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by Glenn Hamilton

In 1626 a pamphlet was published in London, entitled “A most Delectable, Sweet, Perfumed Nosegay, for God’s Saints to smell at.” About the year 1646 there was published a work entitled “A Pair of Bellows, to blow off the Dust cast upon John Fay;” and another called “The Snuffers for Divine Love.”

Cromwell’s time was particularly famous for title pages. The author of a work on charity entitles his book “Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches;” and another, who professed a wish to exalt poor human nature, called his labors “High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness;” and another, “Crumbs of Comfort for the Chickens of the Covenant.” A Quaker, whose outward man the powers thought proper to imprison, published “A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, breathed out of a hole in the wall of an Eastern Vessel, known among men by the name of Samuel Fish.”

About the same time there was also published “The Spiritual Mustard-pot, to make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion;” “Salvation’s Vantage-ground, or a Leaping Stand for Heavenly Believers;” another, “A Shot at the Devil’s Head-quarters, through the Tube of the Cannon of the Covenant.” “This is an author who speaks plain language, that the most 12 illiterate reprobate cannot fail to understand;” another, “Reaping-hook, well tempered for the Stubborn Ears of the Coming Crop; or, Biscuits baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation.” To another, we have the following copious description of its contents: “Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sin, or the Penitential Psalms of the Princely Prophet David; whereunto are also annexed William Huinnis’ Handful of Honeysuckles, and Divers Godly and Pithy Ditties, now newly augmented.”

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