re to get bread;
and we are told of a third from the _tradesmen's wives_ in London,
headed by a brewer's wife: all these were encouraged by their party, and
were alike "most thankfully accepted."

The satirists soon turned this new political trick of "petitions" into
an instrument for their own purpose: we have "Petitions of the
Poets,"--of the House of Commons to the King,--Remonstrances to the
Porters' Petition, &c.: spirited political satires. One of these, the
"Players' Petition to the Parliament," after being so long silenced,
that they might play again, is replete with sarcastic allusions. It may
be found in that rare collection, entitled "Rump Songs," 1662, but with
the usual incorrectness of the press in that day. The following extract
I have corrected from a manuscript copy:--

Now while you reign, our low petition craves
That we, the king's true subjects and your slaves,
May in our comic mirth and tragic rage
Set up the theatre, and show the stage;
This shop of truth and fancy, where we vow
Not to act anything you disallow.
We will not dare at your strange votes to jeer,
Or personate King PYM[154] with his state-fleer;
Aspiring Catiline should be forgot,
Bloody Sejanus, or whoe'er could plot
Confusion 'gainst a state; the war betwixt
The Parliament and just Harry the Sixth
Shall have no thought or mention, 'cause their power
Not only placed, but lost him in the Tower;
Nor will we parallel, with least suspicion,
Your synod with the Spanish inquisition.
All these, and such like maxims as may mar
Your soaring plots, or show you what you are,
We shall omit, lest our inventions shake them:
Why should the men be wiser than you make them?
We think there should not such a difference be
'Twixt our profession and your quality:
You meet, plot, act, talk high with minds immense;
The like with us, but only we speak sense
Inferior unto yours; we can tell how
To depose kings, there we know more than you,
Although not more than what we would; then we
Likewise in our vast privilege agree;
But that yours is the larger; and controls
Not only lives and fortunes, but men's souls,
Declaring by an enigmatic sense
A privilege on each man's conscience,
As if the Trinity could not consent
To save a soul but by the parliament.
We make the people laugh at some strange show,
And