urned back again, dancing with the same music; and
immediately there followed _a pack of women, or curtizans_, as it may
be supposed, for they were hooded, and could not be knowne; and this
the party who related affirmed he saw with his own eyes."

On this the Diurnal-maker pours out severe anathemas--and one with a
_note_, that "_dancing_ and _drabbing_ are inseparable companions, and
follow one another close at the heels." He assures his readers, that
the malignants, or royalists, only fight like sensual beasts, to
maintain their dancing and drabbing!--Such was the revolutionary tone
here, and such the arts of faction everywhere. The matter was rather
peculiar to our country, but the principle was the same as practised
in France. Men of opposite characters, when acting for the same
concealed end, must necessarily form parallels.

FOOTNOTES:

[329] "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 158 (last edition).

[330] There is a small poem, published in 1643, entitled "The Great
Assizes holden in Parnassus," in the manner of a later work,
"The Sessions of the Poets," in which all the Diurnals and
Mercuries are arraigned and tried. An impartial satire on them
all; and by its good sense and heavy versification, is so much
in the manner of GEORGE WITHER, that some have conjectured it
to be that singular author's. Its rarity gives it a kind of
value. Of such verses as Wither's, who has been of late
extolled too highly, the chief merit is their sense and truth;
which, if he were not tedious, might be an excellence in
prose. Antiquaries, when they find a poet adapted for their
purposes, conjecture that he is an excellent one. This prosing
satirist, strange to say, in some pastoral poetry, has opened
the right vein.

Aulicus is well characterized:--

--------------"hee, for wicked ends,
Had the Castalian spring defiled with gall,
And changed by Witchcraft most satyricall,
The bayes of Helicon and myrtles mild,
To pricking hawthornes and to hollies wild.
--------------with slanders false,
With forged fictitious calumnies and tales--
He added fewel to the direful flame
Of civil discord; and domestic blowes,
By the incentives of malicious prose.
For whereas he should have composed his inke