YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY *' FROM. THE ORIGINAL PORTItAIT R -" BRAMTTO i I , IN THE POSSESSION OK EAR.L STANHOPE ENGLAND UNDER THE HOUSE OE HANOVER; ITS HISTORY AND CONDITION DURING THB REIGNS OF THE THREE GEORGES, ILLUSTRATED FROM Cf)e ffiaticatures anti Satires of tftt Hag. BY THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A., &c. CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE (aCADE.-MIE DES INSCRIPTIONS ET BELLES LETTREs). WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, EXECUTED BY F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. SECOND EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, ^vtbliilftt in (©riltnarjj to ffi«r jHajtiSt^. 1848. YALE' By SL GSy PREFACE. The application of song, and satire, and picture, to politics, is a thing of no modern date ; for we trace it more or less among every people with whose history we have much acquaintance. Caricatures and songs have been found in Egyptian tombs. The song and the lampoon were the constant attendants on, and incen tives in, those incessant political struggles which, during the middle ages, were preparing for the formation of modern society ; and many an old manuscript and sculp tured block, whether of wood or stone, show that our forefathers in the middle ages understood well the permanent force of pictorial satire. But it is more es pecially in religious matters that the middle ages, like antiquity, have shown a full perception of the import ance of appealing through the eye to the hearts of the masses. In the rapid and temporary movements of political strife, this weapon could not be adopted with much eifect until after the invention of printing, when, by a quick process, pictures engraved could be multiplied indefinitely. It was in the latter part of the sixteenth, and especially during the seventeenth century, that engraved caricatures became a very VI PREFACE. formidable instrument in working upon the feelings of the populace. Songs and lampoons, which every tongue could assist in circulating, have never ceased to show themselves in great abundance during every political movement since the period when the sniall amount of historical information which time has left us, allows us first to trace them ; and they, as well as caricatures, have been by far too much neglected as historical documents, — for in them, perhaps, alone can we hope to trace many of the real motives which caused or exerted an influence over all the great popular revolutions of the past. In the wish to show the utility of such records of the past, by illustrating a given period of modern his tory from materials entirely derived from these sources, originated the following picture of the reigns of the first three Georges. It is to us an interesting period, because in it originated all those distinctions of poli tical parties, and that peculiar spirit of constitutional antagonism, which exist at the present day. With it most of the political questions now in dispute took their rise. It consists in itself of two periods ; the first, that in which the House of Brunswick was esta blished on the throne of England upon the ruin of Jacobitism, and by the overthrow of the political creed of despotism ; the second, that in which the same dynasty and its throne were defended against the en croachments of that fearful flood of republicanism which burst out from a neighbouring kingdom, and when they thus gained the victory over democracy. PREFACE. vii During these periods both the great political parties in this country came into play; in the first, the consti tution owed its salvation to the Whigs ; in the second, it was in all probability saved by the Tories. It may be necessary to state that in the present work the poli tical colour of the history has been generally given more or less as represented in the class of materials on which it is founded. This was the period during which political carica tures flourished in England — when they were not mere pictures to amuse and excite a laugh, but when they were made extensively subservient to the political warfare that was going on. This use of them seems to have been imported from Holland, and to have first come into extensive practice after the revolution of 1688. Before that time, the art of engraving had not made sufficient progress in this country to allow them to be produced with much effect. The older carica tures, those, for instance, upon Cromwell, were chiefly executed by Dutch artists; and even in the great in undation of caricatures occasioned by the South-Sea bubble, the majority of them came from Holland. It was a defect of the earlier productions of this class, that they partook more of an emblematical character than of what we now understand by the term caricature. Even Hogarth, when he turned his hand to politics, could not shake off the old prejudice on this subject, and it would be difficult to point out worse examples than the two celebrated publications which drew upon him so much popular odium, " The Times." Modern ca- Vlll PREFACE. ricature took its form from the pencils of a number of clever amateur artists, who were actively engaged in the political intrigues of the reign of George II. ; it became a rage during the first years of his successor ; and then seemed to be dying away, to revive suddenly in the splendid conceptions of Gillray. This able artist was certainly the first caricaturist of our coun try ; during his long career, he produced a series of prints which form a complete history of the age. The Work now laid before the public is necessarily but a sketch; only the more prominent points of the history of a hundred years are seized upon, and put forward in relief. The original plan adopted has been to use caricatures and satires in the same manner that other historical illustrations are com monly used, by extracting from them the point, or at least a point, which bears more particularly or directly on the subject under consideration ; thus, a few figures are taken from a caricature, or a few lines from a song. Some of the more remarkable caricatures have been given entire, on separate plates. The idea, it is believed, is new, and I had to contend with the difficulties of labouring in so extensive a field, where nobody had previously cleared the way. These difficulties were, indeed, much great er than I foresaw, for no public collections of cari catures, or of political tracts and papers, exist. The poverty of our great national establishment, the Bri tish Museum, in works of this class, is deplorable. As far as regards caricatures, I had fortunately PREFACE. IX obtained access to several very extensive private collections. Of these the most important are the collections of Mr. T. Haviland Burke, whose illus trious uncle acted so important a role in the poli tical events here recorded ; and Mr. Edward Haw kins, the chief officer of the department of anti quities in the British Museum. The collection of caricatures belonging to Mr. Hawkins, is probably the largest ever made in this country, and to that gen tleman my warmest thanks are due for the readiness and urbanity with which he gave me access to them. The kind attentions which I have received from Mr. Burke during the progress of this work, I shall always remember with pleasure. My sincere thanks are no less due for attentions of every kind which I have con stantly met with from Mr. William Smith, of Lisle Street, who possesses probably the largest and finest collection of the works of Gillray in existence ; from Mr. H. W. Diamond, who also possesses a valuable collection of caricatures ; from Mr. W. D. Haggard, the President of the Numismatic Society, whose col lection of historical and satirical medals has been of considerable utility ; and from several other friends who have placed smaller, though valuable, collections of old caricatures at my disposal. Unfortunately, no one, as far as I have been able to discover, has made any considerable collection of political songs, satires, and other such tracts, published during the last century and the present. This is a circumstance much to be regretted, for it is a class of popular literature which is X PREFACE. rapidly perishing, although the time is not yet past when such a collection might be made with consider able success. In conclusion, I will merely add, that I have had to deal with a class of literature which is always more coarse than any other, and during a period which was celebrated for anything rather than for delicacy. I have steered clear of this evil as carefully as I could without infringing on the truth of the picture of manners and sentiments which this book is intended to represent. For a similar reason I have avoided entering upon the religious disputes, which were pro ductive of much caricature and satire ; but when caricature is applied to such subjects, it seldom es capes the blot of being more or less profane. London, July, 1848. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. GEORGE I. PAGB 6TATE OP PARTIES AT THE END OP QUEEN ANNe's REIGN. HIGH-CHURCH AND DR. SACHEVERELL. ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. POLITICAL SQUIBS THAT FOLLOWED. — ATTACKS UPON THE EX-MINISTERS. — ROBERT, THE POLITIOAL JUGGLER. — AGITATIONS AT THE ELECTIONS.— JACOBITISH POPULARITY OF THE DUKE OF ORMOND. OARICATURES' OF THE PRETENDER, JACOBITE RIOT.S AND THE RIOT ACT. — FAILURE OF THE REBELLION AND EXULTATION OF THE WHIGS. — HISTORY OF THE LONDON JACOBITE MOB.t— THE KING'S DEPARTURE FOR HANOVER. . . . . . . . 1 CHAPTER II. GEORGE L PARTY FEELING AFTER THE REBELLION.— PREVALENCE OP HIGHWAY ROB BERY. — THE MOB. BISHOP HOADLY'S SERMON, AND COLLEY CIBBER'S " NON JUROR." THE FRENCH MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. — SUDDEN MULTIPLICATION OF STOCK-JOBBING BUBBLES. — FALL OF THE " PAPER king" LAW THE SOUTH SEA BALLAD. SOUTH SEA CARICATURES. — BUBBLE CARDS, AND STOCK-JOBBING CARDS. KNIGHT AND THE " SCREEN." ELECTIONS FOR A NEW P.ARLUMENT NEW EFFORTS IN FAVOUR OP THB PRETENDER. BISHOP ATTERBURY'S PLOT. .... 50 CHAPTER III. GEORGE I. AND II. LITERATURE DEBASED BY THE RAGE FOR POLITICS.. — THE STAGE. — OPERAS, MASQUERADES, AND PANTOMIMES. — HEIDEGGER AND HIS SINGERS. — ORATOR HENLEY. — " THE BEGGAR'S OPERA." " THE DUNCIAD." — CONTINUED POPU LARITY OF THE OPERA. — POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. — ACT FOR LICENSING PLAYS. — ATTACKS UPON POPE. — NEW EDITION OF THE " DUNCIAD." . 90 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. GEORGE II. PAGB SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S ADMINISTRATION. PULTENEY, BOLINGBROKE, AND TEE " PATRIOTS." — ACCESSION OF GEORGE IL — THE CONGRESS OF SOISSONS. PROSECUTION OF THE " CRAFTSMAN." THE EXCISE. — INCREASING ATTACKS UPON WALPOLE. VIOLENCE IN THE ELECTIONS. THE GIN ACT. THE PRINCE OF WALES LEADS THE OPPOSITION. — FOREIGN POLICY ; WALPOLE AND CARDI NAL FLEURY. BENEWED ATTACKS UPON WALPOLE, AND DIMINUTION OF THE MINISTERIAL MAJORITIES.. — THE " MOTION," AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. — THE QUEEN OP HUNGARY. WALPOLE IN THE MINORITY, AND CONSEQUENT RESIG NATION. — THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY'. .... 130 CHAPTER V. MINISTERIAL CHANGES AND PROMOTIONS. — UNPOPULARITY OF LORD BATH. BATTLE OF_DETTINGEN. — NEW CHANGES, AND THE " BROAD-BOTTOM." THE REBELLION OF '45, AND ITS EFFECTS. THE CITY TRAINED BANDS. — THE BUTCHER. — THE WESTMINSTER ELECTIONS. NEW CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY. — CONGRESS AND PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. — THE HOSTAGES. NEW MINISTERIAL QUARRELS. "CONSTITUTIONAL QUERIES." — DEATH OP THE PRINCE OF WALES. . . . . . . . 199 CHAPTER VL GEORGE II. CHANGES IN THE ADMINISTRATION, AND INCIPIENT OPPOSITION. — OLD INTE REST AND NEW INTEREST.— ELIZABETH CANNING. THE BILL FOR THE NATU RALISATION OF THE JEWS. — ELECTIONS ; HOGARTH'S PRINTS. — DEATH OF MR. PELHAM, AND CONSEQUENT CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY. — WAR WITH FRANCE. TRIAL OF ADMIRAL BYNG. — NEW CONVULSION IN THE MINISTRY', AND AC CESSION OF WILLIAM PITT TO POWER. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. POPULAR DISCONTENT; BEER versus GIN. — CONQUEST OP CANADA. DEATH OF GEORGE THE SECOND. ........ 249 CHAPTER VII. GEORGE II. AND III. PROGRESS OP LITERATURE : MAGAZINES AND REVIEWS J DR. HILL. THE REIGN OF PERTNESS. PREVALENCE OF QUACKERY AND CREDULITY : THE BOTTLE CONJUROR ; THE EARTHQUAKE; THE COCK LANE GHOST. THE STAGE AND THE OPERA; GARRICK AND QUIN; HANDEL; FOOTE. INFLUENCE OF- FRENCH FASHIONS J NATIONAL EXTRAVAGANCE, AND SOCIAL CONDITION. EXAGGERATED FASHIONS IN COSTUME : HOOP-PETTICOATS AND GREAT HEAD DRESSES ; THE MACARONIS. NEGLECT OF LITERATURE, AND QUARRELS OF AUTHORS : HOGARTH AND CHURCHILL ; SMOLLETT; JOHNSON; CHATTERTON. 303 CONTENTS. XUl CHAPTER VIII. GEORGE III. PAGE _ ACCESSION OF GEORGE III. — BREAKING UP OF THE PITT MINISTRY. — BISE 0^ LORiTbUTE, ASJD INtnjDATION OF SCOTCHMEN. — THE PEACH. — BUTE'S RE SIGNATION. " WILKES AND LIBERTY ;" THE MOB. THE NORTH BRITON, AND THE " ESSAY ON WOMAN." ATTEMPT TO TAX THE AMERICANS. — TEE ROCK INGHAM MINISTRY. — Pitt's re- appearance, and temporary restoration to power as earl op chatham. — outlawry of wilkes ; the pillory. — Bute's secret influence ; his puppets. — wilkes at brentford, and in THE king's bench. — WILKES LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, AND HIS SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. ........ 389 LIST OF PLATES. VOL. I. PORTRAIT OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM THE MOTION .... CITY TRAINED BANDS . THE ELECTION — CANVASSING POR VOTES LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE SETTLING THE ODD TRICK TO FACE THE TITLE 178 231 257 311 362 WOOD ENGRAVINGS. THE THREE FALSE BRETHREN . ROBERT, THE POLITICAL JOGGLER THB CATHOLIC FAMILY TRUTH EXPOSING THE SECRET A MODERN ATLAS DOUBLE ROBBERY TRANSFER . . • ¦ FOLLT, IN THE GARB OP 1720 THE END OF BUBBLING knight's DEPARTURE . AN ELECTION EPISODE THE HORSE AND LION MEDALS ON ATTERBURV'S PLOT CUZZONI, FARINELLI, AND HEIDEG GER . • • • HEIDEGGER IN A RAGE RDBBISH THEATRICAL CONTRIVANCES 16 30 307173 7374 788084 101102 103 PAGE AN "oratory" BAPTISM . . . 106 '* henley's gilt-tub" . . .114 the charmers of the age, in 1742 120 POET PUG 124 THE CLUMSY DAUBER . . 126 POPE AND CURLL .... 12? THE POLITICAL BALLAD SINGER , 137 THE BALANCE OF POWER . . . 141 THE NEW MONSTER . . . 144 PARING THE NAILS OF THE BRITISH LION 165 DUTCH FRIENDSHIP .... l69 THE POLITICAL JACK THE GIANT KILLER 170 JACK IN HIS GLORY .... I7I THE CARDINAL IN THE DUMPS . 175 THE DEVIL UPON TWO STICKS . . I76 LORD FANNY ... .181 XIV WOOD ENGRAVINGS. FAGE 189 igo 191 192 197198 A ROYAL GIPSY . . . THE CUNNING PHYSICIAN . CARDINAL "lachesis" KING "ATROPOS" GOOD ADTICE THE BALANCE-MASTER IN DANGER THE BRITISH LION OUT OF OBDEB . 207 GOING OUT 211 . 211 . 215 . 216 . 217 NEW . 219 COMING IN . THE PROTESTANT CHAMPION AN IMPORTATION . AN INDEPENDENT OFFICER BRITANNIA DANCING TO A TUNE .... REBELLION DEFEATED THE BENEFIT OF NEUTRALITY BOB-CHERRY A CHERRY IN HAND . PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE . CROSS-FIRE . TRAINED BANDS • THE BEAU .... THE BUTCHER THE TWO SHILLING BUTCHER THE HOSTAGES . PEACE AND PLENTY . , THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE THE BRITISH LION ROUSED THE GALLIC COCK PLUCKED FRANCE IN THE DUMPS FOX, AND GOOSE THE CLOVEN-FOOTED ADMIRAL THE BEAU ADMIRAL MEDAL ON BYNG THB SCRAMBLER OVERTHROWN THE CANDIDATE ENCUMBERED A LUSUS NATURJE A LEAN RECRUIT A FAT FOLLOWER CASSIUS . . A GRAND EXPEDITION A WILLING RECRUIT THE PATRIOTIC PAINTE ENGLISH BEER . HALF-WAR . 219 , 222 , 224 , 225 , 228 , 229 , 231 , 235 , 236 , 237 , 244 , 246 , 258 , 261 . 271 . 271 . 272 . 273 . 274 . 275 . 279 . 282 . 283 . 21=6 . 288 . 292 . 293 . 294 . 297 A GENERAL IN DISTRESS . THE INSPECTOR GLORIFIED THE MEDICAL HIGHWAYMAN AN EXPIRING HARLEQUIN THE CHARMING BRUTE FOREIGN MERCHANDIZE . MODERN CONTRIVANCES A HEAD-DRESS IN 1777 A NEW OPERA-SLASS A BIRD OF PARADISE A HIGH HEAD-DRESS MISS CALASH IN CONTEMPLATI LADIES OF FASHION . A MACARONI IN 1772 A MACARONI IN 1773 A PLAYER .... AN AUTHOR AN UNFORTUNATE ANALYSIST A PAINTER IN DISTRESS . PAINTER PUG A PATRIOT .... A DEAR-MASTER . THE BEAUTIFIER . THE MOUNTEBANK A PATRIOT WORRIED . AN OWL .... the distressed statesman Gulliver's flight . dutch policy a journey from the noeth a scotch missive the fox elevated . thb peace-makers . neutrality . . . the friend of liberty . THE IDOL .... THB IDOL'S SCOURGE . THE EXECUTIONER . THE COURIER THE COLOSSUS . . 404 . 405 . 409 . 414 . 414 . 415 . 422 . 429 . 430 THE WIRE-MASTER AND HIS PUPPETS 433 THE CARDUUS BENEDICTUS THE REIGNING TRIO . THE BOOT 436 THE RECONCILIATION . , , 446 PAGK . 299 . 313 . 323 . 337 . 346 . 353 . 357 . 361 . 362 . 363 . 363 * 364 . 364 , 371 , 371 . 375 , 376 . 377 . 380 , 380 , 382 . 384 , 386 . 387 , 395 ENGLAND THE HOUSE OF HANOYER. CHAPTER I. GEORGE I. STATE OF PARTIES AT THE END OF QUEEN ANNE's REIGN. HIGH-CHURCH AND DR. SACHEVERELL. ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. POLITICAL SQUIBS THAT FOLLOWED. ATTACKS UPON THE EX-MINISTERS. ROBERT, THE POLITIOAL JUGGLER. AGITATION AT THE ELECTIONS. — JACOBITISH POPULARITY OP THE DUKE OF ORMOND. OARICATURES ON THE PRETENDER. JACOBITE RIOTS AND THE RIOT AOT. FAILURE OF THE REBELLION AND EXULTATION OF THE WHIGS. HISTORY OF THE LONDON JACOBITE MOB. THE KlNo's DEPARTURE FOB HANOVER. It was the 30th July, 1714, when a queen of Eng land had just sunk upon her death-bed ; and, perhaps, no monarch ever left the world in the midst of more critical circumstances. Not that the loss of the Queen herself was the object of any especial regret ; for we are informed in the papers of the time, that, on the morning of the 31st, when it was reported in London that Anne was dead, the public funds immediately rose three or four per cent., and that in the afternoon, when it was known that she was still alive, they fell at once to their former value. We must review briefly the politics of the years which had immediately preceded, to understand this VOL. I. B 2 WHIGS AND TORIES. [1714. singular position of aifairs. Two opposing parties had arisen out of the revolution of '88. The Whigs, as the natural and stanch supporters of the new state of things, had continued, with but slight in terruptions, to hold the reins of government, when they were at length thrown out of power by the intrigues of the Bed-chamber in 1710, at a moment when they had every reason to suppose themselves strong in the confidence and sympathies of their countrymen. The Tories, even when most moderate, were secret well-wishers to the exiled family; and this feeling, cherished more or less strongly, produced various shades or gradations of party, until it ex pressed itself in a form little short of open treason in the non-jurors and Jacobites. There can be little doubt that the whole Tory party of the reign of Queen Anne would have ultimately declared in favour of the Pretender, had he once obtained any certain pros pect of success. The antipathy between the two great political par ties was of the bitterest description ; and each endea voured to render its opponents odious to the public by personal abuse and calumny, which were scattered abroad with the scurrilous licence of the press that had been handed down from the times of the Common wealth and Charles the Second. It is hardly possible to conceive anything more abhorrent to good feeling than the virulent language of the political pamphlets of the age of which we are speaking, and which crept even into the more respectable literature of the day. A Tory newspaper, the Post-Boy of March 30, 17X4, ob serves seriously, that " To desire the Whigs to forbear lying, we are sensible would be a most unreasonable request ; because it is their nature, and their faction 1714.] PARTY VIOLENCE. 3 could not subsist without it." Their enemies endea voured to throw upon the Whigs, as a bodj^ the imputation with which the Commonwealth men had been stigmatised in the previous century : they were a hypocritical set of schismatics and republicans, worthy only to figure on the gallows or the pillory. A song, circulated in 1712, describes them as a pack of ill-grained dogs. " There 's atheists and deists, and fawning Dissenter ; There 's republican sly, and long-winded canter ; There 's heresy, schism, and mild moderation, That 's still in the wrong for the good of the nation ; There 's Baptist, Socinian, and Quakers with scruples, 'Till kind toleration links 'em all in church-couples. " Some were bred in the army, some dropt from the fleet ; Under bulks some were litter'd, and some in the street ; Some are good harmless curs, without teeth or claws ; Some were whelp'd in a shop, and some runners at laws ; Some were wretched poor curs, mongrel starvers and setters, Till, dividing the spoil, they put in with their betters.'' The Whigs were by no means backward in throw ing similar dirt in the faces of the Tories, whom they looked upon in the light of traitors and rebels. Among the clergy, unfortunately, these political animosities were more acrimonious than among the laity, and the pulpit everywhere teemed with seditious and libellous sermons. A considerable portion of the clergy had refused to acknowledge King William, and were strongly tainted with Jacobitism ; and a still greater number had only conformed to the circumstances of the times, reluctantly and with mental reservations, in order to preserve the temporal advantages they derived from the Church ; and, although several of the bishops, such as Burnet and Hoadly, with B 2 4 BEHAVIOUR OF THE CLERGY. [1714- a number of the lower clergy, were distinguished by their liberal and tolerant feelings, a very large party, who claimed the lofty-sounding title of the High-Church, hated everything like a Dissenter with an intense spirit of persecution, and detested the Whigs as much for the protection they afforded them, as for their political creed. The Tory pa pers could hardly allude to a misfortune which had occurred to a Dissenter without a sneer or a joke. The Weekly Packet of November 12, 1715, has the following article : — " On Monday last, the Presby terian minister at Epsom broke his leg, which was so miserably shattered, that it was cut off the next day. This is a great token, that those pretenders to sanctity do not walk so circumspectly as they give out." The other party was by no means slow in retaliating on the Church, which lost its dignity and its sacred character in these unseemly disputes. The Whig pamphlets and songs pictured in broad colours the unsanctified lives of many of the Church clergy, their venality and greediness; and one song ends with the taunt, that " They swallow all up Without e'en a gulp : There 's nought chokes a priest but a halter." Unfortunately, too, many of the leading men on both sides sullied their great talents by dishonesty and profligacy, and gave a handle for the malice of their opponents. The Revolution had been essentially aristocratic in character, and no appeal had then been made to the passions of the multitude. Hence arose the great strength of the Whigs in the House of Lords. The first regular political mob was a High-Church mob. 1709.] DR. SACHEVERELL. 5 Stirred up for the purpose of raising a clamour against the Whigs, and to influence the elections for Par liament. This appeal to the lower orders was made through a divine of very little moral character and no great abilities, the notorious Dr. Henry Sache vereU, who, a renegade from Whiggism which had not been profitable to him, was now a violent Tory with a better prospect of gain ; and, after two or three attacks on the Government, which had been passed over with contempt, preached a sermon at St. Paul's before the Lord Mayor and Corporation on the 5th of November, 1709 ; in which, taking for his text the words of St. Paul, " Perils from false brethren," he held up the Whig Lord Treasurer Godolphin to the hatred of his countrymen under the title of Volpone, attacked in a scurrilous manner the bishops who were against persecuting the Dis senters, condemned the Revolution, and asserted in the broadest sense the doctrine of passive obedience to arbitrary power. Such of the congregation as listened to the sermon were offended at the language of the preacher ; and the matter was brought before the Privy Council, which determined upon an im peachment, and thus fell into a snare that had per haps been laid for them. The seditious sermon was printed, and the Tories exerted themselves with so much activity in dispersing it abroad, that no less than forty thousand copies are said to have been sold. A tedious trial, ill-conducted, ended in the condemna tion of the sermon (which was burnt by the hang man), and in the Doctor being inhibited from preach ing during three years. The trial was the making of SachevereU ; he was now held forth by the High- Church party as a martyr for the good cause ; and it 6 DR. SACHEVERELL. [I^IO- was darkly intimated that the Queen (who had a strong leaning towards the High-Church) secretly ap proved of his conduct. Every kind of means was employed to provoke people to join in the cry, that the Church and the Crown were in danger from those who now ruled the country, and that SachevereU was jjersecuted because he had stood up in their defence. Incendiary sermons were preached from the pulpit; money is said to have been freely distributed among the mob, and songs were written to keep up the excitement ; even caricatures, whicii at this time were not so much in use as half a century later, were made in considerable numbers on this occasion. In fact, it was the first event of English history in the eighteenth century which furnished a subject for cari catures. Dean Kennett, in a pamphlet published in 1714,* tells us, that, " For distinguishing the friends of Dr. Sacheverell as the only true churchmen, and representing his enemies as betrayers of the Church, there were several cuts and pictures designed for the mob ; among others a copper-plate, with a crown, mitre, bible, and common prayer, as supported by the truly evangelical and apostolical, truly monarch ical and episcopal, truly legal and canonical, or truly Church of England fourteen," who had supported Sacheverell through his trial. A verse or two will be quite sufficient as a sample of the Sacheverell songs. One of them, entitled " The Doctor Militant ; or. Church Triumphant," to be sung to the tune of " Pakington's Pound," begins with the following attack upon the Whigs : — * The Wisdom qf lookini/ general, they are equally poor in backwards, -p. 13. Several of the design and execution. I have prints here alluded to are in the not met with a copy of the " cop- collection of Mr. Hawkins. In per-plate" described by Kennett. 