the straight-haired nincompoops! * fellows, and be damn'd to them, that had been wont to of his neighbour; or he shall be armed by the state. Let every man arm himself and his apprentices, and come forth with boldness, and with courage, and with cheerfulness, and doubt not but God will assist you." It was the City Train Bands, that corps chiefly composed of city apprentices, which has since been the butt for the unceasing wit and ridicule of poet and painter, scribbler and caricaturist, whose determined bravery, under the parliamentary standard, discomfited the royal armies, and principally served to determine the fate of the cruel war. * "Made taylors' 'prentices turn heroes, For fear of being transform'd to Meroz; Than not espouse the Saints' adventures." The rebellious preachers were wont to sound often in the ears of the people, to make them imagine they should fall under a grievous curse, if they, as many at least who were fit to make soldiers, did not list in the parliament army, to fight what these hypocritical rebels called, The Lord's battles against the mighty; that was, the king and all his friends. This text, Judges v. 28. Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord; trundle a rolling-pin instead of trailing a pike; deputy venders of Spitalfields ribbons and pins -measurers of an ell of calimanco-quill-drivers, pepperers, and sugar-bag pasters; but, Lord! how they peppered away, and carried all before them!" "I rode past old Cromwell, and by G-d his nose was as a flaming meteor. 6 • Forward, forward, my and the city. my babes of grace,' said he; darling Londoners. For God The arm of the Lord is with us;' and spurring his strawberry charger, spanked on pell-mell over every thing, like one of the old yeomen prickers. Lord what a day, Matt! I'll be sworn he rode down half a score of the king's heavy troopers at least, and his cuirass was as bloody as a chopping-block. It appears now all curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty." "Then curse ye Meroz, in each pulpit did thunder, To perplex the poor people, and keep them in wonder, as a dream. Ah, Matt, how many prime fellows dug their early graves under their own feet that day noble cocks on both sides!" "Did it never turn your heart sick, to listen to the word of command on the side of the enemy, in our own mother tongue, Ingoldsby? you, who had seen foreign service," enquired Walker. "For God's sake let that alone," replied the soldier. "Yes, it turns my heart into my midriff to think of it. Many an old acquaintance met, with deadly determination that day, and rid away on sudden recognition, aye, even at a horse's length! Fatal necessity! I am thankful 'tis all over. If brother will arm against brother, let it never happen on earth again; better go to hell at once, and settle the business, with the devil as umpire." "Be it so," said Barlowe, "for there is no appeal to the justice of men in civil broils." "All which being said and done," said Walker, "now, Master Ingoldsby, do now be so civil as to make us a face, or we shall never finish the sign." The prankish colonel had an extraordinary faculty, namely, that of altering his visage to resemble that of another. Once at the mess, in Oliver Cromwell's quarters, when he commanded the horse near the city of York, Oliver, who malgre his canting and seeking the Lord, had occasional freaks of comical humour, which would have qualified him for a merry Andrew, "Come," said he, "Master Dickey, give us your picture gallery;" when, strange to say, such was the flexibility of his facial muscles, and such his memory, that he could make his phiz up, a Harry Tudor, a Sir Thomas More, an Erasmus, a Philip of Spain, and other wellknown portraits hanging on the walls at Whitehall and Hampton Court, and with such identity of expression and character, that Oliver had been known to laugh till he cried again. "Thou droll dog, my own cousin Dick," said he one day, "were I king of England, I'd give thee a notable pension, and make thee 'Squire Joculorum of my three kingdoms." He was moreover a delectable mimic of PraiseGod-Barebones, and Hugh Peters; and as for old Barrister Prynne's starched phiz, he could screw it up to the very letter. His humour was irresistible, inasmuch as there was a story of his having tickled into risibility the staid features of Mistress Abitha Needham, the preaching anabaptist of Bow Brickhill. So, taking out his little pocket-book camp mirror, by which he shaved on service, and burning a cork on Barlowe's German stove, he strengthened the crowsfeet on his own phiz, and screwed his features into the desired prototype. Walker set to with his painting tools, and using asphaltum and copal, finished the group of St. Dunstan and the Devil. "I'faith!" exclaimed Barlowe, "that's the mark, brother Robert," with an encouraging slap on the shoulder. "I think mine host will chuckle at this. What think you Walker, will the old tapster come down a supper for the party?" "One thing I'll be sworn, brother Matt,” replied Walker, "if he does not, mine hostess will, for she cordially hates old Prynne, and all the saintly crew; and dame Johnson is not lacking of spirit." This proposition, however, was merely idle talk, for no good fellows in town spent their cash more freely than all the friendly triumvi |