and the enlargement of the number of the Geneva fry. 30. That the old proverb, Change is no robbery,' be put in practice in these moderate times. And whereas the grievous and mighty tax, called ship-money, imposed by the royalists, hath been esteemed tyranny, injustice, and covetousness: The easy and frivolous sess of sixty-thousand pounds a month, loaded by the reformed sighers and groaners, shall be construed by all sorts of pay-masters a trifle, a piece of nothingness, necessary to the supportation of the armies, and other small disbursements, which do not amount to half the sum. 31. That whereas the taking up of arms in former ages against a prince, by his own subjects, was by the law found treason; in respect that now we know he is but a man, obnoxious to death and mortality at pleasure; it shall no longer be judged treason, but convenience; and that such ought to be rewarded for it, under the notion of good service and gallantry. 32. That whereas in case of manslaughter, and other casual offences, men were allowed the benefit of their clergy; it is granted necessary in this metamorphosis of things, that no man be put to his book again, for there is hardly one in a hundred can read his neck-verse, and so many of the good intenders to the weal-publick may incur the hazard of the hempen twist. 33. That all subsizing, querpo, gizzard clerks, which farm a parcel of scribbling at three pence a day, shall not be suffered hence-forward to lay out their fathers allowance, and their own lamentable revenue, upon a suit of cloaths, and a horse collar of ribbands. For, as it is even in the greatest order of the bustling gallants a most unseemly anting, loose, profuse, ugly garb, to be dressed about the hips like a dancer, and to have more variety of strange colours than good condons, it is judged commendable both in state policy and common civility to enact, that all such which are found whiffling in such antick dresses, be accounted no better than w-masters, toothdrawers, and mountebanks, from this time forth for evermore. 34. That all lawyers wives, which have come sneaking into the Inns of Court, with their bag and baggage, whether it be to be proficients in their husbands' absence in the practice of fee-tail, or whether it be to convert those gallant edifices from a nursery of law, to a shambles of laundry-women, I know not; but it is requested to be voted, that all such presumptuous whipsters, with their litter and lumber, reduce themselves either into Ram alley, Purple-lane, or Castle-Yard, more fit stages for such comical subjects, than seminaries of learning, and there to set up for themselves, where only such kind of cattle are to be expected. 35. That the corruption of courts has been a most horrid and crying crime in this nation, in that the poor have been overborne by the rich in a most high way, and all by intercession of the Lady Pecunia, a gentlewoman much idolised of late; it is therefore ordained, that no more money be produced to tempt the frailty of a clerk's conscience, but that every thing be carried in a round way between man and man, and, by that time the excise, sequestration, monthly taxes, &c. have continued their reign over us one year more, be it accounted treason for any man whatsoever to be able to offer an attorney, sollicitor, or council, more than his just fee, except it be a rasher of bacon, to relish his morning's draught. 36. That there may be a distinction made between clerks of the children's threes, and stagers of the long twelves, men of the tribe of Anack in their profession, and tipplers of the stock of Benjamin, whose goose-quill fancies were never elevated beyond the Parnassus of a green nogging in their masters absence: It is therefore proposed, that such niffling fellows be distinguished by the childish wear of yellow ribbands, from the marshal seniors with their fiery faces. 37. Item, That all indentures, bills, leases, conveyances, and bonds obligatory, shall no more be dated from the year of our Lord God, nor the coronation of the King, but stilo novo, from the first day of the eleventh month, in such a model of the state government, under the conduct of such a party. 38. Item, That all impropriations, college-holds, lapses, or patronage of church means, be all referred to jury of saints to dispose of: Because it is the patrimony of the elect in this world, and to sustain the indigency of the spirit of talking. 39. That all right might be judged by the touch-stone of affection, and if so be the plaintiff, or defendant, cannot bring proof, that he is one of such a collected church of the marching ministry, it is fitting he hould be reprobated in estate, as well as point of salvation. 40. That no married persons may justify themselves by the old common prayer book, but he, that means to be dabbling with his mistress now, must permit himself to be posted three several Sundays upon the church door; and, when every country hogo has spent his greasy jear upon him, then he must be examined by two justices of peace upon oath, whether he has his and her friends consent, and then, if it please the parties, they may go to bed together without any farther ceremony. Qui aliter maritaverit perdit dotem. 41. That the multiplicity of heriots be reduced to nothing, and the marketa mulieris be set up in their place, or rather the forfeiture of that money by the occupation of the feminine feature by the three articles of the lord of the manour. 42. That the lottery and the public faith may walk hand in hand together from town to town, to see if it be possible to inveigle any more silver spoons or bodkins into the common or the Commons treasury. 43. That it may be lawful for any man to exercise, own, preach about, or practise any religion, heresy, or diabolical tenets; that the law may be brought into six words, Do as thou wouldest be done to; that divinity may be made mercenary, and the fundamentals of the church and commonwealth laid waste and abolished; that one man may be as good a gentleman as another, and for all this, We beseech you to hear us, great Lords. Sic tetigi portum quo mihi cursus erat. Παιδεία Θριαμβός, THE TRIUMPH OF LEARNING OVER IGNORANCE, AND OF TRUTH OVER FALSHOOD; Being an Answer to Four Queries: Whether there be any need of universities? Which were lately proposed by a zealot, in the parish church at Swa- TALMUD. Qui auget academias, auget sapientiam et מרבה ישיבה מרבה חכמה sapientes. Τὰς τὰ σχίσματα ποιύντας φεύγετε ὡς ἀρχὴν κακῶν. ROM. xvi. 17. Mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them. ROM. x. 15. How shall they preach, except they be sent? [From a Quarto, containing thirty-eight pages, printed at London, in 1653.] THE author of this pamphlet, Robert Boreman, brother to Sir William Boreman, or Boureman, clerk of the green cloth to King Charles the Second, was fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, afterwards Doc 1 |