1710.J SACHEVERELL SONGS. 7 " Bold Whigs and fanatics now strive to pull down The true Church of England, both mitre and crown ; To introduce anarchy into the nation. As they did in Oliver's late usurpation. In Queen Anne's happy reign They attempt it again. Who burn the text, and the preacher arraign. Sachev'rell, Sachev'rell, thou art a brave man, To stand for the Church and our gracious Queen Anne." It must be confessed that there was little in the doings of the Whigs of Queen Anne's reign to justify the fear, that they were introducing anarchy. After a few more verses in this strain, and some allusions to the turbulence under the Commonwealth, the song ends with a lamentation for the loss of the " golden days" of King Charles the Second : — " While knaves thus contended to sit on the throne, The owner had hopes to recover his own ; And so it fell out, in the midst of their iars, The King's restoration did finish the wars ; In whose golden days The Church held the keys, And kept in subjection such rebels as these. For there were Sachev'rells, whom God did inspire To rescue the Church from fanatical fire.'' But the allusions of the time show us that there were many songs of a far more violent, and even treasonable character, which were sung about the streets, and only printed clandestinely. Few or none of these have been preserved, but they probably point ed much more distinctly to the real point aimed at, the introduction of the Pretender, to the exclusion of the House of Hanover, which was the covert aim of all this abuse of the Cromwellian period and lavish praise of the reign of the restored Charles. This design we shall very soon see carried out more openly. 8 THE THREE FALSE BRETHREN. [1710. Another song, entitled " High-Church Loyalty," goes on in the same tone as the one quoted above : — " Ye Whigs and Dissenters, what would ye have done ? Ne'er think of restoring your old '41. Then fill up a bowl, fill it up to the brim ; Here 's a health to all those who the Church do esteem ! We know the pretence, you for liberty bawl ; But had you your will, you 'd destroy Church and all. Then fill, &c. While the Phcenix stands up, and the Bow bells do ring. Here 's a health to Sachev'rell, and God bless the Queen !" This song was answered and parodied in doggrel about as good as that in which it was itself written : — " You pinnacle-flyers, where would you advance ? What, would you be bringing of Perkin from France 1 • Instead of a bowl fill'd up to the brim, A halter for those that would bring Perkin in ! " The Whigs not only vsTote and sung against Sa cheverell, but they caricatured him, and that very severely. In an engraving of this time the Doctor THE TFIREE FALSE BRETHREN. is represented in the act of writing his sermon, prompted on one side by the Pope and on the other by the Devil, these three being the " false brethren " 1710.] CARICATURES ON SACHEVERELL. 9 from whom the Church was really in danger. The other party, in revenge, caricatured Bishop Hoadly, the friend of the Dissenters, and one of the most able of the Low-Church party, in a number of prints, in which the evil one was pictured as closeted with that prelate, whose bodily infirmities were turned to ridicule. Moreover, they made a nearly exact copy of the caricature of Sacheverell, with a bishop mitred in the place of the Pope, and the Devil flying away in terror at the Doctor's sermon, thus insinu ating that this miserable tool was the great defence of the Church of Christ against the attacks of Satan. A remarkable instance of this adaptation of one de sign to the two sides of the question is furnished by the medal, which must have been distributed in large quantities, having on one side the head of the preacher surrounded by the words H. sach. d.d., while the inscription on the reverse, is firm to thee, sur rounded on some copies of the medal a mitre, and on others the head of the Pope, thus being calculated to suit purchasers of all parties.* The Whigs looked upon him as the trumpeter of the Pope, while with the Tories he was the champion of the Church of England. For the Whigs and Dissenters had raised the cry of "No Popery!" in answer to the Tory outcry of the danger of the Church ; and every sen- * The caricatures here alluded the same inscription as the me to will all be found in the coUec- dal described in the text. Amid tion of Mr. Hawkins. The figure the virulent partyism of this age, of Dr. Sacheverell was placed on all kinds of ornamented articles a multitude of different articles of were made the means of con- ornament or use. Mr. C. Roach veying caricatures, and we even Smith possesses a tobacco-stopper, find them on seals for letters, with a medal-formed extremity, and on buttons for people's coats, bearing the head of Sacheverell, as somewhat later tlrey appear on and the reverse of the mitre, with playing-cards and on ladies' fans. 10 SACHEVERELL MOBS. [1710. sible man saw that the contest between high-church and low-church was in reality a struggle for the succession to the crown between the House of Stuart and the House of Hanover. A large portion of the nation looked forwards, with a variety of different feelings, to the possibility of Queen Anne being suc ceeded on the throne by the Pretender. It was clearly with this object that a cabal sought to displace the Whig ministry. Plunder and mis chief were a much greater incitement than any ab stract principles to the class of persons who composed the mob ; and the Dissenters, who were not perse cuted for any crimes of their own, but for the pre tended offences of the older age of Presbyterian rule, (for under the tolerant governments of King William and Queen Anne they had become a quiet and harm less portion of the community,) were deliberately pointed out as objects of attacks. On the second day of Sacheverell's trial, the mob which had fol lowed him to Westminster Hall was assembled in the evening ; and, being joined by a multitude of persons of the very lowest class of society, proceeded to Lincoln's-Inn Fields, where was the meeting-house of a celebrated Dissenting preacher, Mr. Burgess, now known by the name of Gate-street Chapel. The mob burst into this chapel ; and, amid ferocious shouts of " High-Church and Sacheverell !" tore out the pul pit, pews, and every thing combustible, and with these and the cushions and bibles made a large bonfire in the middle of Lincoln's-Inn Fields. They treated in the same manner other well-known meeting-houses in Long Acre, in New Street, Shoe Lane, in Leather Lane, in Blackfriars, and in Clerkenwell. In the latter neighbourhood they mistook an episcopal chapel 1710.] sacheverell's PROGRESS. 11 for a Dissenter's meeting-liouse, because it had no steeple, and would have destroyed the house of Bishop Burnet, had they not met with a vigorous resistance. No stop was put to their proceedings until it was reported that they were going to attack the Bank, when they were dispersed by a detachment of the Queen's guards. It was commonly stated that per sons of a higher class of society in hackney-coaches directed the movements of this mob, and distributed money amongst them. In fact, the High-Church party approved of their proceedings, and justified them by referring to the attacks on Popish chapels at the period of the Revolution. A poem " Upon the Burn ing of Mr. Burgess's Pulpit" exclaims, '' Invidious Whigs, since you have made your boast. That you a Church of England priest would roast. Blame not the mob for having a desire With Presbyterian tubs to light the fire." The success which had so far attended this plan encouraged Sacheverell's patrons to carry it further, and to try its effect on the mobs of other parts of the kingdom. The Doctor made a progress through various parts of England, marching in a sort of tri umphal procession, and was received in cities and towns as though he had been some great dignitary. " Good folks, I pray, have you not heard Of a criminal of late. Who has rode through town and country too In a most pompous state ? In a most pompous state indeed, In a train of brainless fools. All managed by some knaves above, And made their easy tools." So says one of the Whig ballads of the day ; and 12 DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE. [1714. the object of Sacheverell's progress was apparent to all. Robert Harley and Henry St. John, who were shortly afterwards raised to the peerage by the titles of Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, had obtained the ear of the Queen, and thrown out the Whigs without possessing the confidence of the nation; and they seized the moment of excitement thus raised by Sa cheverell for the election of a new Parliament, and succeeded in obtaining a large Tory majority. It is hardly necessary to describe the reckless manner in which the new ministry sacrificed the honour and interests of the country at Utrecht, or the succession of intrigues which ended in the disgrace of the Earl of Oxford only three days before the period men tioned at the beginning of this chapter. Bolingbroke, now at the height of his ambition, and less scrupulous even than his former colleague, formed a ministry which could be designed for no other purpose than to sacrifice this country to France and introduce the Pretender, — a ministry of which more than one-half were subsequently attainted of high treason. On the 1st of August, 1714, Queen Anne died. The plans of the Jacobite ministry had, in the mean time, been entirely defeated by the energetic activity of the Whig nobles, and George I. was proclaimed King of England without opposition. As might naturally be expected, the new monarch threw him self entirely into the hands of the Whigs. To them in a great measure he owed his throne ; and he could not help looking upon the Tories as the personal enemies of his family. This treatment probably drove the latter to unite in stronger measures of opposition, than many of them would, in other circumstances, have approved. 1714.] WHIG EXULTATION. 13 The exultation of the party now restored to power was soon visible in a number of lampoons and satirical writings. On the 7th of August, the Flying Post, one of the most violent organs of the Whigs, gave, instead of its usual proportion of intelligence and political observations, three songs, under the title of " A Hanover Garland," the third of which concludes with the lines, — " Keep out, keep out Han — 's \_Hanovers~\ line, 'Tis only J — s \_James~\ has right divine. As Romish parsons cant and whine, And sure we must believe them : But if their Prince can't come in peace. Their stock will every day decrease. And they will ne'er see Perkin's face. So their false hopes deceive them." The same journal, on the 10th of August, gives a burlesque list of articles for public sale, among which are, " The Art of Billingsgate ; or, infallible rules to rail and talk nonsense. In 10 volumes. By Harry Sacheverell. Thoy will be sold cheap, because they are lately damag'd with mum;" and "Rules for mak ing a bad peace when an enemy is under one's power ; or, the way to part with all rather than ask anything. Wrote by a minister of state to Queen Dido, and dedi cated to all fools and ninnyhammers." Both these sarcastic allusions contained intimations of the desire, if not the design, of revenge. In the moment of his success, Sacheverell is said to have been flattered with the prospect of a bishopric ; but the only preferment he eventually obtained was the good living of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and he had long been looked upon with the personal contempt he de served by those whose tool he had been, when the acces- 14 caricature ON LORD OXFORD. [1714. sion of the House of Hanover came to excite his appre hensions. We learn from the newspapers of the day, that in the first week after the death of Queen Anne there was some talk of ejecting the Doctor from his living ; and his name was brought forward on one or two other occasions. But he seems to have been cautious of provoking too far a party in power, when he had evidently much to lose and nothing to gain ; and, as his own party had soon more illustrious martyrs to cry up, in the persons of Lord Bolingbroke and the Duke of Ormond, he was regarded as an object too mean even for persecution, and he was allowed to enjoy what he had until his death. It was, however, soon evident that the late minis ters were not likely to escape with the same ease. The cabal by which they had risen first to power had been peculiarly undignified ; not only the mode in which they had concluded the war, but the whole of their administration, had been anti-national in the extreme ; and the persecutions to which they had subjected many of the distinguished Whigs now led to recriminations and passions which were not to be pacified without vengeance. The Flying Post of the 10th of August, the same in which occurs the bur lesque just mentioned, contained also the following advertisement: — "The traytor's coat of arms, curi ously engraved on a copper-plate : the crest a Welsh man strip'd of his grandeur, playing upon a hornpipe, to lull his senses under his misfortunes; an Earl's coronet, filled with French flower-de-luces, and tipt with French gold ; the Pretender's head in the middle. The coat, three toads in a black field ; the three toads are the old French coat-of-arms, — being in reverse denotes treason in perfection. The supporters are, a 1714] .ATTACKS ON THE LATE MINISTERS. 15 French Popish priest in his habit, with a warming- pan upon his shoulder, and a penknife in his left hand, ready to execute what the Popish religion dic tates upon Protestants: on the other side, a Scots Highlander, some call him Gregg ; a pack upon his back, and a letter in his hand, betraying the king dom's safety ; for his encouragement and protection, he has his master's magic wand and borrowed golden angel. The motto. Pour la veuve et Vo^-flielin, i. e. For the widow and orphan. Sold by A. Boulter, without Temple Bar." This was apparently the first English caricature published during the reign of George I. ; a second edition was advertised shortly after its appear ance, and it therefore probably enjoyed considerable popularity, yet I have not been able to ascertain that a single copy is now in existence. It was of course aimed at the ex-Lord Treasurer, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, one of whose creatures, a Scot named Gregg, had been engaged in some unpatriotic intrigues during the late ministry. The " widow and orphan" were Mary of Modena and the Pretender. The warming-pan will be explained a little farther on. The conduct of Anne's Tory ministry began now also to be arraigned in political romances and tales, a style of writing which had been imported from France, and had become popular since the Restora tion. About the end of August appeared the " His tory of the Crown Inn, with the death of the widow, and what happened thereon," dedicated to the Lord John Bull. The " Secret History of the White Staff," (by De Foe,) and the different pamphlets in answer to it and in defence of it, in which the character of the Lord Treasurer Oxford (who, having been the prin cipal mover in the Bed-chamber plots by which Marl- 16 ROBERT, THE POLITICAL JUGGLER. [1715. borough and Godolphin had been overthrown, was an object of especial odium among the Whigs) was very freely discussed, also made considerable noise. At the beginning of the year 1715 was published "A Second Tale of a Tub ; or, the History of Robert Powel, the Puppet-showman," written by Thomas Burnet, a son of the Bishop of Salisbury ; in which the various intrigues by which Harley and his colleagues had attained to power are told under fictitious characters, in a manner well calculated to take hold upon the sentiments of an ordinary class of readers. A second edition of this book was published within a few weeks. In the frontispiece, the Earl of Oxford, the great poli tical juggler of the time, is caricatured under the figure of Powel (a man immortalised in the Spec tator as the keeper ofa puppet- show in the Piazza of Covent Garden) exhibiting his puppets to the world. " Well, gentle men, you shan't be baulk'd. I '11 hang out my canvas too, and, like my brother monster- mongers, well daub'd into the bargain. Stare then — and be hold — the novel figure. You see what is written over his head. This is Mr, Powel — that's he — the little crooked gentleman, that holds a staff in his hand, without which he must fall. The sight is well worth your money, for you may not see such another ' these seven years, nay, perhaps not this age." In one part of this book we have a rather ingenious ROBERT, THE POLITICAL JUGGLER. 1714.] THE ISLE OF NOSES. 17 story or vision of an island of noses, in which the dreamer meets with a large hooked -nose (Marlbo rough), covered with rags and dirt, the reward he had received for beating the enemies of his country. Suddenly a procession of flat-noses is seen approach ing ; " for a distemper lately come from France [an allusion to the intrigues of Anne's last ministry with the French court] has swept away most of our palates, and sunk our noses in the manner that you will see, and that is one reason why the high hook-noses have of late been so much out of fashion." " My friend was going on, when at the end of the aforesaid caval cade a parcel of rabble flat Frenchify'd bridgless noses came and set upon him in a most base and barbarous manner, and, with a snuffling broken tone, call'd him 'Traytor!' Upon which my friendly Mucterian took to his heels, and by that escap'd their fury. I could not but ask in a fret why they dealt with him in that inhuman manner; which I no sooner had said, when up comes a nose quite black and rotten, and in pieces of words tells me that I am a sawcy fellow to question a thing so well known. 'As what?' quoth I. 'As what ?' says he ; ' why, that fellow you was in company with is a traytor, for 'tis plain he beat our enemies, and so prolonged an offensive war. Besides, he's a high hooked-nose, and is a traytor of course !' Indeed, I observ'd my friend's nose was something high and crooked ; but, in all my life, I never heard the shape of a nose urged as treason before. In short, these vile flat-noses [the Tories] did not stay for my answer ; but one of' the most stinking among them blew himself out upon me, and then call'd me 'Nasty fellow!' and so left me to wipe up the affront." VOL. I. c 18 ATTACKS ON MARLBOROUGH. [1714. The discomfited Tories, who were not generally backward in taking up the pen, or deficient in able men to use it, were at first entirely confounded by the sudden and unexpected course of events. One of the first lampoons upon the Whigs came from the pen of the scurrilous publican-poet, Ned Ward. Marlborough, who had sought peace in voluntary exile, — the high hooked- nose escaped from the flat- noses, as Thomas Burnett has it, — returned imme diately on the death of the Queen, landed at Dover, and was conducted in triumph to London by a long- train of gentlemen in carriages and on horseback, on the 4th of August. The Hanoverian envoy, Both mar, writes, that the Duke " came to town amidst the acclamations of the people, as if he had gained another battle of Hochstet." Ned Ward gave vent to the spleen of his party by ridiculing this procession in Hudibrastic doggrel, under the title of " The Re publican Procession ; or, the tumultuous Cavalcade." Ward describes the Duke's escort as '¦¦ Consisting of a factious crew. Of all the sects in Rosse's view. From Calvin's Anti-Babylonians, Down to the frantick Muggletonians ; Mounted on founder'd skins and bones. That scarce could crawl along the stones. As if the Roundheads had been robbing The higglers' inns of Ball and Dobbin, And all their skeletonian tits That could but halt along the streets : The frightful troops of thin-jaw'd zealots, Curs'd enemies to kings and prelates. Those champions of religious errors. Looking as if the prince of terrors Was coming with his dismal train To plague the city once again." 1714.] STREET LIBELLERS. 19 The Tories of that age affected to look with contempt on the commercial interests of the country, and on the moneyed houses of the city, for the merchants had placed their confidence in the foreign policy of the Whigs. Ward, after speaking of the "Low-Church city elders," says: — ¦ " Next these, who, like to blazing stars, Portend domestic feuds and wars. Came managers and bank-directors, King-killers, monarchy-electors. And votaries for lord-protectors ; That, had old subtle Satan spread His net o'er all the cavalcade. He might at one surprizing pull Have fill'd his low'r dominion full Of atheists, rebels, Whigs, and traytors. Reforming knaves and regulators ; And eas'd at once this land of more And greater plagues than Egypt bore.'' Under the circumstances of the times, the Tories did not venture, except in rare instances, to exhibit the extent of their exasperation by the ordinary way of publicity. They reckoned again upon the mob to em barrass the Government, and a multitude of low libels and seditious papers were hawked and distributed about the streets for half-pence and pence, which kept the populace in a perpetual state of excitement. Few of these papers are now preserved. There is one, in a broadside, " price one penny," in the British Museum, which, under the title of " A Dialogue between my Lord B ke and my Lord W n," (Bolingbroke and Wharton,) contains a satirical attack on the Duke of Marlborough, when he was returning to England. Before the end of August a multitude of such penny and half-penny libels were spread over the country, in whicii the Whigs were compared to the C 2 20 STREET LIBELLERS. [1714. levellers of the days of Charles I. ; and attacks, as scurrilous and indecent as they were unprovoked, were heaped upon the Dissenters. " The Tories," says a newspaper of the date just mentioned, " who have the black mob on their side, cry, ' No calves' heads !' ' No king-killers ! ' " In November, the political hawkers and ballad-singers had become extremely troublesome about the streets of London, and the Lord Mayor was compelled to seize upon many of them, and throw them into the House of Correction. On the 16th of November, an order of Council appeared for the sup pression and punishment of " false and scandalous libels " hawked about the streets ; and on the 24th of the same month another proclamation to the same purpose was made ; but the object of these measures appears to have been but partially effected. The Poli tical State (November, 1714, p. 446) gives the titles of some of the seditious pamphlets sent abroad in this manner ; among which appears " The Duke of Marl borough's Cavalcade," probably the poem of Ned Ward described above. Some of these papers and ballads appear to have been of a treasonable descrip tion. To give instances from a little later date, out of a great number which might be collected together, we may mention, that, in the Weekly Packet of January 7, 1716, we are informed, "Last Monday the Lord Mayor committed a woman to Newgate for singing a seditious ballad in Gracechurch Street ; " and it is stated in the Flying Post of the 27th of May imme diately following, that " last Saturday " the grand jury of the city of London " presented a seditious and scandalous paper, called ' Robin's last Shift, or Shift Shifted,' and the singing of scandalous ballads about tiie streets, as a common nuisance, tending to alienate 1714.] ATTACKS ON THE DISSENTERS. 