The Character of Mercurius Politicus.  
THe Mercurius Politicus is the paper Militia, a Diurnal Offensive and Defensive: The only Pamphlet in pay, and a Libel of the Establishment among the standing Forces of the Commonwealth.  
'Tis the Satyre-Generall. Gerbier inverted, or a Lecture concerning the Art of speaking iii.  
'Tis our Printed-Agent, or a domestic Ambassador, that considering the danger of going abroad, chose rather to be Lieger at home, and lie betwixt the State and the Country.  
'Tis The Devil's an Ass, the Weekly Comedy acted at Whitehall by its Majesty's Servant. The Author, that individual blackfriars, like the ancient Pantomimes, sufficing to play all persons: For this is he, who in the Prologue of these times entered first as Britanicus, the scene altering, turned into Pragmaticus; and now at last appears in his own clothes, Mercurius Politicus.  
So many times has our Mercury been metamorphosed, that now you may, if you please, call him the Mercurius Trismegistus.  
He is a true branch of the Triple Tree: Who ever saw a gleek of Knaves thus shuffled into one Card? 'Tis the right Hocus trick of shifting the three Boxes.  
There cannot be a better definition of his book, and him, then that it is the third feather of the politic Shuttlecock.  
I wish that it were lawful for me here to observe the usual modesty of writing, and that I could consume his Book, without touching his Person, as the Lightning that exhausts the Liquor without endamaging the Hogshead.  
But besides that, there ought no quarter to be given to a Writer so often revolted. His book, and he, are so complicated, and bound up together, they are so much the same thing, and he takes such a pride in it, that if I could, yet it were too great an inhumanity to part them.  
It is his second self in black and white, and they live in a perpetual transmutation, as convertible as Water into Aire, or as formerly diurnals into Rose-powder.  
He is therefore of a body so incomposed, that it looks like the very statue of Pasquin, the Saint of his vocation.  
His Face is so ill, as if nature had in it libelled against Mankind.  
And he wears a Periwig as if to make some satisfaction for all the Calumnies he is guilty of, he bore his head always in a portable Pillory.  
While his Cheek-bones rise as if from within, they would stamp those Letters through with which he deserves to be stigmatised.  
But there is a further reason for his Periwig; a subtle disease having distinguished betwixt him and his hair: The same which suggests to his mouth that continual impurity. It being impossible that without some venereal cause there should be a Tongue so virulent.  
And indeed, this Mercurius Politicus is his third Mercury Pill, by which he has cast himself into this high and last salivation: That as at first he spit his Venom against the King, and next bespattered the Independent, so now he may flux himself upon the Presbyterian.  
It is strange that he could not let the Presbyterian alone, and will not allow us so much as a form of Godliness.  
But what can we expect from him in whom alone there are more Heresies then among a whole Synod of Divines?  
He seems to be a Salt extracted out of the ashes of whatsoever books have been burned by the hands of the Hangman.  
A day of Humiliation were not sufficient to deplore him, and a Counsel might grow hoarse with Anathemaes against all his Errors.  
This is our Puny Mahomet, who intends us no Scripture but this his own Alcoran, of which he gives us an Azoara every week, and imagines too, that by the power of the Sword he can make us believe it.  
And according to this Religion he lives. He useth such Oaths and Blasphemies as deserve that his Tongue should be burned through with an hot Iron, if any thing can burn that which is set on fire of Hell.  
Yet it might be expected that he should loathe drinking, seeing mad Dogs do always abhor the water; but it seems the Comparison doth not hold in stronger Liquors: For he, on the contrary, lives as in the days of Pantagruel, and drinks as though it were to quench damnation.  
He were a most fit man for a Denmark Embassage, to fox the King unto our conditions; or if he could not that, then to drink up the Sound in his return, and revenge us in an instant.  
But this may, however, be tolerated, seeing in Commonwealths, as in Holland, Suizzerland, and the rest, they necessarily drink deeper than in Kingdoms, the healths of the Aristocracy and Militia being fare more numerous than those of a King and his Progeny.  
