Vll 



for now a smoak began to rise in every cor- 

 ner, and like a meteor, it blaz'd out at last 

 into fuliginous flames, that overspread the 

 beautiful prospect of peace; which not on- 

 ly distracted the minds but the manners of 

 men ; because then to behold a storm rise 

 out of a calm, that not only threatned pre- 

 rogative and privilege, but a national exit, 

 unhappily calculated to compel the people 

 to see their own ruins wrapt up in the des- 

 tiny of war. Where some, because never 

 enough satisfied by being well, endeavoured 

 by inadvertency to make themselves worse, 

 and striking their breasts with their own 

 weapons, forced all the kingdom to bleed 

 at last. So that now every man runs to seek 

 a pleget to stanch, if possible, the reeking 

 wound ; yet no man so propitious to find 

 his own cure, by which he fancied all the 

 rest incurable. That now so generally and 

 epidemically the kingdom was diseased, that 

 deliriated and distracted, they let one an- 

 other blood. Nor stop'd it here neither, for 

 the cultivated fields stained all over with 

 English blood (beyond all precedent) bled, 