21 the minds of the people ; and we hear an order will be published to apprehend those who cry about or sing such scandalous papers. They have also presented such as go about with wheelbarrows and dice, and make it their practice to cheat people ; and such as go about streets to clean shoes on the Sabbath day." Scraps of information like this give us a curious view of the streets of London somewhat more than a hun dred years ago. The prejudices against Dissenters were inflaraed in every possible manner, for the hardly concealed pur pose of raising a new High-Church mob, and exerting through it the same violent influence over the elections which had been so successful in bringing together the Parliament that was now separating. Two agents, opposite enough in their characters, were actively em ployed in this work — the pulpit and the stage. Be fore the end of December it was found necessary, by a royal proclamation, to order the clergy to avoid en tering upon state affairs in their sermons. At the theatre, the plays or the prologues often contained political sentiments or allusions which led at times to serious riots. Farces were brought out in which the Dissenters were exhibited in an odious or degrading light. To quote from the journals of the period at which the consequent excitement was pushed up to its highest point, and when mobs were perpetrating mis chief and destruction in many parts of the kingdom, we find advertised, in the beginning of June, 1715, " The City Ramble ; or, the Humours of the Compter. As it is now acted with universal applause at the The atre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. By Captain Knipe." It is added, that the book was " adorned with a curious frontispiece, representing a Presbyterian teacher and 22 HIGH-CHURCH RIOTS. [1714. his doxy as committed to the Compter." I have not been able to meet with the book, or the " curious frontispiece," which was what may be looked upon legitimately as a caricature ; but it had no doubt an immediate aim, for the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields was in close proximity to the same celebrated Dissen ters' meeting-house which had been so rudely treat ed by the Sacheverell mob. Even at Oxford, after a High-Church riot about this time, a inember of the University, in an anonymous tract in justification of it, stated that an Anabaptist preacher of that town had baptized two young women in the morning, and been found in bed between them at night, — one of those slanderous stories which had been borrowed from the days of the Cavaliers. The effect of this incessant agitation was not long in showing itself ; for the first outbreak took place on the day of the King's coronation, the 20th of October, 1714. On the evening of that day, the citizens of Bristol illuminated their windows, and made bonfires in the streets, and the corporation gave a ball. The first signal for the riot which followed is said to have been a report that the Whigs were going to burn the effigy of Sacheverell ; upon which a mob suddenly col lected together and rushed through the streets, break ing the windows that were illuminated, and putting out the bonfires, at the same time raising ferocious shouts of " Down with the Roundheads ! God bless Dr. Sacheverell ! " They repaired to the town-hall, and threw large stones through the windows of the ball-room, to the great danger of the persons assembled there. The attacks of the mob were now more es pecially directed against the Dissenters ; they entire ly gutted the house of one of them, a baker named 1715.] VIOLENCE OF THE ELECTIONS. 23 Stevens, who was killed by the assailants in an at tempt to expostulate with them. This fatal catas trophe appears to have arrested the mob, and no fur ther mischief was done ; but several of the rioters were tried, and severely punished. The town of Chippen ham, in Wiltshire, continued in an uproar during several nights, and houses were attacked, and their inmates ill-treated. Other riots, equally alarming, occurred at the same time at Norwich, Reading, Birmingham, and Bedford. At Birmingham the mob was very violent, and their shout was, " Sacheverell for ever ! Down with the Whigs ! " At Bedford, where the proceedings of the mob seem to have been countenanced by the ma gistrates, the public May-pole was dressed in mourning. In spite of a proclamation against riots, issued on the 2nd of November, the mobs iu many places continued to create disturbances. At Axminster, in Devonshire, on the 5th of November, the "High-Church rabble," as the newspapers call them, shouted for the Pretender, and drank his health as King of England. The elections which came on in January were car ried on even with more violence than those of 1710 ;''" but times were altered, and the Whigs obtained an overpowering majority. It was on these two occa sions that English elections of members for Parliament first took that character of turbulence and acrimony which for more than a century destroyed the peace * Many seditious and treason- both personally and collectively, able writings were spread about and was particularly rancorous in January, one of which made against the Duke of Marlborough ; rauch noise, and was vigorously it pointed out the pretended dan- prosecuted. Under the title of gers of the Church from the prin- " English Advice to the Free- ciples of the House of Hanover, holders of England," it was a and exhorted the electors to fly to violent attack upon the Whigs, its aid. 24 ELECTIONEERING EXPENSES. [1715. and tranquillity of our country towns, and from which they have only been relieved within a few years. The Flying Post of January 27, 1715, gives the following burlesque " bill of costs for a late Tory election in the West," in which part of the country the Tory interest was strongest : — Imprimis, for bespeaking and collecting a mob Item, for many suits of knots for their heads . For scores of huzza-men .... For roarers ofthe word "Church" For a set of " No Roundhead" roarers . For several gallons of Tory punch on Church tombstones ...... For a majority of clubs and brandy-bottles For bell-ringers, fiddlers, and porters For a set of coffee-house praters For extraordinary expense for cloths and lac'd hats on show-days, to dazzle the mob For Dissenters' damners .... For demolishing two houses .... For committing two riots .... For secret encouragement to the rioters . For a dozen of perjury men .... For packing and carriage paid to Gloucester . For breaking windows .... For a gang of aldermen-abusers For a set of notorious lyars .... For pot-ale ...... For law, and charges in the King's Bench £ s. d. 20 0 0 30 0 0 40 0 0 40 0 0 40 0 0 30 0 0 20 0 0 10 0 0 40 0 0 50 0 0 40 0 0 200 0 0 200 0 0 40 0 0 100 0 0 50 0 0 20 0 0 40 0 0 50 0 0 100 0 0 300 0 0 1460 0 0 It will be observed in this "bill" that bribery is not put down as one of the prominent features of an election at this period ; violence was, as yet, found to be more effective than corruption. The new Parliament met towards the end of March. 1715.] FIGHT FOR A SPEAKER. 25 The following statement in the Weekly Packet (a Tory paper) of April 2, 1715, will furnish an amusing picture, not only of parliamentary manners outside the house at this date, but of the wild spirit of partyism : — " Last week the footmen belonging to the members of the House of Commons, according to the custom of their masters, (which they had strictly imitated for more than thirty years,) proceeded to the choice of a Speaker ; when those that espouse the cause of the Whigs chose Mr. Strickland's man, and the Tory livery gentry the servant of Sir Thomas Morgan. Hence a battle ensued between the two contending parties, wherein several broken heads discovered the resolution of each to abide by its respective choice, though the com batants were at that time forced to leave the victory undecided (the House rising). But on Monday last they returned to their former trial of skill ; and the Tories, after an obstinate resistance from the Whigs, who would by no means show themselves passive, but disputed their ground inch by inch, had the better of their adversaries, and carried their mock Speaker three times round Westminster Hall. After which, he that was chosen to fill their chair, as well as his predecessor, according to ancient usage, spent their crowns apiece in drink at a dinner, which an adjacent ale-house entertained them with gratis." No sooner had the Parliament asserabled, than the Tories were alarmed by the threatened impeachment of the late ministers. This gave rise to a fierce con troversy with the pen, before it became a matter of debate in the senate : for two or three weeks, pamph let upon pamphlet, on both sides of the question, issued daily frora the press, some written calmly and mode rately, while others were characterised by all the bitter- 26 JOHN DUNTON. [1715. ness and scurrility of the party spirit of those days. Among the Whig writers, who made the greatest noise in their different circles, were Thomas Burnett, already mentioned, whose father the Bishop was now dead, and the more prolific party-writer John Dunton, whose pamphlets were calculated for wider distribu tion among a somewhat lower class of readers. Bur nett was rather rudely handled in this controversy, and was made the butt of several satirical tracts, the writer of one of which undertook to prove that he was asleep when he wrote his pamphlet in defence of the impeachment. Dunton was a scheming needy writer ; he was a broken bookseller, and now, as old age approached, sought to gain a support from govern ment by the zeal and number of his political writings ; he was withal somewhat of a wag. A few months after the date of which we are speaking, on the 1st of May, 1716, we learn from the Flying Post that John Dunton and "a devil" (" i. e, a printer's boy :" this ap pears to be an early instance of the use of the term) were seen marching through the streets of London, and distributing a book entitled " Seeing 's believing ; or. King George proved a Usurper." The citizens, asto nished that any one should possess the impudence to sell such a book openly, probably thought he was mad ; but he was without delay arrested, and carried first before the Lord Mayor, and subsequently before one of the Secretaries of State. A rumour was soon spread abroad that Dunton had become a convert to Jaco bitism ; and, while the Whigs were scandalised at his defection, the Tories rejoiced loudly at having gained so popular a champion. But their joy was changed into vexation, when it was made known that the tract in question, instead of being a treasonable 1715.] THE IMPEACHMENTS. 27 libel, was a bitter lampoon on their own party; and Dunton and his friends went to a noted Whig tavern in St. John's Lane, to laugh in their sleeves and drink loyal toasts. The history of the impeachments is well known : Bolingbroke and Ormond fled to France, and openly joined the Pretender, and they were accordingly at tainted. Oxford was thrown into the Tower ; but, after a wearisome imprisonment, he escaped without further hurt. The result was advantageous, as far as it secured the principle that ministers of the Crown are personally responsible for the acts of their ad ministration ; and it forced secret enemies, who were plotting against the Government, to show themselves openly. Indeed, this measure, probably more than anything else, led to the premature outbreak of the Jacobite rebellion towards the end of the year. Ormond was the only one of the late ministers who enjoyed much popularity, and his name was now substituted for that of Sacheverell in the cries of the mob. From this moment the Doctor lost his importance ; and within a few years, at the time when Hogarth drew his series of the " Harlot's Progress," Sacheverell's portrait was looked upon as a fit com panion for that of the no less notorious Captain Mack- heath in the vilest dens of profligacy. The head of "Duke Ormond" now figured as an ornament on articles of common use, as Dr. Sacheverell's had done before ; and a very remarkable proof ofthe length of time which it requires to eradicate feelings and prejudices impress ed on the popular mind in times of great political ex citement, is furnished by the following rather droll song upon the Duke of Ormond, preserved traditionally in the Isle of Wight. It was taken down in 1841 28 SONG ON THE DUKE OF ORMOND. [1715. from the mouth of an itinerant fishmonger, who knew no more about it than that it had been sung by his father and grandfather before him.* " I am Ormond the Brave, — did you ever hear of me ? A man lately banish'd from his own country. I fought for my life, and I pawn'd my estate. For being so loyal to the Queen and the great. You know I am Ormond, I am Ormond the Brave ; You call me Jemmy Butler, but I am Ormond the Brave ! " Between Ormond and Marlbro' there rose a great dispute : Says Ormond to Marlbro', ' I was bom a duke. And you but a foot-page to wait upon a lady ; You may thank the kind fortune, since the wars they have made ye.' And sing hey,'' etc. " ' Oh ! ' says Marlbro,' ' now do not say so ; For if you do, from the court you shall go.' ' Oh, then,' says Ormond, ' do not be so cruel. But draw forth your sword, and I '11 end it with a duel.' But Marlbro' went away, and he came no more there; When the brave Duke of Ormond threw his sword into the air. And sing hey," etc. " ' Begone, then,' says Ormond, ' you cowardly traitor ! To rob my soldiers it never was my nature. As you have done before, we well understand; You fill'd up your coffers, and impoverish 'd your own land.' And sing hey," etc. " ' I never was a traitor, as you have been saying : I never damn'd Queen Anne, as she lay in her grave; But I was Queen Anne's darling, and Old England's delight. And for the crown of England so boldly I did fight.' And sing hey," etc. * It was communicated to me evidently much corrupted, as here by Mr. C. Roach Smith. I look given from the mouth of the upon this song as one of the most singer. The fourth line should curious relics of English Jacobite perhaps be " to Queen Anne the literature I have yet met with. Great." I am told that a few It was no doubt one of those sung years ago this song was corn- about the country on the eve of monly sung at the harvest-homes the rebellion of 1715. It is in the Isle of Wight. 1715.] SATIRES ON THE PRETENDER. 29 It was by songs of this character that the minds of the lower classes in England were to have been pre pared, it was hoped, to join in a general rising in favour of the exiled house of Stuart. The Jacobite minstrelsy of Scotland had, no doubt, its counterpart in this country ; but its effects were much less consider able, and it was soon forgotten, with the exception of scattered scraps like that given above. The name of the Pretender was sometimes uttered by the disorderly rabble amid the election riots at the beginning of the year ; but after the flight of Bolingbroke and Ormond it was heard much more frequently, and songs and satires against the Hanoverian family were sought and listened to with avidity. The Whigs replied to these with a shoal of pamphlets and papers, reproducing all the old tales of the Revolution, and casting ridicule and contempt upou the son of James II., whom they in sisted on looking upon as a mere impostor. The com mon story was, that the Pretender was the child of a miller, and that, when newly born, he had been con veyed into the Queen's bed by means of a warming- pan ; and this contrivance having been ascribed to the ingenuity of Father Petre, the Whigs always spoke of the Pretender by the name of Perkin, or little Peter. The warming-pan figures repeatedly in the satirical literature of the day. The birth of the Pretender had been the subject of a number of caricatures, chiefly of foreign growth, in the reign of King William, which were now as suitable as when first published. In one of these the Queen is represented sitting by the cradle, while her Jesuit adviser whispers her in the ear, with his hand over her neck in a familiar manner, which might at least be designated as un peu leste. It is a complete Catholic family. The infant has a child's 30 CARICATURES ON THE PRETENDER. [1715. THE CATHOLIC FAMILY. windmill, to mark the trade of its real parents ; and a bowl of milk and an orange are on the table below. A much larger caricature, executed in Holland, repre sents the child in its cradle as here, with the windmill also, but accompanied by its two mothers and the Je suit, while the picture is filled with a host of princes, diplomatists, ecclesiastics, &c., looking on with astonish ment. It bears the title " L'Europe allarmee pour la Fils d'un Meunier." Many satirical medals were also distrtbuted abroad. One of these, a large silver medal of fine execution, bears on one side a group represent ing a child on a cushion, crowned and carrying the pax (as the symbol of Ro manism) in his right hand ; but Truth, crushing a ser pent with her foot, opens the door of a cupboard or TRUTH EXPOSING THE SECRET. choSt UUdor tho CUShloU, lU 1715.] HIGH-CHURCH RIOTS IN LONDON. 31 which we see Father Petre pushing the child up through the roof.* The disaffected party now prepared for the dangerous game they were resolved to play by incessant agitation ; for the political maxim, " Agitate, agitate," was known and practised long before the reigns of King William and Queen Victoria. The mob was, as usual, soon urged into opeu violence by the old cry of " The Church !" and the Dissenters underwent a much fiercer persecution than that with which they had been visited in 1710, and they bore it in general with exemplary moderation. On the 23rd of April, 1715, the anni versary of the birth-day of Queen Anne, the London mob began to assemble towards evening at the conduit on Snow Hill, where they hung up a flag and a hoop, and money having been given them to purchase wine, they collected round a large bonfire. From thence they moved off in parties in different directions, patrol ling the streets during the whole night, shouting " God bless the Queen and High-Church ! Bolingbroke and Sacheverell ! " and attacking houses, breaking windows, insulting and robbing passengers, and levying contribu tions everywhere. Many of the mob were armed with dangerous weapons, and several persons were severely wounded. It was at one time proposed to pull down the Dissenters' meeting-houses, but this project was for some reason or other abandoned. The streets con tinued to be more or less infested in this manner night after night for some time. The 29th of April was the Duke of Ormond's birth-day, and that night the * This medal is still not very The caricatures alluded to, with uncommon. Copies of it will be others on the same subject, are found 'in the collections of Mr. in the collections of Mr. Hawkins Haggard and Mr. W. H. Diamond, and Mr. Burke. 32 HIGH-CHURCH MOBS. [1715. streets of London were the scene of new riots and out rages. On the night of Saturday, May 28, (the King's birth-day,) and on the Sunday night, the 29th, (the anniversary of the Restoration,) the mob committed great outrages in different parts of London, and dan gerously wounded some of the constables and watch. They burnt the efl5gies ofthe chief Dissenting ministers, shouted " High-Church and Ormond !" and publicly drunk the Pretender's health in Ludgate Street and other places. A riot of a similar character occurred at Oxford on the King's birth-day, and the Quakers' chapel was attacked and stript by the mob. Within a few days of this time the same riotous spirit had car ried itself into several of the largest provincial towns. At Manchester, early in June, the mob had become absolutely master of the town for several days ; they destroyed all the Dissenters' chapels, threw open the prison, drunk the Pretender's health, and committed many outrages. There was near the same time a Jacobite riot at Leeds in Yorkshire. A troop of soldiers were sent to Manchester, and the Mayor of Leeds, who was accused of connivance, was brought to London in the custody of a king's messenger. Yet in July this spirit had become still more general, and had spread especially through Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire. Very serious tumults occurred at Wol verhampton, Warrington, Shrewsbury, Stafford, New castle-under-Line, Litchfield, West-Bromwich, and many other places. The meeting-houses of the Dis senters were everywhere destroyed ; cowardly outrages were committed, and in some places sanguinary com bats ended in loss of life. When the mob was pulling down the meeting-house at Wolverhampton, one of their leaders mounted on the roof, flourished his hat 1715.J HIGH-CHURCH RIOTS. 33 round his head, and shouted, " D King George and the Duke of Marlborough ! " At Shrewsbury, where the old cry of " High-Church and Dr. Sa cheverell ! " was raised, a justice of the peace and a substantial tradesman were convicted of being ring leaders of the mob. At the end of July there was a serious riot at Leek, in Staffordshire, where much mis chief was done ; and there was another at Oxford as late as the 1st of September, when the mob shouted, " Ormond ! " and " No George ! " and the Pretender's health was said to have been drunk in some of the colleges. These tumults called forth the riot act, still in force, which was passed in the month of June, and which, by making the offence felony, and obliging the city or hundred to make good the damages committed, did much towards restoring order ; but more, perhaps, was done by the wholesale severity shewn towards the rioters in the trials that followed shortly after. A newspaper of the 2nd of September tells us, that "the judges have behaved very bravely." With a view to other events, which were now literally casting their shadow before them, troops of horse were quartered in several of the towns which had shewn themselves most disaffected. We cannot at the present day feel otherwise than astonished at the facility with which these riots were carried on, and the regular communication which must have existed between the leaders of the mobs in different parts of the country. It would appear as though there had been no laws to provide against such emergencies, and no police or military force distributed through the country to hinder or suppress outbreaks of popular turbulence. It is true, that, in VOL. I. D 34 PLOTS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. [l715 London at least, the pillory and the whipping-cart were in daily use ; but these instruments of punish ment were robbed of the greater portion of their terrors, when a sympathising crowd (paid, as it is said, by richer men of the party) escorted the suf ferer, cheered him by their shouts, and carried him away in triumph when it was over. The Flying Post, a violent Whig paper, in its intelligence from Coventry of the date of September 10, gives rather an amusing anecdote of the preventive effect of the new riot act, and of the methods sometimes taken to evade it for the perpetration of mischief. On the Sunday preceding, a mob had been collected at Biirton- upon-Trent, with the desire at least of pulling doWn a Dissenters' meeting-house there at the time of divine service ; but, informed of the consequences, they pro cured a young bull, cut oft* its ears and tail, tied squibs and crackers to it, and thus goaded it forwards towards the meeting-house door. The Whig writer exultingly tells us how the tortured animal suddenly turned round, and rushed through the mob, knocking down and trampling upon all who stood in its way ; and how it then ran nearly two miles and furiously threw itself into the parish church, where it killed and severely injured several of the congregation. These systematic riots were intimately connected with plots of a more serious character, with which the Government became gradually acquainted during the summer months; and these discoveries, upon which many persons of distinction were placed in custody, had a further effect in hastening the commencement of the Rebellion, while they destroyed the prospects of the Jacobites in England. The prisons throughout the coimtry were soon filled with political offenders, many 1715.] SATIRES ON THE J.-ICOBITES. 36 of whom were Church of England clergymen. Among other persons whom it was thought necessary to place under arrest was Sir William Wyndham, member for Somersetshire, (where the Jacobites were strong,) and one of the leaders of the Tory party in the House of Commons. A song called " The Vagabond Tories," published on the 20th of August, intimates the suspi cion, that he was preparing to fly into France to join the Pretender. " The knight of such fire From S — tshire. Who for High-Church is always so hearty, Tho' in England he tarries, Is equipping for Paris, To prevent any schism in the party." Sir Constantine Phipps, the Jacobite ex-Chancellor of Ireland, who had been Sacheverell's advocate at his trial, and to whom the University of Oxford had given a degree in a markedly factious manner on the King's coronation-day, is also pointed out as a conspirator : — " The impudent P — pps Must come in for snips. Who at Oxford so lately was dubb'd ; Tho' instead of degree. Such a bawler as he Deserv'd to be heartily drubb'd. " Young Perkin, poor elf. May promise himself Two things from the face of that man ; There 's brass within reach To fumish a speech And the lid of a warming-pan." The taunts on those who had not fled are followed by sneers on those who had :- — D 2 36 SATIRES ON THE JACOBITES. [l715. " What Ormond, with fraud. Long ago did abroad. With fear he does over again j 'Tis but an old dance To leave England for France, He played the same trick at Denain."* While the ministry of King George was successful ly pursuing measures of security, the exultation of the Whig party sought an outlet in multitudes of songs like the foregoing ; and their newspapers and pamphlets become more numerous and more exciting. Most of these songs are set to the tunes of popular ballads; one, to the tune of " A begging we will go," thus speaks of the " High-Church rebels : " — " See how they pull down meetings, To plunder, rob, and steal ; To raise the mob in riots, And teach them to rebel. Oh ! to Tyburn let them go I " At Oxford, Bath, and Bristol, The rogues design'd to rise ; But George's care and vigilance There 's nothing can surprize. So to Tyburn let them go ! " Their plot is all discover'd now. Their treason nought avails ; The Tow'r and Newgate quite are full. And all our county jails. So to Tyburn let them go ! " In another, which was a parody upon a Jacobite song, the Tories are made to call upon the Pretender in despair: — * An allusion to the desertion under the Duke of Ormond, in of the alhes by the English army, the year 1712. 