But who, since the Act against Bawdy-houses, hath allowed him this public Brothel in his Mouth?  
I believe that Signior Riva going interpreter into Spain, left to him the Pimp-lieutenancy; and against all casualties insured in his person, the Italian virtues.  
And that very Wit in which he so much triumphs, imagining that he is the Writing Attila, and God Almighty's Whipcord: what is it but a Ruffianlike, and scurrilous language, in which, after all his endeavours, yet he will never attain to the perfection of Billings gate.  
Has he not bought it at the rate of all these vices, and joined together the gall of Bawds, and Whores, and Sorcerers to make up his Intelligence? for what he hath not been able to betray, by the society of his own vices, he inquires here:  
And rakes up in these public dunghills, the rags of men's conversation, which he may after make up into his twopenny Mops, or serve himself of for manure against the barrenness of his own wit.  
Has he not with this Wit scandalised both Sexes, disobliged three Parties, reproached our whole Nation? and not only ours, but all others, having declared himself as the disgrace, so to be the public enemy of mankind.  
This wit hath made him our Lay- Spalatto, a three-piled Apostate, a renegade more notorious than any in Sally or Algiers.  
And yet he could never by it make himself more considerable upon any part than a seller of Ratsbane.  
Those of the Royal Party discerning him always to be one that exercised his Invention for the King, but his Malice against Him.  
And how advantageous soever he pretends his conditions to be with this party, a starved Garrison might have come in upon better terms: For what Articles should they give to that man whom they saw already in their hands, being betrayed by his own perfidiousness, and insorced by necessity?  
He had the right Articles of Milan, in which the Citizens, to save their lives, submitted to draw Figs with their Teeth out of the Genitals of the 
* Frederick Barbarossa.  Emperiours shee-Mules.  
For such is the Office they have employed him in, wherein they have not so much provided for their own service, as for his infamy. I will give you the principal Articles of his Agreement.  
Articles of the Surrender of the Mercurius Pragmaticus.  

THat the said Mercurius Pragmaticus shall by the 6. of June surrender up wholly himself, his Pen and Inkhorn, and the keys of his Study, into the hands of the Lord Precedent, and to the Obedience of the Commonwealth of England.  
2. That in token of his true conversion he shall forthwith set up the Colours of the Commonwealth, and write a Book in defence of the present Government, to which he shall affix his name in Capital Letters.  
3. That from the said 6. of June he shall compose a weekly Mercury of his stile, in which the truth of his Intelligence shall have no other measure then the Interest of the Commonwealth.  
4. That morever to testify his repentance for his late rebellion, he shall present a Book, and ask pardon particularly of the General, and all other Members of the Council of State or Army, whom he hath any way disobliged.  
5. That for better security of the performance of these Conditions upon his part, he shall forthwith deliver up all papers of Transaction or Intelligence, together with their cyphers which came to his hand in the year 1648. and 1649. Together with a list of all persons with whom he at that time entertained any Correspondence.  
6. That upon the perfecting of these conditions he shall be received into the protection of the Commonwealth, and shall have every year a Cap and a Bell with permission to lick up the crumbs that fall from the Lord Presidents Table: Beside, a weekly pension to be assigned him upon his own Mercuries.   
SIGNED, etc.  
Did ever Witch make such a Compact? Had he not much better have taken up his old trade of whipping Boys at a penny a week; or like a Gifted Brother have propagated the Gospel in the dark corners of the Nation?  
Or if he must needs be writing, could he not rather have chosen to draw up their provident Acts against Powdering of Hair, or wearing of Paches? As for example.  
An Act prohibiting the wearing of Black Paches.  
