wonder he tells us, (_p._ 8.) of _strewing her with the Flowers of
withered and decay'd Poetry_; for the _Song_ out of which he hath
transcrib'd his _Sermon_, is of very _great age_, and hath been sung at
many a _Whitsun-Ale_, and many a _Wedding_ (tho I believe never at a
Funeral before) and therefore in all this time may well be _decay'd and
wither'd_: In the mean time, if you were to draw the Picture of a _great
Princess_, I fansy you would not make choice of _Mopsa_ to sit to it.
Alas! Sir, there was _Cassandra_ and _Cleopatra_, and many a famed
_Romance_ more, which might have furnish'd him with handsome Characters,
and yet he must needs be _preaching and instructing_ his People out of
_Hey down derry_, and the _fair Maid of_ Kent. If he had intitled it,
_The_ White-Chapel _Ballad_, and got some body to set it to the Tune of
_Amaryllis_, compos'd by _W. P. Songster_, the Character of the _Author_,
the _Title_, and the _Matter_, would have very well agreed, and perhaps it
might have passed at the Corners of the Streets; but to call it a
_Sermon_, and by _W. P._ Doctor in _Divinity_, 'tis one of the _lewdest_
things in the World.----"

Mr. _Lesley_ attacks the Clergy, who pray'd "that God would give King
_James_ Victory over all his Enemies[114], when that was the thing they
least wish'd; and confess'd, that they labour'd all they could against
it," saying, "good God! What Apprehensions, what Thought had those Men of
their publick Prayers; bantering God Almighty, and mocking him to his
Face, who heard their Words, and saw their Hearts? Is not _Atheism_ a
smaller Sin than this, since it is better to have no God, than so to set
up one _to laugh at him_."

Again he says, (_p._ 123.) "It is a severe Jest, that the common People
have got up against the Clergy, that there was but one thing formerly
which the Parliament could not do, that is, to make a Man a Woman: But now
there is another, that is, to make an Oath which the Clergy will not
take."

The same Author attacks Bishop _Burnet_'s _Speech upon the Bill against
Occasional Conformity_, by a Pamphlet intitled, _The Bishop of_
Salisbury_'s proper Defence from a Speech cry'd about the Streets in his
Name, and said to have been spoken by him in the House of Lords upon the
Bill against Occasional Conformity_; which is one perpetual _Irony_ on the
Bishop, and gives the Author occasion to throw all manner of Satire and
Abuse on the Bishop. The beginning of this Pamphlet,