1715.J SUPPRESSION OF THE REBELLION. 37 " To you, dear Jemmy, at Lorrain, We mournful Tories send. Unless you '11 venture one campaign. Our cause is at an end : We 've nothing left but to be stout. For all our plots are now found out. With a fa la la la," &c. " We sent you first Lord Bolingbroke, In hopes to bring you over ; And then we sent wise Ormond's duke. That rival of Hanover : You need not fear if you are beat. Since he 's so good at a retreat ! With a fa la la la,'' &c. When the Rebellion was entirely suppressed, and the Scottish minstrels were lamenting pathetically the de parture of their prince, their brethren in England were indulging in parodies like the following : — " 'T was when the seas were roaring With blasts of northem wind. Young Perkin lay deploring On warming-pan reclin'd : Wide o'er the roaring billows He cast a dismal look. And shiver'd like the willows That tremble o'er the brook." The Tories at the same time appeared discomfited even in their writings. Their newspapers give no in telligence, and make no remarks, until, as soon as the Rebellion lost all appearance of success, they begin to talk of the " rebels " as if they were themselves staunch supporters of the Hanoverian succession. John Dun ton, in a pamphlet entitled " Mob- War," published at this time, says, "Even Abel Roper* now grows * The Post-Boy, a Tory newspaper. 38 EXULTATION OF THE WHIGS. [l715. modest and tender-conscienced. Drunken P tis is wretchedly dull in his Jacobite Packet,* and there are thoughts of dismissing him from the service. Whig papers and pamphlets are only in demand, and the booksellers who engaged in hereditary right are just a breaking. The Examiner ^ has spent himself quite, and would give five shillings apiece for political lyes, and three shillings for a probable reflection upon the present ministry." The Tories in general made their peace with the powers that were, by taking the oath of allegiance ; and the Daily Courant of November 30, 1715, contains the following advertisement of a cari cature on this subject, of which no copy, as far as I can learn, is now preserved : — " This day is published, ' A Call to the Unconverted ; being an emblem of the To ries' manner of taking the oaths.' Price sixpence." A week after this, the St. James's Post of Depember 7 contains the following advertisement : — " This day is published, ' An Argument proving all the Tories in Great Britain to be Fools.' Price fourpence." Amid the uneasiness and alarm which prevailed throughout the country, the metropolis was the con tinual scene of riot and agitation. There appears to have been no efficient police in London to keep order in the streets, along which it was unsafe to pass after dusk. We have already seen the ascendancy which the Jacobite mob had gained there in the spring, and which they seem to have kept undisturbed during the summer, waiting for the numerous anniversary days in the autumn to begin again their riotous proceedings. But a new power was rising up, which, though it did * The Weekly Packet, a news- f A violent Jacobite paper, paper we have quoted more than at one period chiefly conducted by once. Swift. 1715.] LONDON MUG-HOUSES. 39 not prevent the riots, prevented some of the mischief to which they might have led. Amid the political excitement of the preceding year, which pervaded every class of society, and seemed to have estranged people's minds from every other subject, even the taverns and public-houses of the metropolis had been gradually taking a political character ; to such a degree, that about this time a guide-book was published, under the title of the " Vade-mecum of Malt-worms," containing a list of all the ale-houses in London, with an account of the persons who held them, and the political principles of each. Some of these, under the name of mug-houses, became the resort of small societies or clubs of political partizans, who met there on certain occasions to celebrate me morable anniversaries. Two of the oldest Whig houses were the Roebuck, in Cheapside, (opposite Bow Church,) and a mug-house in Long Acre. A society calling itself the Loyal Society held its meetings at the Roe buck after the accession of George I. ; and in the his tory ofthe London riots in 1715 and 1716 this house obtained an especial celebrity. Next in fame to these were the Magpie, without Newgate, (the Magpie and Stump still standing in the Old Bailey;) a mug- house in St. John's Lane, Clerkenwell ; another in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden ; one in Salisbury Court, near Fleet Street ; and one in Southwark Park. The two last became eventually objects of great hos tility with the mob. The Tory ale-houses, which were less numerous, appear to have stood chiefly about Holborn Hill (Dr. Sacheverell's parish) and Ludgate Street. The Whig societies who frequented the mug- houses began in the autumn of 1715 to unite in parties to fight the Jacobite mob which had so long tyran- 40 MUG-HOUSE RIOTS. [l715. nised over the streets, and they were probably joined on such occasions by a number of others, who, like the London apprentices of old, looked upon the whole only as a rough kind of diversion. At the end of October and beginning of November a number of political anniversaries crowded together. The Prince of Wales's birth-day, the 30th of October, was celebrated on Monday the 31st. The Flying Post, the chief chronicler of these tumults, informs us that " A parcel of the Jacobite rabble, such as Bride well-boys, &c., committed outrages on Ludgate Hill, broke the windows that were illuminated, scattered a onfire, and cried out ' An Ormond ! ' &c. ; but they were dispersed and soundly threshed by a party of the Loyal Society, who had lately burnt the Pretender in effigy." From this time we shall find the new self- constituted police constantly at war with the mob. The latter had prepared an effigy of King William to be burnt on the anniversary of that monarch's birth, Friday, November 4, and on the approach of night they assembled round a large bonfire in the Old Jury for that purpose. But information of their design having been carried to a party of the Loyal Society, who were met at the Roebuck to celebrate King Wil liam's birth-day, and who were therefore close at hand, these gentlemen hastened to the spot, and " gave the Jacks * due chastisement with oaken plants, demo lished their bonfire, and brought off the effigies in triumph to the Roebuck." On the morrow, the 5th of November, the Whig mob had their celebration. They had prepared caricature effigies of the Pope, the Pretender, Ormond, Bolingbroke, and the Earl of * This was the term popularly given to the Jacobites. 1715.] MUG-HOUSE RIOTS. 41 Marr, which were carried in the following order: — " First, two men bearing each a warming-pan, with the represenattion of the infant Pretender, a nurse attend ing him with a sucking-bottle, and another playing with him by beating the warming-pan." These were followed by three trumpeters, playing Lilliburlero and other Whig tunes. Then came a cart, with Ormond and Marr, appropriately dressed. This was followed by another cart, containing the Pope and Pretender seated together, and Bolingbroke as the secretary of the latter. They were all drawn backwards, with halters round their necks. The procession, thus ar ranged, passed from the Roebuck along Cheapside, through Newgate Street and up Holborn HiU, where the Jacobite bells of St. Andrew's Church were made to ring a merry peal. From thence they passed through Lincoln's-Inn Fields and Covent Garden to St. Jaraes's, where they made a stand before the palace; and so went back by Pall Mall and the Strand, through St. Paul's Churchyard, into Cheapside : but here they found that the "Jacks" had been before-hand with them, and stolen the faggots which had been piled up for their bonfire. They therefore made a circuit of the city whilst a new bonfire was prepared, and on their return burnt all the effigies amid the shouts of the crowd. The enmity between the mob and the Loyal Society was embittered by these first encounters, and it soon came to a fierce issue. On the l7th of November the Loyal Society met at the Roebuck, to celebrate the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth. The mob had also met to celebrate it, but in a different manner ; and towards seven o'clock in the evening intelligence reached the Roebuck that they had assembled at St. 42 ASSAULT UPON THE ROEBUCK. [l715. Martin-le-Grand, and were preparing, amid shouts of " High-Church, and Ormond, and King James ! " to burn the effigies of King William, King George, and the Duke of Marlborough, in Smithfield. The " Loyal" gentlemen immediately marched out, and overtook them in Newgate Street, where a desperate fight took place, and, after twenty or thirty of them had been " knocked down," the mob was dispersed. They had concealed their efligies ; but a boy who had been cap tured pointed them out to the victors, who marched back in triumph to the Roebuck. There they had hardly arrived, when a much greater mob began to as semble, and, after breaking the windows of the Roe buck, as well as those of the adjacent houses, aud pulling down the sign, proceeded to burst open the door, and threatened summary vengeance upon the inraates. In this extremity, a member of the Loyal Society fired wdth a loaded gun down the passage, and killed one of the assailants, and the Lord Mayor and city officers coming up at the same time, the mob took to their heels. The inquest on the body of the man who was killed returned a verdict that he was slain, while in open riot and rebellion, by some one who had fired in self-defence. On subsequent nights the Roebuck ap pears to have been exposed to renewed, but less serious attacks, and the mob-war was carried on at least less ostentatiously during the winter. In February we hear again of the riotous conduct of the Jacobite mob, and the mug-houses appear to have been actively refitting and preparing for a new campaign. New songs were compiled and printed for the use of the loyal gentry who frequented them, and well suited to keep up the popular excitement. One of these gives the following description of the mob. 1716.] MUG-HOUSE SONGS. 43 and shows that these faction-fights were very serious things. " Since the Tories could not fight And their master took his flight. They labour to keep up their faction ; With a bough and a stick. And a stone and a brick. They equip their roaring crew for action. " Thus in battle array. At the close of the day, After wisely debating their deep plot. Upon windows and stall They courageously fall. And boast a great victory they have got. " But, alas I silly boys ! For all the mighty noise Of their ' High-Church and Ormond for ever 1 ' A brave Whig with one hand. At George's command, Can make their mightiest hero to quiver." Towards spring festive entertainments were given at most of the mug-houses — a sort of house-warming or introduction to the season, at which the proprietors delivered formal addresses, often in verse, stating their sentiments and intentions, and boasted of their former feats against the " Jacks." One of these, the keeper of the mug-house in St. John's Lane, speaks of his frequent encounters with the mob, and after threaten ing what he will do himself, proceeds : — " Nor is it for myself I speak alone : There is my wife, — 'tis true, she is but one, But, fegs ! she'll play her part against the tyler's son." Several of thege addresses will be found in the mug- house song-books. One of these festivals is thus 44 MUG-HOUSE PREPARATIONS. [1716. announced in the Flying Post of April 12, 1716: — " This is to give notice to all gentlemen who are well affected to the present establishment, and lovers of good home-brew'd ale, that this present Thursday, being the 12th of April, Mrs. Smyth's mug-house in St. John's Lane, near Smithfield, will be opened ; when there will be a prologue spoke, suitable to the occasion." And on the 21st of April the same paper prints this " prologue," with the following editorial remark : — " The following is inserted at the request of several honest gentlemen, who are hearty well- wishers to those useful societys that are carry'd on in Long Acre and St. John's Lane, for the reforma tion of Toryism and the propagation of loyalty to the present happy government." The same news paper had shortly before given a new mug-house song, commencing, " We friends of the mug are met here to discover Our zeal to the Protestant house of Hanover, Against the attempts of a bigotted rover. Which nobody can deny. " Prepare then in bumpers confusion to drink To their cursed devices who otherwise think; For now that vile int'rest must certainly sink. Which nobody can deny. " The Tories, 'tis true, are yet skulking in shoals. To show their affection to Perkin in bowls ; But in time we will ferret them out of their holes. Which nobody can deny." From this period the members of the Loyal Society send to the newspapers regular reports of their night's campaign, duly dated from the head-quarters at the Roebuck. On the night of the Sth of March, the anniversary of the death of King William, a consi- 1716.] MUG-HOUSE RIOTS. 45 derable mob assembled, to the old cry of " Iligli- church and Ormond !" and marched along Cheapside to the well-known mug-house, where a party of the Loyal Society were met " for the defence of the house;" but when these issued forth, to the number of " about forty," the mob ran away, leaving many of their sticks behind them. The Loyalists then marched in pro cession through Newgate Street, paid their respects to the Magpie, where another party was met, and proceeded to Ludgate Hill in bravado of the " Jacks," who were strong there ; but on their return they found that the mob had been collecting in greater strength in their rear in Newgate Street, where a great fight took place, in which the Whigs were again victorious, after having, to use the words of the news paper account, " made rare work for the surgeons." The conquerors returned direct to the Roebuck, shout ing " King George ! " as they went, and there spent the greater part of the night in drinking loyal toasts. The next very serious tumult occurred on the 23rd of April (the anniversary of the birth of Queen Anne). In the evening of that day the marrow bones and cleavers, the usual signal of gathering for the mob, were heard rattling along the streets; and, towards seven o'clock, parties were to be seen forming in Smithfield, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, and Fleet Street, to shouts of " High-Church and Ormond !" " No Rump Parliamenti" and other simi lar cries. The Loyalists began to assemble at the Roebuck about the same time, and by nine o'clock had become tolerably numerous ; upon which they marched forth in procession to the Magpie, and thence to Ludgate Hill, where the mob showed themselves, but would not stand. The Loyal Society 46 MUG-HOUSE RIOTS. [l716. then retumed to the Roebuck, from whence they made a circuit into the city and returned again to the Roebuck without meeting with any opponents. But they had hardly settled theraselves down to their mugs, when news arrived that the mob was coming up in great force. They then lost no time in gaining the street, and found the mob already in Cheapside at the end of Wood Street, where there was a fierce battle, ending as usual in the discomfiture of the " Jacks." The heroes of the Roebuck now marched towards the Magpie; but at the end of Giltspur Street they again found the mob, and had a more obstinate fight than before, but with the same result, and they returned to their quarters with a pile of captured hats and sticks as trophies. An anniversary was now approaching which had always been celebrated with tumults, and such pre parations appear to have been made for the present occasion, as shewed that the mob did not act solely by their own irapulse. On the 29th of May, the anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II., green boughs were carried about the streets and worn on the person ; and there were large meetings at St. Andrew's (to hear Dr. Sacheverell), and at the "Ja cobites' conventicle in Scroop's Court, over against it." Towards night the mob became very riotous, and threatened to pull down the Roebuck and the mug-house in St. John's Lane. One of the lookers- on says, " There never was seen such a crew of tatter demalions, for tbey looked as if hell had broke loose. They had gathered together all the blackguard boys, wheelbarrow-men, and ballad-singers, and knocked down people that did not carry their badges." They were, however, "soundly thresh'd" by the societies 1716.] THE SALISBURY COURT RIOT. 47 which met at the two mug-houses they had threat ened; and a party of horse-guards, which just then arrived, and patrolled the streets during the night, put an end to the disturbance. Yet on the 10th of June, the birth-day of the Pretender, there were greater riots than ever, and the Loyal Society had to bring their whole force to the struggle. A Roebuck correspondent of the Flying Post writes some days after, " You omitted to take notice, that, on the 1 Oth of June, several Whigs of the Loyal Society at the Roebuck, having furnish'd themselves with little warming-pans fit for the pocket, did ring such a dismal peal with them in the ears of the white-rose mob, that their flowers soon disappeared, and could not keep 'em from fainting." The white rose was the Pretender's badge, and had been worn on this occasion. Frora this time we hear less of the Roebuck in the public prints, although it had hitherto eclipsed the fame of the other houses. But they also had been engaged with their respective mobs, especially the mug-house in Southwark, and that in Salisbury Court. On the 12th of July following the last- mentioned exploit of the Roebuck heroes, a mob, armed with clubs, assembled in Southwark, with shouts of "High-Church and Ormond I" "Down with the mug-houses !" and, attacking the mug-house there, broke the shutters and windows. The society within, however, rushed out, and drove them away. A week after this, on Friday, the 20tli of July, the London mob, which, we are told, had " strangely" increased since the King's departure for Hanover, made a despe rate attack on the mug-house in Salisbury Court. The society then assembled there sent for assistance 48 THE SALISBURY COURT RIOT. [l716. to their allies in the mug-house in Tavistock Street ; and, thus reinforced, they succeeded in driving away the assailants. A second attack was, however, made by a much stronger mob on the evening of Monday the 23rd ; but the society held them successfully at bay till the following morning, when they had been so much increased that further resistance seemed vain. The proprietor of the house, named Read, then ad vanced to the door with a blunderbuss, and threat ened any one who should attempt to enter the house. Instead of falling back, the mob rushed towards him with clubs and sticks, whereupon he fired and shot their ringleader dead. The mob, rendered still more furious, threw themselves upon Read, and left him to appearance lifeless ; and then broke down the sign, entirely gutted the lower part of the house, drank as much ale in the cellar as they could, and let the rest run out. The magistrates and soldiers arrived about mid-day, and dispersed the mob, though not till a soldier and some other persons had been se verely injured in the fray. The Loyal Society, who had barricaded themselves in the upper part of the house, were thus relieved from their unpleasant position. The inquest gave a verdict of wilful murder against Read, and he was brought to trial, but acquitted, and the Government made good the damage he had sustained. Several of the rioters were also brought to their trial ; and, convicted of being active in the work of destruction, they were hanged without mercy. This event appears to have thrown a final damp upon the spirits of the mob. At the end of June the King left England for Hanover. On his departure a treasonable libel was hawked about the streets, entitled " King G 's fare- 1716.] PERSONAL LIBELS ON THE KING. 49 well to England ; or, the Oxford Scholars in mourn ing." We know little of the contents of the libels against the King's person which were thus hawked about the streets; but, to judge from what is preserved in some of the early Scottish Jacobite songs, the scandal attached to George's wife and to his mistresses was plentifully raked up. The latter were often hooted by the raob as they passed through the streets. Horace Walpole, in his Reminiscences, assures us that nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the Sovereign and the new Court, and chaunted even in their hearing in the public streets. VOL. I. 50 CHAPTER II. GEORGE I. PARTY FEELING AFTER THE REBELLION. PREVALENCE OF HIGHWAY ROB BERY. THE MOB. BISHOP HOADLy's SERMON, AND COLLEY CIBBEr'S "non-juror." — THB FRENCH MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. THE SO DTK SEA BUBBLE. SUDDEN MULTIPLICATION OF STOCK-JOBBING BUBBLES.^ FALL OP THE "paper king" LAW. THE SOUTH SEA BALLAD. SOUTH SEA CARICATURES. BUBBLE CARDS, AND STOCK-JOBBING CARDS. KNIGHT AND THE "sOREEN.'' — ELECTIONS FOR A NEW PARLIAMENT. — NEW EFFORTS IN FAVOUR OF THB PRETENDER. BISHOP ATTERBURY's PLOT. The hasty and ill-advised and ill-conducted rebel lion of 1715 had effectually strengthened the power of the Whig party, and had shewn to all reasonable and thinking persons how little was to be expected from a person deficient in courage and in capacity as the Pretender had shewn himself. After the excitement caused by trials and executions of rebels had subsided, the political strife of the day sank down into a dull and monotonous war of newspaper abuse and mob sedition, which lasted for several years, with no other variety than that occasioned by some accidental outburst of more than ordinary virulence. We read almost daily of the application of the pillory or the lash to punish seditious ballad-singers and in discreet individuals, generally of a low class in life, who had made too open an exhibition of hostihty to the House of Hanover. Almost every newspaper or periodical, whether Tory or Whig, became in turn the object of prosecution for letting its party zeal 1717.] BITTERNESS OF PARTYISM. 51 go beyond the limits of moderation, although the Tory press came in for rauch more than an equal share of punishment. Restrained, indeed, from any more effectual method of showing their hostility, except in an occasional duel or riot, the language of the oppo sition became more violent and scurrilous ; and the lowest and most trivial occurrences were greedily seized upon as an opportunity for insulting a political opponent. In the beginning of February, 1717, two street bullies had drawn their swords and killed a drunken man, and had been hanged for the murder. Some of the Tory papers stated that the offenders had been mera bers of one of the Whig societies which met at the taverns, or, as they were now familiarly termed, " Muggites." The Whig newswriters indignantly re pelled this accusation, and, in revenge, declared that they were both known to be notorious Tories, or "Jacks." On the 4th of January, 1718, Read's Weekly Journal (a violent Whig paper) tells us, that, " Last Thursday morning, a woman, we suppose High- Church, coming out of a Geneva shop in Red-Cross Street, fell down, and within some few minutes de parted this mortal life for another." The latter part of the phrase is an example of the loose style of writing which distinguishes the newspaper literature of the day. A paper of this period gravely tells us, that " Yesterday three ladies were brought to bed of a male child," and proceeds to give their names. About the same date last quoted, a Tory paper, de scribing the immodest behaviour of some young women in church, asserts that they belonged to a violent Whig family ; while the Whig journals made every unfortunate woman who was committed to Bridewell a Tory. A Whig clergyman was stated E 2 52 STATE OF THE METROPOLIS. [l720. to have refused to bury a man who died an " impeni tent Tory." This bitterness of party feeling was often shewn in practical jokes. Read's Weekly Journal of June 15, 1717, says, "Last Monday being suppos'd to be the birthday of the sovereign of the white rose, in respect to the anniversary, an honest Whig went from the Roebuck to St. James's, with a jack-daw finely drest in white roses, and set on a warming- pan bedeckt with the same sweet-scented commodity, which caused abundance of laughter all the way, to the great mortification of the knights companions of that order, and all the other Jacks, to see their sovereign so maltreated in the person of his repre sentative." The feelings evinced in these few exaraples tainted and embittered every class of society, and were also attended by a general laxity of morals, and, com pared with the present day, (or even with almost any other period,) an insecurity of property. Robbery was carried on on a fearful scale in the streets of London, even by daylight ; house-breaking was of frequent occurrence by night ; and every road leading to the metropolis was beset by bands of reckless high waymen, who carried their de2>redations into the very heart of the town. Respectable women could not venture in the streets alone after nightfall, even in the city, without risk of being grossly outraged. In the beginning of 1720, we learn from the papers that ladies of condition, when they went out in their chairs at night at the Court end of the town, were often attended by servants with loaded blunderbusses " to shoot at the rogues." The best notion of the state of security of London at this time will be given by a chronicle of acts of robbery with violence, taken 1720.] HIGHWAY ROBBERY ABOUT LONDON. 