WHereas the face of the Commonwealth has of late been evershadowed with an Army of Black Paches, which like a black Leprosy have overspread the Nation, and much eclipsed the Image of God in mankind, who therefore justly threatens us with an invasion of the Scottish Locusts: Besides, the sensible decay of Taffeta, the great ornament of the City of London, and the Suburbs thereof. We having discerned this with Galileoes perspectives, and considering how preposterous it is to apply Leeches to the Face: As also that we might acquit our Trust in preserving the Commonwealth of England, as a spotless Virgin, have therefore enacted and ordained, That no person or persons shall after the date hereof wear upon his or their Face or Faces, any Black Paches, or French Flies, those provocations of lust and cantharides of Taffeta. And particularly they shall not wear any of those called the Lord Bronkhards Paches, as being a monopoly of a prohibited Commodity. And whoever offendeth herein shall be proceeded against as the Adulterers of the public Coin of the Commonwealth. And unto this purpose there shall be a Committee chosen, which shall be called the Committee of Scandalous Paches, and enabled to search over all parts of the Body of those persons who shall be accused or suspected thereof. And they shall likewise have instructions to consult with the Mintmaster for the better discovery of them, as also of all those who clip and sell them, who shall be liable to the same punishment as the wearers. Provided that this Act shall not extend to Rume-paches, which are necessary for those that seek God early and late till they be answered by him; nor to such as have lost their Eyes in the service of the State.  
This had been an employment fit for a man of his Talon: But alas, I wrong him: he was indeed only fit for what he has undertaken, that he might have his place among the rest of those Raviliacks of the Pen, to make his Stab at Monarchy, and serve upon all occasions for one of the Counsel of Conscience to the Commonwealth.  
For, though he hath the malice, yet he wants the courage to serve them in any higher mischief. And though our Mercury do wear a Rapier, it is as peaceable as the Caduceus of the other: He doth not wear it in the quality of a Sword, but hath it as other Beasts have their tails to steer him about when he turns from one side to the other.  
Or being divided still in himself by Faction and Guiltiness, he hath thus fortified his independent left side for fear of the right, which he hath disarmed as a Cavalier.  
But it is not at all dangerous, this kind of Serpents having all their sting in the tongue, but none in the tail.  
Yet surely it cannot consist with the gravity and sobriety of our State to own in any manner such a fellow, and to entertain this Snake with the forked tongue into their bosom.  
Nor can they with honour receive such an one into their sanctuary, who flies thither only that he may murder out of their Windows.  
Will they feed up an impoysoner with Napell to kill the young Alexander?  
Will they encourage an Assasin to attempt upon all Christian Princes?  
But if Commonwealths have a better Art of making Treacle of such Vipers, and ours stand in competition with the State of Venice for the receipt: Yet it is not fit that we should lie at the mercy of a Tavern, and the drunkenness of an Arbitrary Pen.  
Must we be subjected to his two Sheets of High Court of Justice? We are content to serve, but it mads us to be reproached, and by such an one as him: for there is no such torment to a Christian, as to be Tyrannised over by a Renegade.  
We ask but the same liberty that he hath had against us: Let them but abandon him to us as the 
* Camillus to the Falisci.  Roman General did the Traitorous Schoolmaster to his Pupils, and they shall see how we will order him.  
Boccalini, that innocent Moralizer, yet for writing somewhat too freely for those that were partial, was thrown into the Canal at Venice, and there drowned: It is time that we had our State-scold to the Ducking-stool.  
It is strange that my Lord Precedent should suffer such a Monster at his Table: who, if he must be maintained, as an Executioner of their Adversaries reputation, and the public instrument of Infamy; yet it were fit, that like the Hangman, he should have his Table apart, and eat and live excommunicate.  
The lean Cannibal has all that while my Lord Precedent in his teeth, and gnaws upon him in his mind, till he have opportunity to devour him.  
So insatiable is his appetite of speaking ill, that there is no person so intimate to him, or so deserving; nothing so secret or so religious which he abuseth not to that purpose: So that he is neither to be tolerated in Society, nor Policy; neither in Conversation, nor in a State, but rather as a public parricide to be thrown into the Sea in a sack, with a Cock, an Ape, and a Serpent, the right emblems of his politic Triplicity.  
Such once the Changeling Prophet was  
That Centaur made of Man and Ass;  
And so himself did Balaam sell  
To Curse for Moab, Israel.  
FINIS.