be a popish play; why? Because it exposes the villainy of sectaries and rebels. Prove them first to be protestants, and see what you will get by it when you have done. Your party are certainly the men whom the play attacks, and so far I will help you; the designs and actions, represented in the play, are such as you have copied from the League; for though you have wickedness enough, yet you wanted the wit to make a new contrivance. But for shame, while you are carrying on such palpable villainy, do not assume the name of protestants. You will tell us, you are friends to the government, and the king's best subjects; but all the while you are aspersing both it and him. Who shall be judges, whether you are friends or not? The government or you? Have not all rebels always sung the same song? Was ever thief or murderer fool enough to plead guilty? For your love and loyalty to the king, they, who mean him best among you, are no better subjects than Duke Trinculo; they would be content he should be viceroy, so they may be viceroys over him*.

The next accusation is particular to me," that I, the said Bayes, would falsely and feloniously have robbed Nat. Lee of his share in the representation of Edipus." Now I am culprit ; I writ the first and third acts of Edipus, and drew the scenery of the whole play whenever I have owned a farther pro

His friends stood firmly to him, when distressed,
He hopes the number is not now decreast.
He found esteem from those he valued most;
Proud of his friends, he of his foes could boast.

* "Know then, to prevent the farther shedding of Christian blood, we are all content Ventoso shall be viceroy, upon condition I may be viceroy over him." Tempest, as altered by Dryden, vol. iii. p. 124.

portion, let my accusers speak this was meant mischievously, to set us two at variance. Who is the old serpent and Satan now? When my friends help my barren fancy, I am thankful for it: I do not use to receive assistance, and afterwards ungratefully disown it.

Not long after, "exemplary punishment" is due to me for this most "devilish parallel." It is a devilish one indeed; but who can help it? If I draw devils like one another, the fault is in themselves for being so: I neither made their horns nor claws, nor cloven feet. I know not what I should have done, unless I had drawn the devil a handsome proper gentleman, like the painter in the fable, to have made a friend of him; but I ought to be exemplarily punished for it: when the devil gets uppermost, I shall expect it." In the mean time, let magistrates (that respect their oaths and office)"--which words, you see, are put into a parenthesis, as if (God help us) we had none such now, let them put the law in execution against lewd scribblers; the mark will be too fair upon a pillory, for a turnip or a rotten egg to miss it. But, for my part, I have not malice enough to wish him so much harm,--not so much as to have a hair of his head perish, much less that one whole side of it should be dismantled. I am no informer, who writ such a song, or such a libel; if the dulness betrays him not, he is safe for me. And may the same dulness preserve him ever from public justice; it is a sufficient thick mud-wall betwixt him and law; it is his guardian angel, that protects him from punishment, because, in spite of

The fable alluded to occurs in the Pia Hilaria of Gazæus, and in Le Grand's Fabliaux; it makes the subject of a humorous tale by Mr Robert Southey.

him, he cannot deserve it. It is that which preserves him innocent when he means most mischief, and makes him a saint when he intends to be a devil. He can never offend enough, to need the mercy of government, for it is beholden to him, that he writes against it; and he never offers at a satire, but he converts his readers to a contrary opinion.

Some of the succeeding paragraphs are intended for very Ciceronian: there the lawyer flourishes in the pulpit, and the poet stands in socks among the crowd to hear him. Now for narration, resolution, calumniation, aggravation, and the whole artillery of tropes and figures, to defend the proceedings at Guild-hall. The most minute circumstances of the elections are described so lively, that a man, who had not heard he was there in a livery-gown, might suspect there was a quorum pars magna fui in the case; and multitudes of electors, just as well qualified as himself, might give their party the greater number: but throw back their gilt shillings, which were told for guineas, and their true sum was considerably less. Well, there was no rebellion at this time; therefore, says my adversary, there was no parallel. It is true there was no rebellion; but who ever told him that I intended this parallel so far? if the likeness had been throughout, I may guess, by their good will to me, that I had never lived to write it. But, to show his mistake, which I believe wilful, the play was wholly written a month or two before the last election of the sheriffs. Yet it seems there was some kind of prophecy in the case; and, till the faction gets clear of a riot, a part of the comparison will hold even there; yet, if he pleases to remember, there has been a king of England forced by the inhabitants from his imperial town. It is true, the son has had better fortune than the father; but the reason is, that he has now a stronger party

in the city than his enemies; the government of it is secured in loyal and prudent hands, and the party is too weak to push their designs farther. "They rescued not their beloved sheriffs at a time (he tells you) when they had a most important use of them." What the importancy of the occasion was, I will not search: it is well if their own consciences will acquit them. But let them be never so much beloved, their adherents knew it was a lawful authority that sent them to the Tower; and an authority which, to their sorrow, they were not able to resist: so that, if four men guarded them without disturbance, and, to the contempt of their strength, at broad noonday, and at full exchange-time, it was no more their honesty to stand looking on with their hands in their pockets, than it is of a small band of robbers to let a caravan go by, which is too strong for them to assault.

After this, I am called, after the old rate, loose and infamous scribbler; and it is well I escape so cheap. Bear your good fortune moderately, Mr Poet; for, as loose and infamous as I am, if I had written for your party, your pension would have been cut off as useless. But they must take up with Settle, and such as they can get: Bartholomew-fair writers*, and Bartholemew-close printers; there is a famine of wit amongst them, they are forced to give unconscionable rates, and, after all, to have only carrion for their money.

Then, I am "an ignorant fellow for not knowing there were no juries in Paris." I do not remember to have written any such thing; but whoever did,

• Alluding to the well-known catastrophe of poor Settle acting in Bartholomew fair:

"Reduced at last to hiss in his own dragon,"
N

VOL. VII,

I am confident it was not his ignorance. Perhaps he had a mind to bring the case a little nearer home: If they had not juries in Paris, we had them from the Normans, who were Frenchmen; and, as you managed them, we had as good have had none in London. Let it satisfy you we have them now; and some of your loose and infamous scribblers may come to understand it a little better.

The next is, the justification of a noble peer deceased; the case is known, and I have no quarrel to his memory let it sleep; he is now before another judge. Immediately after, I am said to have intended an "abuse to the House of Commons;" which is called by our authors "the most august assembly of Europe." They are to prove I have abused that House; but it is manifest they have lessened the House of Lords, by owning the Commons to be the "more august assembly." ""It is an House chosen (they say) by every protestant who has a considerable inheritance in England;" which word considerable signifies forty shillings per annum of free land. For the interest of the loyal party, so much undervalued by our authors, they have long ago confessed in print, that the nobility and gentry have disowned them; and the yeomanry have at last considered, queis hæc consevimus arca? They have had enough of unlawful and arbitrary power; and know what an august assembly they had once without a King and House of Peers.

But now they have me in a burning scent, and run after me full cry: "Was ever such licence connived at, in an impious libeller and scribbler, that the succession, so solemn a matter, that is not fit to be debated of but in parliament, should be profaned so far as to be played with on the stage?"

Hold a little, gentlemen, hold a little; (as one of your fellow citizens says in "The Duke of Guise,")