53 from the newspapers during three weeks at the end of January and beginning of February, 1720 ; pre mising, that it appears, from several circumstances, that the newspapers of that time give a very imperfect and incomplete report of such occurrences. We be gin with — Wednesday, January 20, on the night of which day five highwaymen robbed a man coming to Lon don, near Stratford. Thursday, 21. — About five o'clock in the evening, the stage-coach from London to Hampstead was at tacked and robbed by highwaymen at the foot of the hill, and one of the passengers severely beaten for attempting to hide his money. Friday, 22. — Either on this, or on one of the two preceding days, it is not very clearly specified, three highwaymen attacked a gentleman of the Prince's household in his coach near Poland Street, and obliged the watchman to throw away his lanthorn and stand quietly by, while they abused and robbed him. Other highwaymen attacked Colonel Montague as he was passing along Frith Street, Soho, between twelve and one at night, and fired at his coachman and wounded one of his horses because he refused to stand. The Duchess of Montrose, coming from Court in her chair, was stopped by three highwaymen well mounted be tween Bond Street and the New Building. Saturday, 23. — A man was attacked at night by highwayraen in Chiswell Street. The same night a house near Bishopsgate was broken into, and a man murdered. Sunday, 24. — At eight o'clock in the evening two highwaymen attacked a gentleraan in a coach on the south side of St. Paul's Churchyard, and robbed him. 64 HIGHWAY ROBBERY ABOUT LONDON. [l720. Monday, 25. — As the Duke of Chandos was coming into town at night from his house at Canons, he was attacked by five highwaymen, but his servants were too strong for them. They had already committed several robberies on the road. Tuesday, 26. — The Chichester mail, going from Lon don about three o'clock in the morning, was attacked by highwaymen in Battersea Bottom, and robbed of its letter-bags. Wednesday, 27. — The Bristol mail was robbed on its way to London, and a considerable sum of money taken in bank bills inclosed in the letters. The same night an extensive robbery was perpetrated at Acton, and a booty of about two thousand pounds taken. On one day of this week a lady was stopped in her chaise near " Barclet " Street by highwaymen, and rob bed of her money, jewels, and gold watch. Saturday, 30 — A house in Bishopsgate Street was broken into. Sunday, 31. — A gentleman was robbed and mur dered in Bishopsgate Street. Monday, February 1. — The Duke of Chandos, coming from Canons, had another encounter with highwaymen, whom he captured. Tuesday, 2. — The post-boy was attacked by three highwaymen in Tyburn road, but the Duke of Chandos happening to pass that way, came to his rescue. Wednesday, 3. — The stage-coach going in the even ing from London to Stoke Newington, Was robbed by highwaymen near the Palatine Houses. On one day of this week " all the stage-coaches coming from Surrey to London were robbed by high waymen." And in the course of the week a gentle man in his coach was robbed near Chelsea ; another was 1720.] HIGHWAY ROBBERY ABOUT LONDON. 55 attacked and robbed at twelve o'clock at night at the upper end of Cheapside ; a gang of highwaymen by open day robbed all passengers on the Croydon road for some hours together; and several robberies were committed on the Epping road. Tuesday, 9. — A member of Parliament, with two ladies, returning in a coach from a party near Smith- field at eleven o'clock at night, was dogged by three highwaymen mounted and three on foot till they came to Denraark Street, St. Giles's, where their coach was stopped, and they were rifled of money and jewels to the value of about two hundred and fifty pounds. The robbers drove away the watch, and fired two pistols to frighten the ladies when they screamed for help. Wednesday, 10. — A raan was beaten and robbed in White Conduit Fields at four o'clock in the afternoon. At night a gentleman was attacked iu St. George's Fields, robbed, and beat so severely that his life was despaired of. Three gentlemen in a hackney-coach were attacked in Denmark Street, St. Giles's, and robbed of everything but their clothes. A man was robbed in Cheapside of his coat and money. This alarming increase of highwaymen about London struck every class of society with terror, for none were secure except those few who could go about strongly guarded. A poor man was stripped of his pence equally with a rich man of his gold. In one instance, close to London, after having robbed a labourer of one shilling and four-pence, the highwayman broke his arm with a pistol shot, as a warning of what he might expect if he ventured to go again abroad at night with so little money in his pocket. On the 23rd of January, a proclamation came out, offering a reward of a hun- 56 THE MUG-HOUSES DISCOURAGED, [l717. dred pounds, in addition to the previous inducements, for the capture of any highwayman within five miles of London ; the main effect of which was to place con siderable sums of money in the pockets of the noto rious Jonathan Wild, who secured several offenders in and about the metropolis within the space of two or three weeks. Of these, it was observed that several. On examination, proved to be persons moving in their class of society as honest and respectable men ; among them are mentioned a tradesman of good repute in London, the valet of " a great duke,'' and the keeper of a boxing-school. The affair iu Salisbury Court, mentioned in our last chapter, damped considerably the spirits of the mob, although, for a time, the war between the gentlemen of the Roebuck and the " Jacks " continued to be car ried on upon a less extensive scale. The Tories began to complain, and with some reason, that the mug- houses were themselves the chief provocations to these nightly tumults. It appears that in the beginning of November, 1717, the society of the Roebuck had fought with the butchers, who composed the most active part of the mobs of this period. On the 16th of November, the Whig Weekly Journal has the fol lowing paragraph:— " Whereas the author of the St. James's Weekly Journal has most grossly scandalized the gentlemen of the Roebuck Society in his paper of last Saturday ; this is to satisfie the world, that, before the aforesaid loyal body beat the butchers of New gate Market to their hearts' content, they assaulted them first for expressing their joy for the birth of the young Prince, on the 2nd of November last, as will be prov'd by affidavits that are now making in order to punish the ringleaders of all Jacobite mobs." It is 1717.] THE HOADLY CONTROVERSY. 57 evident, however, that the proceedings of the mug- house societies began to be discountenanced by the less violent Whigs ; and nothing could be more calcu lated to keep up the ill-feelings which were tearing society to pieces, than the satirical processions that were paraded through London streets on every occa sion that offered itself. Several of these processions were prepared on a very large scale in 1717 and 1718, but they were forbidden by the authorities, and the efiigies were exhibited privately at the Roebuck, or were made public only in printed descriptions. The To ries called loudly for the suppression of the mug-houses themselves, and several pamphlets for and against them appeared in the earlier part of the year 1717. In the mean time, High-Church and Low-Church continued to wage unremitting warfare with each other. An unusually violent controversy was raised in 1717, by two performances of Bishop Hoadly of Bangor, a dis course and a sermon preached before the King, in which he advocated tolerance and moderation towards those who differed in religious opinions, and con demned persecution. The convocation of the clergy, which, up to this period, had met at the same time as the Parliament, took up the matter with so much fury, that they were suddenly prorogued by the King, and have never since been called together. The animosity to which this dispute gave rise soon led to personal slander, in which Hoadly's chief opponents. Dr. Snape, master of Eton College, and the Bishop of Carlisle, made certainly an undignified appearance. Perhaps no one subject of dispute ever gave rise to so many controversial pamphlets as were published during 1717 and 1718 for and against Bishop Hoadly; it was made the burthen of ballads and epigrams, and was 58 gibber's non-juror. [1717. taken up by those who of all others were least able to understand the raerits of the case — the street mob, who only distinguished a Dissenters' chapel from a church by the absence of the steeple. In the Post- Boy of the 6th of June, 1717, we find advertised, " The Inquisition : a farce ; as it Was acted at Child's Coffee House, and the King's Arms Tavern in St. Paul's Churchyard ; wherein the controversy between the Bishop of Bangor and Dr. Snape is fairly stated and set in a true light. By Mr. Philips." In the midst of this controversy, which for nearly two years occupied the minds of all classes in society, the Non- Jurors, or those who avoided taking the oaths to the present dynasty, and who were the extreme of the High-Church party, were unusually active, and openly erected meeting-houses in different parts of London. The " farce " just mentioned was by no means a solitary instance of dragging the religious disputes on the stage. In the midst of the Hoadly dispute, Colley Cibber brought out the " Tartuffe " of Moliere, a little changed, in an English clothing, under the title of " The Non- Juror," in which the author acted with great effect the part of Dr. Wolf, a Non-Juror and concealed Papist, who by his unprincipled intrigues nearly effects the ruin of a rich and respectable family, and at last is discovered and given up to the punish ment he merits. Read's Weekly Journal of December 7, 1717, informs us, that " Last night the comedy call'd the ' Non-Juror ' was acted at his Majesty's theatre in Drury Lane, which very naturally displaying the villany of that most wicked and abominable crew, it gave great satisfaction to all the spectators." The "Non-Juror" had in fact great success ; and the anger of the extrerae High-Church party was increased by the 1717.] CIBBER'S NON-JUROR. 59 circumstances that the prologue had been written by the poet-laureat, Nicholas Rowe, that the King and Prince both went to see the play, and were said to have applauded it heartily, and that the King not only gave his permission for the printed edition to be dedi cated to himself, but rewarded the author with a gra tuity oftwo hundred pounds. Even this was enough to raise a war of pamphlets, and a storm of newspaper scur rility fell upon poor Cibber. In a pamphlet entitled " The Theatre Royal turn'd into a mountebank's stage ; in some reraarks upon Mr. Cibber's quack-dramatical performance, called the 'Non- Juror,'" the writer (it professes to be written " by a Non-Juror ") complains bitterly that the stage should be permitted to make a clergyman the subject of ridicule, while the clergy were forbidden to preach politics from the pulpit. Another anonymous writer gave to the world a farce entitled " The Juror," in which were revived the old worn-put charges of fanaticism and hypocrisy. Other pamphleteers took part with Cibber : one published "A Complete Key to the Play;" and another gave " Some Cursory Remarks " upon it, which conclude with the hope that the writer would live " to see it as common in every house as a Prayer Book or Duty of Man ! " All these disputes were, however, shortly to be forgotten in an extraordinary social convulsion of a totally different kind. For several years, since the conclusion of the war, there had appeared a growing taste for money specu lations, not only in England, but throughout otiier parts of Europe. This was first taken advantage of for state purposes in France, where the national finances had been thrown into so hopeless a state, that the government was on the eve of bankruptcy. A 60 L.4.W'S MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [l719 Scottish gentleman of the name of Law, who had killed a man in a duel, in consequence of which he had retired to France, projected a company to have a monopoly of the trade to the country of the Mis sissippi in North America, on condition that they should undertake the payment of the state bills. The Regent established this company in 1717, and made Law principal director. The plan went on, without any extraordinary success, till 1719, when the French India and China Companies were incorporated with it ; and then there was a sudden and immense rise in the value of the shares, or, as they were call ed, actions. Soon after the midsummer of 1719, Mr. Law and the Regent formed the project of extend ing the company very largely, and then the shares rose still more rapidly, till, in a short time, they reached twelve hundred per cent. It may be mentioned, as a proof of the wonderful confidence the French placed in Law at this time, that the mere report of his being seized with a slight indisposition caused a sudden fall in the funds. The French govern ment now found itself relieved from all its pecu niary difficulties ; the nobihty and courtiers became immensely rich, and Paris was so full of money, that people scarcely knew how to employ it. Law was looked upon as the great European financier; and, at the beginning of February, he was admitted into the Privy Council, and was appointed Comp troller-General of the finances of France. The success of this scheme in France provoked imitation in England, where a chartered trading com pany, called the South Sea Company, had been esta blished in 1711. The English ministry, in conjunc tion with Sir John Blunt, one of the leading South 1720.] THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 61 Sea directors, conceived the plan of making this coinpany pay off the national debt, which had become burdensome by the long war, in the same manner that the Mississippi Company had just relieved the government of France from its embarrassments. Aislabie (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), Stan hope, and Sunderland were all equally sanguine of the result of this plan, and it was brought before the House of Commons in the month of February, 1720. It there met with considerable opposition, especially from Sir Robert Walpole, who was the most profound financier in the House, and was now out of the ministry ; but the South Sea bill was eventually carried by considerable majorities, and re ceived the royal assent on the 7th of April, 1720. The infatuation with which people entered upon this rash project is perfectly astonishing. In Paris, Law had already become embarrassed in his financial plans, and it was evident that the reign of the " paper king " was approaching to a close. The Tory papers in England had already begun to ridicule both the man and his projects. " If you are ambitious," says Mist's Weekly Journal, early in February, "you must put on a sword, kill a beau or two, get into Newgate, be condemned to be hanged, break prison, if you can, — remember that, by the way — get over to some strange country, set up a Mississippi stock, bubble a nation, and you may soon be a great man." The same jour nal tells us, on the 20th of February, " Last week, at the masquerade in the Haymarket, appeared a fine lady in a very odd comical dress : she told the com jiany that she came from Mississippi, and was going to be married to the South Sea." We shall see this disposition to caricature soon carried to a much 62 THE STOCK-JOBBING RAGE. [l720. greater extent. A few days after the act was passed, Walpole published a pamphlet, giving a strong warn ing of the mischiefs which were to be expected from the South Sea project; yet, before the month of April, the rage for dealing in South Sea shares had become so great, that the dealers had already become an object of ridicule on the stage. Among the ad vertisements in the newspapers of this month appear a play, entitled " The Stock-Jobbers ; or, Humours of Change Alley;" and "Exchange Alley; or, the Stock-jobber turned Gentleman : a tragi-comical Farce." Within a few weeks South Sea stock rose to above a thousand per cent. The town now presented an extraordinary appear ance. Stock-jobbing seeraed to be the sole business of all classes, and Whigs, and Tories, and Jacobites, High-Church, and Low- Church, and Dissenters, forgot their mutual animosity in the general infatuation. In spite of a proclamation, forbidding the formation of companies without legal authority, an immense number of stock-jobbing companies sprung up like mushrooms around the larger scheme. These soon became known by the popular title of bubbles, ad vertisements of which filled the newspapers during the months of June and July. Many of these were mere gambling, or, more properly speaking, swindling speculations; and there were instances in which a man took a room for the day, opened a subscrip tion book in the morning, taking a very small de posit on the shares, and in the evening shut up both book and shop, decamping with a large sum of money. When a new company was announced, no one thought of inquiring if the project were a prac tical one or not : a company was even announced. 1720.] BUBBLES. 63 and its shares bought, whicii was merely advertised as " for an undertaking whicli shall in due time be revealed." Square bits of card, with the impression in sealing-wax of the sign of the Globe Tavern, conveying to their possessors merely the perraission to subscribe some tirae afterwards to a new sail-cloth company not yet formed, were actually sold in Ex change Alley, under the title of " Globe permits," for sixty guineas and upwards. The Political State of Great Britain gives a list of these bubbles in July, amounting to a hundred and four, araong which are companies " for assurance of seamen's wages ;" " for a wheel for perpetual raotion ;" " for iraprov ing gardens ;" " for insuring and increasing children's fortunes ;" " for raaking looking-glasses ;" " for im proving malt liquors ;" " for breeding and providing for bastard children," (the first idea of the foundling hospital ;) and " for insuring against thefts and rob beries." Among other odd projects were companies "for planting of mulberry trees and breeding of silkworms in Chelsea Park ;" " for iraporting a num ber of large jackasses frora Spain, in order to propagate a larger breed of mules in England ;" " for fatten ing of hogs." A clergyman proposed a company to discover the land of Ophir, and monopolise the gold and silver which that country was believed still to produce. It would be almost impossible here to carry the ridiculous beyond what was represented in matter of fact ; but there were some burlesque lists, containing companies " for curing the gout," " for insuring marriages against divorce," and the like. Within two or three days after they were sub scribed for, the shares in these different companies sold for amazing prices : those in the Water-Engine 64 AN EARLY STEAM-ENGINE. [l720. Company, on which four pounds were paid, rose to fifty pounds ; the stocking company's shares, for which two pounds ten shillings were paid, sold for thirty pounds ; the shares in a company " for manur ing of land," subscribed at two shillings and six pence, sold for one pound ten shillings. Among the previously existing companies which were dragged in among the bubbles of this year, was the York Buildings Corapany, which had purchased the site of York House in the Strand, to build works for the supplying of the West End with water from the Thames. It is a remarkable fact, and one that appears to be entirely forgotten, that, within two or three years of the date of which we are speaking, a veritable steam-engine was constructed here, which is thus de scribed in the Foreigners Guide to London, publish ed in 1729 : — " Here you see a high wooden tower and a water-engine of a new invention, that draws out of the Thames above three tons of water in one minute, by means of the steam arising from water boiling in a great copper, a continual tire being kept to that purpose ; the steam being compressed and condensed, moves by its evaporation and strikes a counterpoise, which counterpoise striking another, at last moves a great beam, which by its motion of going up aud down, draws the water from the river, whicii mounts through great iron pipes to the height of the tower, discharging itself there into a deep leaden cis tern ; and thence falling down through other large iron pipes, fills them that are laid along the streets, and so continuing to run through wooden pipes,* as * Many of the wooden pipes Street, Grosvenor Square, and in here alluded to have been recently some other places along the line taken up in excavations in Brook here described. 1720.] FIRST EFFECTS OF THE BUBBLES. 65 far as Mary-bone fields, falls there into a large pond or reservoir, from whence the new buildings near Hanover Square, and many thousand houses, are sup ¦ plied with water. This machine is certainly a great curiosity; and, though it be not so large as that of Marley in France, yet, considering its smallness in com parison with that, and the little charge it was built and is kept with, and the quantity of water it draws, its use and benefit is much beyond that." All other trade but that of stock -jobbing was now neglected ; Exchange Alley was crowded from morning till night with persons of both sexes ; and society seemed for a moment turned upside-down. In the course of a few days, a multitude of indivi duals were raised from indigence to a profusion of wealth, which raany of thera expended in luxurious living and in reckless profligacy. In the park these upstart gentlemen mixed in their carriages with the aristocracy of the land ; but they were singled out as objects of insult and derision by the rabble, and at first the " stock-jobbers' " carriages seldom appeared in the streets without being mobbed. A newspaper of the 9th of July says satirically, " We are informed that, since the late hurly-burly of stock-jobbing, there has appeared in London two hundred new coaches and chariots, besides as many more now on the stocks in the coachmakers' yards ; above four thousand em broidered coats ; about three thousand gold watches at the sides of their and their wives ; some few private acts of charity; and about two thousand broken tradesmen." In the raidst of these doings, about the 20th of July, news arrived in London, that, on the preceding Wednesday, the 17th, Law had been in sulted by the populace of Paris, who were only hin- VOL. I. F 66 STOCK-JOBBING IN DISREPUTE. [l720, dered from destroying his house in the Rue Quinquen- poix by the tiraely arrival of the Swiss Guards ; and that they had broken his coach, beaten his coachman, and obliged him to seek refuge in the Palais Royal. The great projector was now looked upon by the populace as the sole cause of the misery in which they found themselves involved, and he was obliged to give way so far to the general clamour as to resign his office of Comptroller of Finances. In November he was entirely deserted by the Regent ; and, after securing his great fortune, retired into Italy. In August the stock of the various London com panies was calculated to exceed the value of five hun dred millions. The first great shock was given by the jealousy of the South Sea Corapany, who procured writs of scire facias to be issued against some of the unauthorised bodies. The destruction of these ex posed the fallacy of the whole, and recoiled almost immediately on the larger company itself. By the end of September, South Sea stock had sunk in value from 850 to 175; and thousands of families were re duced at one blow to absolute beggary; "some of whom," to quote the words of a writer who lived at the time, " after so long living in splendour, were not able to stand the shock of poverty and conterapt, and died of broken hearts; others withdrew to remote parts of the world, and never returned." In the month of August, even before the issuing of the writs of scire facias, people began to foresee the catastrophe, and some prudent men withdrew, after having realised great fortunes. Towards the end of August " the bubbles " Avere turned to ridicule in a multitude of songs and satirical pieces. In the first days of September appeared the celebrated South Sea 1720.] THE SOUTH SEA BALLAD. 67 ballad, which w^as sung about the streets of London for months together, and helped not a little to bring stock-jobbing into discredit. A SOUTH SEA BALLAD ; OR, MERRY REMARKS UPON EX CHANGE ALLEY BUBBLES. To a new tune called " The Grand Elixir ; or, the Philosopher's Stone discovered." 1. " In London stands a famous pile. And near that pile an alley. Where merry crowds for riches toil. And Wisdom stoops to Folly. Here sad and joyful, high and low, Court Fortune for her graces ; And as she smiles or frowns, they show Their gestures and grimaces. 2. " Here stars and garters do appear. Among our lords the rabble ; To buy and sell, to see and hear. The Jews and Gentiles squabble. Here crafty courtiers are too wise For those who trust to Fortune ; They see the cheat with clearer eyes, Who peep behind the curtain. 3. " Our greatest ladies hither come, And ply in chariots daily ; Oft pawn their jewels for a sum To venture in the Alley. Young harlots, too, from Drury Lane, Approach the 'Change in coaches. To fool away the gold they gain By their impure debauches. 