The Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 · Chapter 50The Protecting Brewer
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
This was apparently written as a parody on the Brewer, in Pills to purge Melancholy, 1682. The original was too complimentary to Oliver Cromwell, asserted by the Royalists to have been a brewer in early life, to suit the taste of the Cavaliers, and hence the alteration made in it. Such compliments as the following must have proceeded from a writer of the opposite party.
Some Christian kings began to quake, And said With the brewer no quarrel we’ll make, We’ll let him alone; as he brews let him bake; Which nobody can deny.
He had a strong and a very stout heart, And thought to be made an Emperor for’t, * * * * * Which nobody can deny.
A Brewer may be a burgess grave, And carry the matter so fine and so brave, That he the better may play the knave, Which nobody can deny.
A brewer may put on a Nabal face, And march to the wars with such a grace That he may get a captain’s place; Which nobody, etc.
A brewer may speak so wondrous well That he may rise (strange things to tell), And so be made a colonel; Which nobody, etc.
A brewer may make his foes to flee, And rise his fortunes, so that he Lieutenant-general may be; Which nobody, etc.
A brewer may be all in all, And raise his powers, both great and small, That he may be a lord general; Which nobody, etc.
A brewer may be like a fox in a cub, And teach a lecture out of a tub, And give the wicked world a rub; Which nobody, etc.
A brewer, by’s excise and rate, Will promise his army he knows what, And set upon the college-gate; Which nobody, etc.
Methinks I hear one say to me, Pray why may not a brewer be Lord Chancellor o’ the University? Which nobody, etc.
A brewer may be as bold as Hector, When as he had drank his cup o’ Nectar, And a brewer may be a Lord Protector; Which nobody, etc.
Now here remains the strangest thing, How this brewer about his liquor did bring To be an emperor or a king; Which nobody, etc.
A brewer may do what he will, And rob the Church and State, to sell His soul unto the devil in hell; Which nobody, etc.