When he was got drunk with false bumpers.
Says old Simon, &c.
Here's the purse of the public faith;
Here's the model of the Sequestration,
When the old wives upon their good troth,
Lent thimbles to ruine the nation.[3]
Here's Dick Cromwell's Protectorship,
And here are Lambert's commissions,
And here is Hugh Peters his scrip
Cramm'd with the tumultuous Petitions.
Says old Simon, &c.
And here are old Noll's brewing vessels,[4]
And here are his dray, and his slings;
Here are Hewson's awl, and his bristles,
With diverse other odd things:
And what is the price doth belong
To all these matters before ye?
I'll sell them all for an old song,
And so I do end my story.
Says old Simon, &c.
NOTES
- Alluding probably to Major-General Harrison, a butcher's son, who assisted
Cromwell in turning out the Long Parliament, April 20, 1653. - This was a cant name given to Cromwell's wife by the Royalists, though her name
was Elizabeth. She was taxed with exchanging the kitchen-stuff for the candles used
in the Protector's houshold, &c. See Gent. Mag. for March 1718, p. 242. - See Grey's [sic] Hudibras, Part I. canto ii. ver.570, &c.
- Cromwell had in his younger years followed the brewing trade at Huntingdon. Col.
Hewson is said to have been originally a cobbler.