4. " Longheads may thrive by sober rules. Because they think, and drink not ; But headlongs are our thriving fools, Who only drink, and think not. F 2 68 THE SOUTH SEA BALLAD. [l720 The lucky rogues, like spaniel dogs. Leap into South Sea water. And there they fish for golden frogs. Not caring what comes a'ter. 5. " 'Tis said that alchemists of old Could turn a brazen kettle. Or leaden cistern, into gold, — That noble tempting metal ; But if it here may be allow'd To bring in great and small things, Our cunning South Sea, like a god. Turns nothing into all things ! 6. " What need have we of Indian wealth. Or commerce with our neighbours ? Our constitution is in health. And riches crown our labours. Our South Sea ships have golden shrouds. They bring us wealth, 'tis granted. But lodge their treasure in the clouds, To hide it till it 's wanted.7. " O Britain, bless thy present state, Thou only happy nation ; So oddly rich, so madly great, Since bubbles came in fashion ! Successful rakes exert their pride. And count their airy millions ; Whilst homely drabs in coaches ride. Brought up to town on pillions. 8. " Few men, who follow reason's rules. Grow fat with South Sea diet; Young rattles and unthinking fools Are those that flourish by it. Old musty jades, and pushing blades. Who 've least consideration. Grow rich apace ; whilst wiser heads Are struck with admiration. 1720.] EXPLOSION OF THE BUBBLES. 69 9. " A race of men, who t' other day Lay crush'd beneath disasters. Are now by stock brought into play, And made our lords and masters. But should our South Sea Babel fall, What numbers would be frowning I The losers then must ease their gall By hanging or by drowning. 10. " Five hundred millions, notes and bonds, Our stocks are worth in value ; But neither lie in goods or lands. Or money, let me tell you. Yet though our foreign trade is lost. Of mighty wealth we vapour j When all the riches that we boast Consists in scraps of paper I" From the month of October to the end of the year, songs, and squibs, and pamphlets of all descriptions, on the misfortunes occasioned by the explosion of the bubble systera, became exceedingly nuraerous. Two draraatic pieces, " The broken Stock-jobbers," a farce, " as lately acted by his Majesty's subjects in Exchange Alley," and " South-Sea ; or. The Biter Bit," a farce, are advertised in the month of October. The general feeling against the directors was becoming so strong in the month of November, that we are told it had become a practice araong the ladies, when in playing at cards they turned up a knave, to cry, " There 's a director for you ! " The period of the South Sea bubble is that in which political caricatures began to be comraon in England ; for they had before been published at rare intervals, and partook so much of the character of emblems, that they are not always very easy to be understood. Read's Weekly Journal of November 1, 1718, gives a 70 CARICATURES ON THE BUBBLES. [l720. caricature against the Tories, engraved on wood, which is called " an hieroglyphic," so little was the real nature of a caricature then appreciated. Another fault under which these earlier caricatures labour is that of being extremely elaborate. The earliest English caricature on the South Sea Company is advertised iu the Post Boy of June 21, 1720, under the title of " The Bubblers bubbled ; or. The Devil take the Hind most." It no doubt related to the great rush which was made to subscribe to the numerous companies afloat in that month. I have not met with a copy of it, but in the advertisement it is stated to be represented "by a great number of figures." In the ad-^ertisement of another caricature, on the 29th of February in this year, called " The World in Masquerade," it is set forth, as one of its great recommendations, that it was " represented in nigh eighty figures." In France and in Holland, (where the bubble-mania had thrown everything into the greatest confusion,) the nuraber of caricatures pubhshed during the year 1720 was very considerable. In the latter country, a large number of these caricatures, as well as many satirical plays and songs, were collected together and published in a folio volume, which is still not uncomraon, under the title, " Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid," (The great Picture of Folly.) The greater portion of these foreign caricatures relate to Law and his Mis sissippi scheme. In one of these, a number of persons of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions in society, are represented acting the part of Atlas, each support ing a globe on his shoulders. Law, the Atlas who supported the world of paper, — V Atlas actieua; de papier, as he is termed in the French description of the plate, — bears his globe but unsteadily, and is obliged to call in Hercules to his aid. 1720.] CARICATURES ON THE BUBBLES. 71 A MODERN ATLAS. " Roi Atlas, he I pourquoi te fatiguer ainsi ? Permets qu' Hercule vienne, et te donne assistance, Et t'aide a soutenir ton charge d'importance. Quoi qu'on dit c'est papier ou du vent, aujourd'hui, II n'y a en ce temps d'espece si pesante ; Puis qu'en troe et trafic il pese plus que d'or." So little point is there often in these caricatures, and so great appears to have been the call for them in Holland, that people seem to have looked up old engravings, designed originally for a totally different purpose, and, adding new inscriptions and new ex planations, they were published as caricatures on the bubbles. These betray themselves sometimes by the costume. A large wood-cut which represents the meeting of a King and a nobleman in the court of a palace, attended by a crowd of courtiers in the cos tume of the days of Henry IV. or Louis XIIL, is thus made to represent the crowding of the stock-jobbers to the Rue Quinquenpoix. In the same manner, a large plate, which seems originally to have been an allegorical representation of the battle between Car nival and Lent, (a rather popular subject at an earlier period,) is here given under the new title of " The Battle between the good-living Bubble-lords and 72 CARICATURES ON THE BUBBLES. [l720. approaching Poverty," {Stryd tuszen de smullende Bubbel-Heeren en de aanstaande Armoede.) The best of these caricatures is a large engraving by Picart, which appears in the Dutch volume, with explanations in French and Dutch, and which was re-engraved with English descriptions and applications in London. It is a general satire on the madness which characterised the memorable year 1720. "Qui," says the inscription, — " Qui le croira 1 qui I'eut jamais pense ? Qu'en un siecle si sage un systeme insense Fit du commerce un jeu de la Fortune ? Et se jeu pernicieux, Ensorcelant jeunes et vieux, Remplit tous les esprits d'une yvresse commune." Fortune is here driven in her car by Folly, the car being drawn by the personifications of the principal companies who began the pernicious trade of stock jobbing, as the Mississippi, represented with a wooden leg ; the South Sea, with a sore leg, and the other bound with a ligament ; the Bank, treading under foot a serpent, &c. The agents of some of the larger companies are turning the wheels of the car, and are represented with foxes' tails, "to show their pohcy and cunning." The spokes of the wheels are inscribed with the names of different companies, which, as the car moves forward, are alternately up and down; while books of merchandise, crushed and torn beneath them, represent the destruction of trade and com merce. In the clouds the Devil appears making bub bles of soap, which mingle with the " actions" and other things (good and bad) that Fortune is distributing to the crowd. " Those," it is added, " that will give themselves the trouble of examining the print, may 1720.] CARICATURES ON THE BUBBLES. 73 discover many things which are not here explained, in order that the curious may have the pleasure of having something to guess at .'" In fact there are a number of different groups in the picture which are not described. On one side, one of the fox- tailed gentlemen is whisper ing into the ear of a simple buyer of actions, while a roguish lad is picking his pockets behind. Those who brought their money into Exchange Alley were expos ed to every description of robbery. Near these, in the original print, a handsome young damsel is thrown by the sudden frown of For tune into the longing arms of an old and ill-favoured but more fortunate worshipper ofthe capricious goddess. " Quand on est jeune et belle, et qu'on a le malheur D'avoir perdu son bien dans un jeu si funeste, Gare qu'un billet au porteur Ne fasse encore perdre le reste !" DOUBLE ROBBERY. We are well assured by the writers of the time, that the profligacy which followed this mad gambling was almost incredible. On the other side of the picture is a group occupied in buy ing and seUing stock: the seller appears eager for the purchase-money, which TRANSFER. 74 CARICATURES ON THE BUBBLES. [1720. the buyer is counting out upon a block, while a Jew broker transacts the affair. The word " transfer" is inscribed on the block in the English print. The car of Fortune proceeds frora a large coffee-house, over the door of which, in the original plate, we read the word " Quinquenpoix ;" in place of which the English copy has " Jonathan's," which was the great place of resort in London for bubblers and bubbled. At the other extremity of the picture, the infatuated crowd is hurrying forward to fill the three places of its final destination, — the mad-house, the poor- house, and the hospital. The latter is called, in the English print, " The House of Fools ;" but, in several particulars of this kind, as well as in artistical execution, the original engraving of Picart is much superior to the English copy. Folly is represented with the spacious hoop-petticoat, patches, and other ex travagant fashions of the day, — a true female ex quisite ofthe year 1720. The Post-Boy of October 20, 1720, contains an advertisement of the publication "this day" of "a pack of bubble cards," each containing an engraving relating to one of the numerous companies formed or projected during the summer, and accompanied with an appropriate epigram, " the lines by the author of the ' South Sea Ballad' and the ' Tippling Philoso pher.' " In the Weekly Packet and in Mist's Weekly Journal of December lOj "A new Pack of Stock- FOLLY, TN THE GARB OF 1720. 1720.] POLITICAL PLAYING-CARDS. 75 jobbing Cards" is announced as published that day, with lines by the same author. The price of each pack is stated to be two shillings and sixpence. The notion of political playing-cards was not altogether new : in the reign of Charles II. a pack of such cards had been published on the celebrated Popish Plot, which had caused almost as great an excite ment throughout the country as the bubbles of the year 1720. A set of bubble cards had also been published in this latter year in Holland ; but whether the Dutch took the hint from the English, or the English from the Dutch, it is not easy to determine. Both these packs of South Sea cards are pre served in the collection of Mr. Burke. Each of the "bubble cards" contains an engraving representing the object of one of the numerous companies that grew up round the greater bubble of the South Sea scheme, with an epigram in four lines, which is fre quently quaint and amusing. The ten of hearts has a ship freighting with timber, in allusion to the company for exporting timber from Germany, and the lines " You that are rich, and hasty to be poor. Buy timber export from the German shore ; For gallowses, built up of foreign wood. If rightly us'd, may do 'Change Alley good." The object of another company was the " curing tobacco for snuff;" and the card represents two negroes and their overseer passing the snuff through a sieve, whilst their eyes very unequivocally suffer from the dust : — " Here slaves for snuff are sifting Indian weed. Whilst their o'erseer does the riddle feed ; The dust arising gives their eyes much trouble. To show their blindness that espouse the bubble." 76 STOCK-JOBBING CARDS. [l720. The " stock-jobbing" cards are more decidedly cari catures than the others, and they deal more espe cially with the doings of the bubblers and their dupes, than with the bubbles theraselves. On the three of clubs we see two stock-jobbers inventing political news, and resolving to proclaim the birth of a young, or rather two young Pretenders from the marriage of the old one with the Polish Princess Sobieski, as the news most likely to affect the value of the funds. " Two jobbers for the day invent a lie. And broach the same to low'r the stocks thereby. One says the Pole 's deliver'd; t' other swears She 's brought to bed of two pretending heirs." The king of clubs gives a receipt against bankruptcy ; a tradesman in distress receives counsel from his friend : " I 'd advise you to buy stock, and take it up in fourteen days ; it may chance to rise, but if it falls you can but then go off." The tradesman takes the hint : — " 'Tis true, one breaking will serve for all ; but if I succeed, 'twill make me a man ;" and it ap pears he is successful. " A bending tradesman, to retrieve his fortune, Buys stock to take it in a fortnight certain ; It rises greatly by the time of taking. And thus the buyer saves himself from breaking.'' The nine of hearts tells a different story : — " A merchant liv'd of late in reputation. But bilk'd by stock, like thousands in the nation. Goes to the Mint, his bad success bemoaning, To shun his ruin, saves himself by breaking." In another card, three bubble directors advise with their lawyer : one says to his legal adviser, " Sir, if 1721.] ENGLISH CARICATURES. 77 you can evade this act, you and I may ride in our coaches." " My advice," answers the lawyer, " is, get what money you can, give me some, and make off with the rest." The other two bubblers are con sulting in a corner of the room on the most effectual way of securing the zeal of the lawyer in their cause : " Tell him he shall be a director," says the one. The verses on this card are not worth quoting. On the three of diamonds — " A lady pawns her jewels by her maid. And in declining stock presumes to trade; Till in South Sea at length she drowns her coin. And now in Bristol stones is glad to shine." The greater number of the English caricatures on the follies of the year 1720 were published in the year following. The London Journal, April 22, 1721, announces, as " Just publish'd, six fine prints, repre senting the humours of the French, Dutch, and En glish bubblers and stock-jobbers ; with variety of hu mours," &c. These probably included the two " Bub blers' Medleys ;" and two equally well-known plates, entitled "The Bubbler's Mirrour," in one of which is represented a figure joyful for the rise of stock, and in the other a man in deep mourning lamenting its fall. Both of these latter prints are surrounded by lists of the bubbles, accompanied with the same epigrams which appear on the bubble cards. The English caricatures of this tirae are but poor iraita tions of the foreign ones ; in fact, the taste for them seems to have been imported from abroad, and the South Sea disaster must be looked upon as the beginning of the rage for caricatures which appeared in this country a few years afterwards. It must not 78 FATAL EFFECTS OF THE BUBBLES. [1721. be forgotten, that Hogarth's first political caricature related to the bubbles of 1720, and was published in 1721. The misery produced by these bubbles in the winter of 1720, both in England and on the Continent, can with difficulty be conceived. Yet, after the space of a century, the same folly reappeared in the mania of 1825, and sorae of the same bubbles were revived ; but their effects at the latter period were small in coraparison to those of 1720. A Gerraan medal in the collection of Mr. Haggard, struck probably to wards the end of the year last mentioned, represents on one side the momentary prosperity of the stock jobbers, and on the reverse the frightful catastrophe. Suicide by hanging and drowning, hasty flight, and despair, as here represent ed, were the share of hun dreds. The clamour of the sufferers overcame all other appeals to the Govern ment during the year 1721. A searching examination by a commitee of the House of Commons exposed to public view many iniquitous transactions; and the general dissatisfac tion was increased by the belief that not only the rainisters of the Crown, but more especially the King's mistresses and his greedy German followers, had received bribes in the first instance for procuring the passing of the South Sea bill, and had afterwards made great profits by stock-jobbing. The South Sea directors became objects of hatred and persecution, THE END OF BUBBLING. 1721.] FLIGHT OF KNIGHT. 79 and their property was confiscated and themselves imprisoned. The ministry was broken up ; and, at the beginning of April, remodelled under the guid ance of Sir Robert Walpole, who, though accused of having profited largely by trading in stock himself, was the only man capable at this moment of bringing a remedy to the evil. Robert Knight, the treasurer of the South Sea Company, after undergoing a partial ex amination, fled (with the book which, it was believed, contained the greatest secrets of the late transac tions) to France, and thence to Brabant, where he was arrested and confined in the castle of Antwerp. There he remained during the greater part of the year, for the States of Brabant refused to deliver him up to the English Government. It was commonly believed that the flight of the South Sea treasurer had been contrived by greater persons ; that the attempts to bring him back to England were not made in earnest ; and that his arrest in Brabant was a mere act of collusion, the whole being a screen to hide the conduct of great persons about Court, whom it was essential to keep frora public view. This screen, and Knight's escape frora England, began to be the subject of a variety of caricatures after the month of April, 1721. In one of these the fugitive is represented as taking refuge in the infernal re gions, the fittest receptacle, as it was represented, for so detested an individual. In another, entitled "The Brabant Screen," Knight is figured in his tra velling garb, receiving his despatches, which are given to him from behind the screen by the King's chief raistress, or left-hand wife, the Duchess of Kendal, who was said to have received enormous sums from the Soutii Sea Company, and who chiefly 80 CARICATURES ON KNIGHT. [1721. was supposed to hinder Knight from being delivered to justice. On the other side of the screen, a paper lying on a table bears the words, " Patience, time, and money set everything to rights ;" insinuating that Knight had been de signedly sent out of the way until the public feel ing could be appeased. Underneath the engrav ing are some verses, the spirit of which will be sufficiently shewn by the KNIGHTS DEPARTURE. first half-dozen : — " In vain Great Britain sues for Knight's discharge, In vain we hope to see that wretch at large ; If traitors here the villain there secure. Our ills must all increase, our woes be sure. Should he retum, the screen would useless be. And all men then the mystery would see." * The wise measures of Walpole gradually allevi ated the evils which the South Sea affair had in flicted on society, although they were felt heavily for some time ; and the name of stock-jobber has never entirely thrown off the weight of popular odium which it contracted on this occasion. The * The caricatures mentioned above, and one or two others on the same subject, are preserved in the collections of Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Burke. The print re presenting the entrance of Knight into the infernal regions was pro bably published later in the year, for a caricature entitled " Robin's Flight ; or, the ghost of the late S. S. treasurer ferry 'd into hell," is advertised as just published, in a newspaper of Sept. 23, 1721. 1722.] A NEW PARLIAMENT. 81 effect upon politics was, however, much less than the opponents of King George's government hoped for and reckoned upon : but a new subject of agitation was now approaching, which helped in some measure to make people forget the former. The first Parlia ment of George I. would naturally have expired iu 1717; but the ministers, who had already experi enced on two memorable occasions the danger of general elections in a moment of excitement, and imagined that there was much then to be dreaded from the intrigues of the Jacobites, had obtained in 1716 an act of Parliament repealing the Triennial Act, and fixing the legal duration of a Parliament to seven years, and the bill was made to apply to the Parliament then in existence. By this alteration King George's first Parliament was to end with the year 1721 ; and the elections, to all appearance, would fall amid the still existing exciteraent of the misfor tunes of the bubble explosion. We find, however that this subject of complaint was very little agitated in the elections which took place in the spring of 1722. The chief attack upon the Court party was made by exciting the old mob-prejudices against the Commonwealth and the Dissenters. The Tories accused the late Parliament of a design to consti tute themselves another " Long " Parliament, pub lished lists of those who voted for and against the repeal of the Triennial Act, and stigmatised the former by the old and unpopular title of the " Rump." Pamphlets on the misdeeds of the Rump Parliaraent were diligently spread abroad; and in some places the old custom of burning rumps was again practised by the mob, whose usual cry was " Up with the Church, and down with the Rurap !" VOL. I. G 82 PREPARATIONS FOR THE ELECTIONS. [1722, But Walpole brought now into action what would seem to have been a new system of electioneering, by which he gained a signal victory over his oppo nents, who still placed their dependence on the old plan of raising a popular excitement, which under other circumstances had proved so eminently success ful in Queen Anne's time, and had embarrassed the Government even under the disadvantages to the Tories which accompanied the change of the reigning family. Long before the dissolution of the Parlia ment, the Government candidates declared themselves openly, and personally canvassed the electors ; and no expedient was left untried to secure their votes. The Tory papers complain bitterly, that, on this occasion, noblemen and gentlemen condescended to solicit votes with an undignified familiarity. We cannot now be otherwise than amused at complaints like the follow ing, published in a Tory paper, Applebee's Original Weekly Journal of .January 6, 1722: — "Altho' we think the appointing general meetings of the gentle men of counties, for making agreements for votes for the election of a new Parliament before the old Par liament is expir'd, is a most scandalous method and an evident token of corruption, yet we find it daily practic'd, and, which is worse, publickly own'd, par ticularly in the county of Surrey, where the very names of the candidates are publish'd, and the votes of the freeholders openly sollicited in the publick prints. The like is now doing, or preparing to be done, for Buckinghamshire; and we are told, likewise, that it is doing for other counties also." In fact, this deliberate preparing of votes was eminently cal culated to counteract the sudden influence of popular agitation and mob excitement throughout the country ; 1722.] BRIBERY AT THE ELECTIONS. 83 and aware, by what had so recently passed, of the power of money at that time, Walpole is said to have practised on the present occasion a very extensive system of bribery. When the Parliament was dissolved in March, a host of pamphlets were sent into the world, as had been done before on similar occasions, to influence the votes of electors ; and the old system of getting up mobs was again resorted to. These mobs, in some instances, beat and kept away those who were on their way to vote for the opposite party : in some cases they carried them off, and locked them up till the election was over. In several places, especially at Coventry, fearful riots took place. In London there was much agitation ; and, on this occasion, Westmin ster began those scenes of uproar which were after wards so often repeated. But the influence of the mob diminished before Walpole's foresight and his gold, and in the new Parliament the Government obtained an overwhelming majority. The opposition was reduced to a state of weakness, in which it could only vent its spleen in political squibs and caricatures. In the midst of the elections, but when the result was no longer doubtful, on the 31st of March, an advertisement in the Tory Post-Boy announces as just published, price sixpence each, two prints, under the titles of " The Prevailing Candidate ; or, the election carried by bribery and the D 1 :" and " Britannia stript by a Villain ; to which is added, the true phiz of a late member." The first of these only appears now to be known :* the right-hand side is occupied by a screen of seven folds, which are intended to * This rare print, which is one of the best of the caricatures of the reign of George the First, is in the collection of Mr. Hawkins. G 2 84 ELECTIONEERING CARICATURES. [1722. represent the seven almost barren years of the late Parliament ; while on the left appears the group here AN ELECTION EPISODE. represented, which is explained by the verses under neath. This is the earliest caricature ou elections with which I am acquainted. " Here 's a minion sent down to a corporate town. In hopes to be newly elected ; By his prodigal show, you may easily know To the Court he is truly affected. " He 'as a knave by the hand, who has power to command All the votes in the corporation ; Shoves a sum in his pocket, the D' 1 cries ' Take it, 'Tis all for the good of the nation ! ' " The wife, standing by, looks a little awry At the candidate's way of addressing ; But a priest stepping in avers bribery no sin. Since money 's a family blessing. " Say the boys, ' Ye sad rogues, here are French wooden brogues. To reward your vile treacherous knavery ; For such traitors as you are the rascally crew That betray the whole kingdom to slavery.' " 1722.] MOVEMENTS OF THE PRETENDER. 85 The more violent Tories, in their despair, seem to have been thrown again upon dangerous undertakings. We have seen, that, even in the midst of the bubble mania, the movements of the Pretender were consi dered sufiicient to affect the public funds ; and the eyes of Englishmen were constantly fixed upon him in his retreat at Rome. The joy of the Jacobites was great, when they learnt, at the end of the year 1720, that his Polish wife had given birth to a son, a young Pretender, destined to be brought on the stage when the little energy ever possessed by his father was gone. They hoped much from the dissatisfaction and suffer ings caused by the disasters of the South Sea scheme, and they had been signally disappointed in the result of the elections. The excitement of these had scarcely subsided, when the English Government received from France information of a formidable conspiracy at home against King George ; and it was discovered that the Pretender had left Rome, and that the Duke of Or mond was on his way from Madrid to be prepared on the coast of Biscay for a descent on that of England. A camp was immediately formed in Hyde Park, to protect the King and the metropolis, from which latter all Papists, or reputed Papists, were warned to de part, by a royal proclamation issued on the 9th of May. At the same time we trace atterapts to raise a new feel ing among the mob in favour of the exiled family ; and it is announced, in Read's Weekly Journal of May 26, that " The messenger of the press has caused fourteen persons to be sent to the House of Correction, for crying about the city scandalous and traitorous songs," In perilous undertakings like this, caricatures were circulated on medals, rather than in prints, and we have such a medal struck at this time, with a head of 86 atterbury's plot. [1722. the Pretender on the obverse, and the legend unica salus, and on the reverse, under the legend quid GRAVIUS CAPTA, a distant view of London, with Bri tannia weeping in the foreground, and before her face the horse of Hanover trampling upon her lion and unicorn. The Jacobites pretended that the nation had been enslaved by the Court in fluence in the elections; and on the 20th of September, long after the English conspirators had been seized, the Pretender issued a mad declaration, which was printed and industriously distributed in England, in which he dwelt especially on the pretended violation of the freedom of voting. The declaration was ordered bythe British Parliament, which was then assembled, to be burnt by the hands of the hangraan. A bishop was the principal conspirator in the Jaco bite plot of 1722. Atterbury, of Rochester, was a minister of the Crown under the brief premiership of Bolingbroke in the few last days of the reign of Queen Anne ; on whose death he alone had been bold enough to propose that they should proclaim the son, or re puted son, of James II. as her successor to the throne. He had been ever since noted for his disaffection to the Hanoverian government ; and now he seems to have rashly embraced the hope that a few troops under the Duke of Ormond, landed on the southern coast, would be enough to overthrow it. At the end of May, several inferior, but active, conspirators, were taken into custody ; they were, a non-juring clergyman ^723.] atterbury's plot. 87 named Kelly, an Irish Catholic priest of the name of Neynoe, Layer, (a young barrister of the Temple,) and another Irishman, (a Jesuit named Plunket.) Their examinations led to the arrest of Bishop Atterbury, who was committed a close prisoner to the Tower on the 24th of August. The Pligh-Church party were furious at what they considered the sacrilege of im prisoning a bishop ; and the Tories declared publicly that the whole plot was a fiction, that the Pretender had never quitted Rome, and that his party had no designs against King George's government. This was soon contradicted by the Pretender's om'u declaration ; and documents which have of late years come to light destroy all doubts that might have been entertained of the guilt of Atterbury. In the beginning of 1 723 Layer was brought to his trial, and was convicted of having enlisted meu for the Pretender's service, in order to raise a new rebellion: he was executed at Tyburn. The Tories still ridicviled the plot, and as late as the 16th of April, 1723, we learn from the Daily Journal, that " diligent search is making after the contrivers and dispersers of a seditious copy of verses burlesquing the discovery of the late wicked conspiracy, and the methods taken for punishing the conspirators." In May, however, Atterbury was brought to trial be fore the House of Lords ; a bill of pains and penal ties was passed, by which he was deprived of his bishopric, and banished the kingdom ; and on the 18th of June he was put on board a King's ship and conveyed to France, where he at once entered the service of the Pretender. A medal was now struck to commemorate the defeat of the design, which the Pretender's medal above mentioned was intended to forward. On the obverse, the conspirators are re- 88 THE PLOT DEFEATED. [1723. presented as seated round a table in deep consulta tion, the Bishop presiding and delivering a paper to them. Above is a legend intimating the determination to restore the exile to his lost crown — decretum est, REGNO brito RESTITUATUR ABACTUS — the numeral let ters of which make the date 1722, as that in which the plot was carried on. On the reverse of the medal, the eye of Providence, never asleep, darts its light nings among the conspirators, casting the Bishop's mitre frora his head, and striking apparently with death another conspirator seated on the right, pro bably intended to represent the Templar, Layer. The inscription on this side is, conspirate aperit deus [ oculum ], et vos fulmine pulsat, the numeral letters of which make the date 1723, the year in which the plotters were convicted and punished. At the foot of the medal, obverse and reverse, is the in scription CONSPIRATIO BRITANNICA.* From this time the governraent of King George was relieved frora most of its uneasiness. The mi nisters, strong in their parliamentary majorities, paid little heed to the clamours of the opposition; trade * This medal, as well as the Pretender's medal mentioned before, is in the collection of Mr. Haggard. 1723.] THE PLOT DEFEATED. 89 went on flourishing, and the Pretender was no longer in a position to give alarm. The greatest subjects of political agitation were an Irish squabble about half-pence, or a Scottish riot against taxes. Even before the elections, the London newspapers had found leisure to dispute about the murder of Julius Csesar and the patriotism of Brutus ; and for several years after the bitterness of party feeling appears to have cast itself chiefly into the ranks of literature and science. 90 CHAPTER IIL GEORGE L AND II. LITERATURE DEBASED BY THE RAGE FOR POLITICS. THE STAGE. — OPERAS, MASQUERADES, AND PANTOMIMES. HEIDEGGER AND HIS SINGERS. — ORATOR HENLEY. "the BEGGAr's OPERA." "THE DUNCIAD." CONTINUED POPULARITY OF THE OPERA. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. AOT FOR LICENSING PLAYS. ATTACKS UPON POPE. NEW EDITION OF THE " DUNCIAD." The agitation produced by the year of bubbles was followed by loud outcries against the alarraing in crease of iraraorality and profligacy, the debased cha racter of the stage, and the low state of literature, all of which were made alternately the watchwords of political strife. A long-established opinion, per haps not altogether just, has fixed upon the reign of Queen Anne as the Augustan age of English lite rature; but the few pure models of English compo sition which that age produced were scattered stars among a countless multitude of unworthy scribblers, whose fame was in subsequent times embodied in the name of Grubb Street, and who, from a variety of causes, were gradually driving the more classic writers out of the field. The first kings of the Hanoverian dynasty had no love for letters ; and it happened that one or two of the most distinguished literary names belonged to the party in opposition to their government. Those only could live by their writings who would throw themselves into the trou- 1723.] STATE OF LITERATURE. 91 bled sea of party, or who would pander to the depraved taste of the mob of readers; or, in other words, who would be the slaves of the newspapers or of the booksellers. The party newspapers were in creasing daily in scurrility as well as in number ; but, instead of the wit and elegance of the Spectator's and Tatlers, they were filled with calumny and defamation, or with wearisome tales of gallantry, varied only by occasional and not unfrequent patches of indecent ribaldry. It is clear, indeed, that the national taste had become as vulgar as the national manners, and as corrupt as the principles of a large majority of the public men of that period. The works which received the greatest encouragement were scandalous memoirs, secret history surreptitiously obtained and sent forth under fictitious names, (such as the books which came from the pens of Eliza Haywood, Mrs. Mauley, and other equally sharaeless female writers, and from the press of Edmund Curll,) and ill-disguised ob scenity. A great number of the low political writers of the day were well paid with the Government money. The secret committee appointed to inquire into the sins of Walpole's administration, after he had retired from office, reported that no less than fifty thousand and seventy-seven pounds eighteen shillings were paid to authors and printers of newspapers in the course of ten years, between February 10, 1731, and Feb ruary 10, 1741. Of this, it appears, by the report just quoted, that Williara Arnall, a very active poli tical writer, received in the course of four years, " for Free Britons and writing," eleven thousand pounds out of the Treasury. After the employment of writing for Government, 92 STATE OF THE DRAMA. [1723. the most profitable was that of writing for the stage. The drama was suffering perhaps more than any other class of literature by the debasement of public taste, although it had certainly been raised in moral character since the days of Charles II. Under his reign there had been two sets of actors, known as "the King's" and "the Duke's;" but, in 1690, these were united in one company, who, under one patent, had their house in Drury Lane. Internal dissension, however, soon led to disunion in the com pany; and the seceders, under Betterton, obtained from King William a licence to act independently, and a theatre was built for them in Lincoln's Inn Fields. There was, of course, a zealous rivalry be tween the two parties, which, in the opinion of Colley Cibber, led each to seek patronage by yielding to the taste of the mob, instead of being able to guide it ; but, after the experience of another century, we have every reason to disagree in the opinion formed by Cibber on this tendency. In 1706 a new and "stately" theatre was provided in the Haymarket for the Lincoln's Inn company, built under the direc tion of Sir John Vanbrugh ; and an attempt was made to effect a reunion between the two companies but without effect. The Haymarket theatre, known under Anne as the Queen's, and under her successors as the King's theatre, was found not to answer well its original intention, and it was afterwards appropri ated to the Italian Opera; for, as Cibber tells us, " not long before this time the Italian Opera began first to steal into England, but in as rude a disguise and unlike itself as possible ; in a lame, hobbling translation into our own language, with false quan tities, or metre out of measure to its original notes, 1723.] HEIDEGGER AND THE MASQUERADES. 93 sung by our own unskilful voices, with graces mis applied to almost every sentiment, and with action lifeless and unmeaning through every character." After a number of vicissitudes, the licensed com panies of actors remained in nearly the sarae position towards each other under George the First. " His Ma jesty's corapany of comedians," under the joint manage ment of Booth, Cibber, and Wilks, held Drury Lane ; the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields had been rebuilt for the opposition company under Rich ; and the King's theatre in the Haymarket was devoted ex clusively to the Italian Opera, under the management of the celebrated John James Heidegger.* Not long before the rise of the South Sea scheme, masque rades were introduced at the Opera House as a new attraction to popularity; and in a short time they became, under Heidegger's management, the rage of the town. Every one seemed to relish the moment ary saturnalia in which all ranks and classes, in out ward disguise at least, mixed together in indiscrimi nate confusion ; where, to use the words of a con temporary writer, " Fools, dukes, rakes, cardinals, fops, Indian queens. Belles in tye-wigs, and lords in Harlequins, Troops of right honourable porters come. And garter'd small coal-merchants crowd the room ; Valets stuck o'er with coronets appear, Lacqueys of state, and footmen with a star ; Sailors of quality with judges mix. And chimney-sweepers drive their coach and six : * There was also a " new a party of French players ; and theatre over against the Opera," an unlicensed company of English which, in the latter years of the players acted in a theatre in reign of George I., was held by Goodman's Fields. 94 COMPLAINTS AGAINST MASQUERADES. [1726. Statesmen, so used at Court the mask to wear. Now condescend again to use it here ; Idiots tum conjurers, and courtiers clowns, And sultans drop their handkerchiefs to nuns." The masquerade soon became more than a figurative leveller of society; for sharpers, and women of ill- repute, and others, gained admission, and the conse quence was nightly scenes of robbery, and quarrels, and scandalous licentiousness. The general agree ment of contemporary writers on this subject can leave no doubt on our minds of the evil effects of masquerades on the morality of the day. The South Sea convulsion had hardly subsided, when a general outcry was heard against the alarming increase of atheisra, profaneness, and immorality, and an attempt was made to suppress them by act of Parliament, but the bill for that purpose was not allowed to pass. The dangerous effects of masquerades were particularly insisted upon ; and they soon became the object of severe attacks in the newspapers, and in satirical as well as serious pamphlets. In spite, how ever, of all that could be done, these proscribed enter tainments continued to flourish ; and for successive years the most prominent advertisements in the daily papers were those announcing where masquerade dresses of every variety were to be lent for the night on reasonable terms. On Monday, January 6, 1726, the Bishop of London preached in Bow Church, Cheapside, before the Society for the Reformation of Manners, a sermon directed especially against masque rades, which made a considerable sensation, and so far drew the attention of Government to the sub ject, that it was followed by a royal proclamation against the favourite entertainments of the town, the 1726.] PRESENTMENT AGAINST HEIDEGGER. 95 only result of which was, that they were in future carried on under the Italian title of ridottos, or the English one of balls ; and, in order to satisfy in some measure the scruples of the authorities, the pubhc advertise ments of each ball contained a paragraph stating that guards were stationed within and without to prevent "all disorders and indecencies." The Middlesex gi-and juries on several occasions presented these masquerades as public nuisances, and complained of the manner in which the King's orders had been evaded, but without any permanent effect. George the Second was warmly attached to masquerades, as well as to the Opera, and he not unfrequently honoured them with his presence, and showed great favour to Hei degger, whom, nevertheless, a grand jury in 1729, after describing the ill consequences of these Opera balls, presented, under his name, " as the principal promoter of vice and iraraorality, in defiance of the laws of this land, to the great scandal of religion, the disturbance of his Majesty's government, and the damage of many of his good subjects." The attempts at a reformation of manners were the less effectual, because they were too often mixed up with political partizanship, and were not always dis tinguished by the prudence and judicious moderation which ensure success. The Whig Flying Post, in the August of 1725, contains an attack on the writings of the poet Prior, for their presumed immoral tendency, complaining that the names of an archbishop, several bishops, and numerous other dignitaries of the Church, had appeared as subscribers to the new edition of his works on large paper, and adducing, as a remarkable proof of the degeneracy of public manners, that, while Prior's writings were printed elegantly on the finest 96 CUZZONI AND FAUSTINA. [1727. paper, any sort of print or paper was considered good enough for the editions of the Holy Scriptures ! This pointed attack upon the poet, then recently dead, is best explained by the circumstance that he had been Harley's agent in the negotiations connected with the obnoxious peace of Utrecht, that he had been a pri soner of state at the beginning of King George's reign, and that up to tbe last he had been looked upon as a disaffected Tory. There was probably a satirical aim in a paragraph of the London Journal for February 11, 1724, which stated, that, "At the last ridotto or ball at the Opera House in the Haymarket, a daughter of his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury won the highest prize."* The operas had flourished equally with the masque rades, and were looked upon with jealousy by those who advocated the dignity of the legitimate English stage. Singers and dancers from Italy, such as Cuz- zoni, and Faustina, and Farinelli, obtained large suras of money, and returned to build themselves palaces at home, while first-rate actors at Drury Lane or Lin coln's Inn Fields experienced a difficulty in obtaining respectable audiences. The portraits ofthe former were engraved handsomely, and exhibited in every picture- shop. After a serious dispute between Cuzzoni and Faustina for precedence, in the summer of 1727, in which the latter appears to have been the victor, an obscure satirist of the day says — " Cuzzoni can no longer charm, Faustina now does all alarm ; * It appears that gambling of of another description, not unfre- various kinds, as well as lotteries, quently led to quarrels, which were permitted at the masque- ended sometimes in duels, with rades. These, with the intrigues melancholy results. 1724.] PANTOMIMES AND GROTESQUES. 97 And we must buy her pipe so clear With hundreds twenty-five a year. Either we 've money very plenty. Or else our skulls are wond'rous empty." The regular theatres were driven, in their own de fence, to seek some new method of attracting the patronage which seemed to have been stolen from them by the Italian Opera, and they introduced that class of performances, also of foreign growth, which has since become so well known under the title of Panto mime. Cibber, in his autobiographical " Apology," laments the necessity which obliged them to give way to a taste so contrary to the interests of the drama, and his contemporaries in general bear witness that the Drury Lane company opposed the innovation as far as they could. It was Rich, with his Lincoln's Inn company, who first attempted to compete with the Opera by introducing singing and dancing, and En glish operas and English pantomimes, and what were designated in the play-bills as " grotesque entertain ments." In the winter of 1723 this house produced " The Necromancer ; or. Harlequin Dr. Faustus," which had an extraordinary run ; and the next season they brought out a " Harlequin Jack Shepherd." The latter was of course founded upon the exploits of the noto rious character, whose history was then fresh in every one's memory, for it was the year of his executiont A rival "Dr. Faustus" was brought out at Drury Lane, and, as it appears, with equal success. This was not the only instance in which the two theatres performed at the same time pantomimes under the same title ; in February, 1726, they were both exhi biting a pantomime of Apollo and Daphne, and other similar instances might be pointed out. In these fan- VOL. I. H 98 CARICATURES ON THE STAGE. [1726. tastic pieces, wild beasts, and dragons, and other strange personages made their appearance, such as had never before trodden upon the English stage ; and the writers of the time tell us, with a scornful smile, that on one occasion a moveable windmill was introduced, and that it produced no small sensation among the astonished spectators. Nor did the innovations stop here, for in the winter of 1726 mountebanks, and tumblers, and rope-dancers were brought in as a novelty amongst the " grotesque entertainments " of the theatres. The character of the stage, thus smothered under a complicated weight of operas, masquerades, panto- miraes, and mountebank performances, became more and more an object of attack for the press ; and the papers of the opposition took up the subject with the greater zeal, because the evil seemed to be encou raged by the patronage of the Court. The stage-mana gers themselves were not unfrequently made the objects of galling personalities, in paraphlets, as well as in the public newspapers. Caricatures exhibited to the eye in exaggerated drawing the shortness of Cuzzoni, the tall awkwardness of Farinelli, and the ugliness of Heideg ger.* The manager of masquerades and operas, whom the King had appointed master of the revels, or, as he was termed by foreigners, le surintendant des plaisirs de r Angleterre, sometimes made a joke of himself as being one of the ugliest men of his age, and it is not there fore to be wondered at if his deficiency in beauty was often a subject of ridicule to the satirist. Fielding, in * The caricature represented on by Goupy; at least, so we learn the next page is said to have been from a manuscript note on a designed by the Countess of Bur- copy in the possession of Mr. lington, and to have been etched Burke. 1727.] HEIDEGGER'S UGLINESS. 99 a satirical poem of his younger days, " The Masquerade," thus passes a joke upon Heidegger's face, which is represented by other writers as having been often mistaken for a monstrous mask. CUZZONI, FARINELLI, AND HEIDEGGER. " ' Hold, madam, pray what hideous figure Advances?' ' Sir, that 's Count H — d — g — r.' ' How could it come into his gizzard, T' invent so horrible a vizzard ?' ' How could it, sir V says she, ' I '11 tell ye : It came into his mother's belly ; For you must know that horrid phiz is (Puris naturalibu,s) his visage.' ' Monstrous I that human nature can Have form'd so strange burlesque a man ?' " Heidegger, who was a native of Zurich, in Switzer land, and had come to England as a mere fortune-hunter, was much caressed by the Court and by the nobility, and was now gaining a large income, much of which he expended in charity. He lived profusely, and H 2 100 HEIDEGGER AND HIS MASK. [1726. mixed with the highest society, where his oddness of character and appearance made him sometimes the subject of practical jokes. On one occasion the Duke of Montagu invited him to a tavern, where he was made drunk, and fell asleep. In that situation a mould of his face was taken, from which was made a mask, bearing the closest resemblance to the original, and the Duke provided a man of the sarae stature to appear in a similar dress, and thus to personate Hei degger, on the night of the next masquerade, when the King (who was apprised of the plot) was to be present. On his Majesty's entrance, Heidegger, as was usual, bade the music play " God save the King;" but no sooner was his back turned, than the impostor, as suming his voice and manner, ordered them to play " Charley over the water.'' On this Heidegger raged, stamped, and swore, and commanded them to re-com mence the loyal tune of " God save the King." The instant he retired the impostor returned, and ordered them to resume the seditious air. The musicians thought their master was drunk, but durst not disobey. The house was now thrown into an uproar ; " Shame ! shame ! " resounded from all parts ; and some officers of the guards, who were in attendance upon the King, insisted upon kicking the musicians out, had not the Duke of Cumberland, who, as well as his father, was privy to the plot, restrained them. Heidegger now came forward and offered to discharge his band ; when the impostor advanced, and cried in a plaintive tone, " Sire, the whole fault lies with that devil in my likeness." This was too much ; poor Heidegger turn ed round, grew pale, but could not speak. The Duke of Montagu, seeing it take so serious a turn, ordered the fellow to unmask. Heidegger retirfed in 1723.] HOGARTH. 101 HEIDEGGER IW A RAGE. great wrath, seated himself in an arm-chair, furiously commanded his attendants to extinguish the lights, and swore he would never again superin tend the masquerade, unless the mask was defaced and the mould broken in his presence. A sketch by Hogarth has preserved and im mortalised the face of Heidegger on this oc casion, when it truly merited thedescription given in one of the sa tirical attacks on the manager of the Opera : " With a hundred deep wrinkles impress'd on thy front. Like a map with a great many rivers upon 't." It was the degeneracy of the stage at this period which brought forward the satirical talents of Hogarth* then a young man. In 1723, iramediately after the appearance of the pantomime of " Dr. Faustus" at Lin coln's Inn Fields, he published his plate of " Masque rades and Operas," with the gate of Burlington House in the background, as a lampoon upon the bad taste of the age in every branch of art. On one side, Satan is represented as dragging a multitude of people through a gateway to the masquerade and opera, while Hei degger is looking down upon them from a window with an air of satisfaction. A large sign-board above has a representation of Cuzzoni on the stage, to whom the Earl of Peterborough is making an offer of eight thou- 102 CARICATURES ON THE STAGE. [1725. sand pounds. On the opposite side of the picture, a crowd rushes into a theatre to witness the pantomimes; and over this gateway appears the sign of Dr. Faustus, with a dragon and a windmill, explained by the lines under the picture — " Long has the stage productive been Of offspring it could brag on ; But never till this age was seen A windmill and a dragon." In the front of the picture a barrow-woman is seen wheeling away, as " waste paper for shops," a load of books, which appear by the inscription to be the dramatic works of Shakespeare, Ben Jon son, Dryden, Congreve, ^"''^'^«- and Otway. In 1725 Hogarth published another caricature, en titled " A just View of the British Stage," more espe cially levelled at the pantomimic performances of the theatres of Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields, and suggesting a plan for combining in one piece " Dr. Faustus" and " Jack Shepherd," " with Scaramouch Jack Hall the chimney-sweeper's escape from Newgate through the privy." The three raanagers of Drury Lane are placed round a table in the centre of the pic ture. To the left Wilks, dangling the effigy of Punch, exclaims, in exultation at the expected superiority which this expedient is to give them over the rival theatre, " Poor Rich ! faith, I pity thee !" Cibber, hold ing up Harlequin Jack Shepherd, invokes the Muses, who are painted somewhat grotesquely on the ceihng. 1725.] CIBBER AND WILKS. 103 "Assist ye sacred nine!" Booth, at the other end of the table, is letting the effigy of Hall down the passage THEATRICAL CONTRIVANCES. by which he is said to have made his exit, and declar ing his satisfaction at the new plan by a coarse excla mation. The ghost of Ben Jonson rises from a trap door, and shows his contempt for the new-fangled contrivances of the stage in a manner that cannot be misunderstood. In 1727 Hogarth published a large " Masquerade Ticket," bitterly satirical on the immoral tendency of masquerades, as well as on their manager, Heidegger. The eagerness with which the public at this period ran after every new sight, and listened to every new opinion, was an object of frequent ridicule to the satirical writers of the da.y, and this probably made it the age of deistical writers, such as Mandeville and Woolston, Toland, Tindal, and Collins. There were others also, who, without being deists, ventur ed to broach fantastic notions, which had followers for a time. In the summer of 1726 appeared, what 104 ORATOR HENLEY. [1726, the Political State for that year describes as " a blazing star, that seemed portentous to the Established Church." John Henley, a native of Leicestershire, had graduated at Cambridge, but, filled as it would appear with overweening vanity and assurance, he defied the au thority of the Established Church, and not only set up a new religious scherae, which he called Primitive Christianity, but, with a raere smattering of knowledge, undertook to teach and lecture upon all sciences, all languages, and, in fact, all subjects whatever, on which, to judge from all accounts, h'fe must have talked agreat deal of unintelligible rigmarole. On the 14th of May, 1726, Henley first advertised his scheme in the pubhc newspapers, and on the 10th of July, having taken a licence from a magistrate to deliver public lectures, he established what he called his " Oratory," in a sort of wooden booth, built over the shambles in Newport Market, near Leicester Fields, which had formerly been used for a temporary meeting-house by a congre gation of French refugees. Here, and in Lincoln's Inn Fields (" the corner near Clare Market"), to which latter place he removed at the end of February, 1729, Henley continued to hold forth for some years, preach ing on theological subjects on the Sunday, and on all other subjects on the Wednesday evening, to which sometiraes he added a lecture on Monday and Friday. In spite of his locality araong the butchers, — to whom at times he gave a lecture, which he called his " but chers' oration," — the orator exhibited himself in an ostentatious manner, clad in the full robes of a priest, attended by his clerk or reader ; and he employed a man to attend the door, whom he dignified with the name of his " ostiary," and who took a shilling a head for admission. On certain occasions he administered 1726.] ORATOR HENLEY. 105 what he termed the " primitive eucharist," and he per formed other religious ceremonies. The clergy were highly indignant at this man's proceedings, and he met with opposition from other sources : on the 18th of January, 1729, he was presented by a grand jury for profaning the character of a priest, by delivering inde cent discourses in clerical robes, which was probably the cause of his removal to Lincoln's Inn Fields ; but he braved all, until he gradually lost the popularity which for a while filled his Oratory with a numerous audience. This raan continued his perforraances in Clare Market till after the raiddle of the century. When we look over Henley's weekly advertise ments in the newspapers, we cannot but give him credit for singular ingenuity in selecting subjects calculated to excite general curiosity, both in his theological discourses on the Sunday, and in his miscellaneous lectures on the other days of the week. As he proceeded, he took up exciting political ques tions, discussed very freely the character of the states men and the scholars of the day, made historical parallels, and became abusive, scurrilous, and licen tious in his language, invoking the lowest passions rather than the reasoning faculties of his hearers. This course has been attempted in later times, but never with the extraordinary success which for a time attended the discourses of " orator Henley." In one ad vertisement it is announced that " The Wednesday's oration will be on Westward Hoe ; or, a frolick on the water, — -fire-new :" in another, " The Wednesday's subject will be 'Over the hills, and far away; or. Prince Eugene's march.'" On one occasion he states merely that the subject will be " Something alive ;" on auother it is " A merry-thought ;" and, among the 106 AN ORATORY BAPTISM. [1726. incredible variety of subjects which composed his long list, it will be quite enough to mention the follow ing, taken at random : — " The world toss'd at tennis ; or, a lesson for a king ;" " Whether man or woman be the finer creature ;" " A-la-mode de France ; or, the art of rising ;" " The wedding lottery ;" " A Plato nic chat on Box-hill, de osculis et virginibus ;" " The Cambridge jig; or, the humours of a commence ment ;" " The Doctors ogling the ladies through their spectacles ;" " A wonder at Windsor ; or, the dream of a dame of honour ;" " Jack at a pinch ; or. Sir Humphrey Haveatall ;" " The triumphs of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, — spick-span new!" The most common subjects were made seductive by some quaint and extraordinary title. We are easily led to doubt the morality of a schemer like Henley, and the reports of his contem poraries seem to rank it rather low. Hogarth in- ORATORY BAPTISM. troduced him, according to common report, among the characters in his " Modern Midnight Conversa tion;" and the same satirical artist represented him 1728.] THE "BEGGAR'S OPERA." 107 in another picture performing the rites of baptism, but evidently more attentive to the beauty of the mother than to the operation he is performing on the infant. Another rough sketch by Hogarth represents in burlesque the interior of the Oratory during ser vice. The orator's fame was, however, so great, that several engravings were made of him, representing him holding forth from his pulpit, enriched with vel vet and gold. The dispute between Cuzzoni and Faustina, already mentioned, combined with some other circumstances of disagreement, had thrown the Opera manageraent into confusion ; and, in the earlier months of the year 1728, the newspapers contain repeated com plaints of the neglect into which the Italian Opera had fallen. It was at this moment that an event occurred, which, for a time, threw both Italian Opera and pantomime into the shade. In February, 1728, appeared at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields the celebrated " Beggar's Opera," by John Gay, with a tide of success never equalled by any other single piece. This snccess no doubt arose in a considerable measure from the attractive character of the music, and partly from its peculiar aptness to the moment at which it was published, when highway and street robberies had been increasing in an alarming degree, and the characters thus brought on the stage were those on whom people's attention was daily and pain fully fixed. The " Beggar's Opera" became, in a few days, the universal talk of the town. Lavinia Fenton, formerly an obscure actress, to whom was given the part of Polly, became an object of general admiration, was celebrated in street-ballads, and her portrait ex hibited in every shop, and within a short time she be- 108 OUTCRY AGAINST GAY. [1728. came Duchess of Bolton. The airs of the " Beggar's Opera" were adopted as the tunes of political ballads. The piece itself was even performed in a booth at Bar tholomew Fair in the autumn following. It was also acted in various parts of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, an unusual thing for a new piece iu those days ; the favourite songs were printed upon fans for the ladies ; houses, as we learn from the notes to the "Dunciad," were furnished with it in screens ; and, as usual, it became the origin of a number of inferior imitations which appeared in dif ferent theatres, under the titles of " The Lover's Opera," " The Gypsies' Opera," " The Beggar's Wed ding," &c. There were others who cried against the " Beggar's Opera" as loudly as the town cried it up. Many said, with some reason, that its extraordinary success was a proof of a degraded national taste ; others, with much less cause, represented it as an attack upon public morals, and as having a dangerous ten dency ; and, as it happened that, during the period which followed its representation, street-robberies in London were unusually frequent, they hesitated not to ascribe this circumstance to the influence of the " Beggar's Opera." Hogarth caricatured it in a print, representing the actors with the heads of ani mals, and Apollo and the Muses fast asleep under the stage. In another caricature Parnassus was turned into a bear-garden ; Pegasus was drawing a dust-cart, and the Muses were eraployed in sifting cinders. " Parnassus now like a bear-garden appears, And Apollo there plays on his crowd to the bears : Poor Pegasus draws an old dust-cart along. And the Muses sift cinders, and hum an old song. With a fa, la, &c." 1728.] PERSECUTION OF THE "BEGGAR'S OPERA." 109 Among other prints, a medley was published in the style of those on the South Sea scheme, with the title, "The Stage Medley; representing the pohte taste ofthe town, and the matchless merits of poet G , Polly Peachum, and Captain Macheath." Other prints, of a sirailar tendency, were distributed about the town. At least one clergyman preached against it from the pulpit ; and, even in the latter part of the century, Ireland, Hogarth's editor, repeats tradi tionary stories, that, after its appearance, young prac tisers in highway-robbery were not unfrequently caught with the "Beggar's Opera" in their pocket. But there was also a political feeling on the subject, for the Lincoln's Inn theatre had the Tory partiali ties on its side ; and Gay, slighted by the Whigs, had given dissatisfaction to the Court, and was looked upon as the friend of Pope, Swift, and Bolingbroke. The " Beggar's Opera" itself contained some satirical reflections on the Court; and the Tory press alone ventured to speak in its favour. Mist's Journal of the 2nd of March, 1728, observes, "Qertain people, of an envious disposition, attribute the frequency of the late robberies to the success of the ' Beggar's Opera,' and the pleasure the town takes in the cha racter of Captain Macheath ; but others, less con cern'd in that affair, and more for the publick, account for them by the general poverty and corruption of the times, and the prevalency of some powerful examples." For these or some other reasons the Court openly discountenanced the " Beggar's Opera ;" and, when its author had composed for the following season a second part, under the title of "Polly," it was not allowed to be acted. The Duchess of Queensbury, who had advocated Gay's cause with the King and 110 POPE AND SWIFT. [1727. the royal family, was forbidden to appear at Court. But the town took vengeance for their disappoint ment upon a rival, though, as it would appear, an unoffending writer. Colley Cibber had just com pleted a piece, also in imitation of the "Beggar's Opera," entitled " Love in a Riddle," which he was preparing to bring out at Drury Lane. A report was industriously spread abroad that Cibber had obtained the prohibition against Gay's " Polly," in order that he might monopolise the stage to hiraself; and, on the day of Cibber's representation, a powerful cabal obtained possession of the theatre, and corapelled him to withdraw his perforraance. Gay published his " Polly" soon after, with some prefatory remarks, in which he protested against the injustice with which it had been treated. By Pope and others Gay was looked upon only as a new instance of the sacrifice of literary genius to party feelings, and the treatment he experi enced, perhaps, led in some measure to the appear ance of a much more remarkable literary produc tion, which agitated the world of letters for several years. Pope, and his friend Swift, equally bitter in their sentiraents, and who both at this period of Whig supremacy lay under a kind of proscription, had, within a few months, taken an effective revenge by the publication of several violent satires against the degeneracy of their age. In 1727 Swift published the " Travels of Gulliver ;" in which he went on ridi culing statesmen, and scholars, and men of the world, and every other class of society, until he ended in one universal libel upon the whole human race. In the same year Pope gave to the world his " Treatise on the Bathos ; or, the Art of sinking in Poetry," 1728.] THE "DUNCIAD." Ill under the name of Martinus Scriblerus. These works and their authors were attacked with almost every kind of weapon that the anger of the raultitude of inferior writers of the press could supply. Pope espe cially, whose splenetic and sensitive teraper had se vered most of his literary friendships, was subjected to every kind of annoyance, and was driven to the highest degree of exasperation, for the judicious but cutting satire of his remarks touched to the quick almost every poetical scribbler of the day. The news papers were filled with attacks upon his writings, and with jests upon his character, his religion (he had been educated a Roman Catholic), his politics (he was the friend of Atterbury and Bolingbroke), and even upon his personal deformity. Ambrose Phillips, known chiefly by his Pastorals, is said to have pro ceeded so far as to hang a rod up in Button's Coffee house, with which he threatened to chastise the poet of Twickenham the first time he made his appearance there. These attacks were often galling, especially when they came from a class of persons for whom the poet professed extreme conterapt ; and it was under the irritation they caused that Pope forraed the plan of one general satire, in which he raight give vent to all his resontraents, just or unjust ; and which soon afterwards gave birth to the " Dunciad," perhaps the most perfect and finished of his writings. The wholesale nature of the attack is only justified by our knowledge of the degraded state of our na tional literature at the time he wrote. In this remarkable poem, which was dedicated to Swift, Pope celebrates the wide-extending empire of Dulness, and describes the goddess as holding her court in the neighbourhood of Moorfields, which then 112 THE "DUNCIAD." [1728. rivalled in celebrity the literary precincts of Grub- Street. " Where wave the tatter'd ensigns of Rag-fair, A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air; Keen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recess. Emblem of music caus'd by emptiness. Here, in one bed, two shiv'ring sisters lie. The cave of Poverty and Poetry. This the great Mother, dearer held than all The clubs of Quidnunc's, or her own Guildhall. Here stood her opium, here she nurs'd her owls. And destin'd here the imperial seat of fools. Hence springs each weekly muse, the living boast Of Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post : Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lay ; Henoe the soft sing-song on Cecilia's day, Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace. And new-year odes, and all the Grub-street race. 'Twas here in clouded majesty she shone ; Pour guardian virtues, round, support her throne ; Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears ; Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling sake ; Prudence, whose glass presents th' approaching jail ; Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale. Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs. And solid pudding against empty praise." The scene is laid at the moment when the poet Settle, the King of Dulness, was dying, and the goddess is introduced deliberating on the choice of a successor. Lewis Theobald, or, as he was popularly called, Tibbald, was then an active writer for the stage, but is now chiefly known by his edition of Shakespeare. Pope, also, had been induced, for what was then a handsome remuneration, to place his name to an edition of Shakespeare; and Theobald, who was far 1728.] LEWIS THEOBALD. 113 better versed in the literary antiquities necessary to explain and illustrate the text of the great dramatist, pointed out the defects of Pope's edition and the errors of his notes in a nuraber of articles in the weekly papers. Nettled beyond measure at these attacks, for the notes to Shakespeare were a sore place in the poet's reputation. Pope determined to make Theobald the hero of his poem, and him the goddess choose's as the successor to the throne of Dulness, after casting her eyes in vain on Eusden (who then held the place of poet-laureat), "slow" Phillips, and " mad" Dennis. " In each she marks her image full express'd, But chief in Tibbald's monster-breeding breast. Sees gods with demons in strange league engage. And earth, and heav'n, and hell her battles wage. She eyed the bard, where supperless he sate, And pined, unconscious of his rising fate : Studious he sate, with all his books around, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound ! Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there ; Then writ, and flounder'd on in mere despair. He roll'd his eyes, that witness'd huge disraay. Where yet unpawn 'd much learned lumber lay ; Volumes, whose size the space exactly fill'd. Or which fond authors were so good to gild. Or where, by sculpture made for ever known. The page admires new beauties, not its own." The description of Theobald's library, and of his sa crifice to Dulness, is an unjust satire on the class of reading which had enabled him to detect the errors of Pope's Shakespearian criticism. The goddess suddenly reveals herself to the fortunate aspirant, transports him to her temple, and initiates him into her mysteries. She finally announces the VOL. I. I 114 ORATOR HENLEY. [1728. death of Settle, and anoints and proclaims him her successor. " Know, Settle, cloy'd with custard and with praise. Is gather'd to the dull of ancient days. Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest." The second book opens with Theobald's enthrone ment, in a position even more lofty than that occu pied by the orator of NoAvport Market in his 'pulpit, or by the bookseller Curll, when he was condemned to the pillory for his licentious publications. Araong a number of prints and caricatures relating to Henley, one in the collection of Mr. Hawkins represents him as a fox seated upon his tub, with the words "The Orator" beneath. A monkey peeps from within, with neck-bauds, (acting as clerk,) and pointing to money in his hand, the object of the orator's worship: beneath him is written the word " Amen." Behind the orator is a curtain, on which Henley is pictured addressing a large audi ence, with the inscription Inveniam aut faciam, the vain-glorious motto which he placed on raedals struck for distribution among his followers. " High on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone Henley's gilt tub, or Fleckno's Irish throne. " HENLEY S GILT-TUB. 1728.] CURLL AND LINTOT. 115 Or that where on her Curlls the public pours All-bounteous, fragrant grains, and golden show'rs, Great Tibbald nods. The proud Parnassian sneer. The conscious simper, and the jealous leer. Mix in his look. All eyes direct their rays On him, and crowds grow foolish as they gaze. Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd. With scarlet hats, wide waving, circled round, Rome in her capitol saw Querno sit. Throned on seven hills, the Antichrist of wit.'' This division of the poem is entirely occupied with a description of the games celebrated by the goddess in honour of " Tibbald's" elevation to the throne. The first prizes are contended for by the booksellers, against whom Pope had proclaimed his hostility in the preface to his and Swift's " Miscellanies," printed in 1727. Curll had provoked him by the surreptitious publication of some of his letters ; but what was Lin tot's offence, who had been the publisher of his Homer, is not so clear. These games are described in a style of disgusting coarseness, too characteristic of the satirical writings and caricatures of the period, and which makes it impossible to reproduce them entire at the present day. When the various prizes of the booksellers have been disposed of, others are proposed to be contended for by the poets, in tickling, vociferating, and diving: "The first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators, the second of disputants and fustian poets, the third of profound, dark, and dirty authors." The operation of diving takes place in the muddy waters of the Fleet Ditch, where it emptied itself into the Tharaes. The last exercise is reserved for the critics, who are to listen without sleeping to the dull nonsensical prose of the I % 116 THE CRITICS. [1728. orator Henley, and to the everlasting rhymes of Black- more. " Her critics there she summons, and proclaims A gentler exercise to close the games. ' Here, you ! in whose grave heads or equal scales I weigh what author's heaviness prevails, — Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers. My Henley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers, — Attend the trial we propose to make : If there be man who o'er such works can wake. Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy, And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye — To him we grant our amplest powers to sit Judge of all present, past, and future wit, To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong. Full and eternal privilege of tongue." This trial is too much for the critics, and the whole assembly is soon buried in profound slumber, in the midst of which the goddess transports the new king to her temple, whence he is carried in a vision to the Elysian shades, and there meets the ghost of his predecessor Settle, who takes him to the summit of a mountain, whence he is shewn the past history, the present state, and the future prospects of the empire of Dulness. In the present he beholds the different worshippers of Dulness in her various walks : — on the stage in Cibber ; in the doggrel minstrelsy of Ward ; — " From the strong fate of drams, if thou get free, Another Durfey, Ward, shall sing in thee. Thee shall each ale-house, thee each gill-house mourn, And answering gin-shops sourer sighs return." in the more presuming writings of Haywood and Centlivre, of Ralph, Welsted, Dennis, and Gildon ; in the party politics of Thomas Burnet, who wrote in 1728.] ORATOR HENLEY. 117 a weekly paper called Pasquin, and was rewarded for his zeal with a consulship, and Ducket, who wrote the " Grumbler," and also received an appointment under Government ; — " Behold yon pair, in strict embraces join'd : How like in manners, and how hke in mind I Famed for good-nature, Burnet, and for truth ; Ducket for pious passion to the youth. Equal in wit, and equally polite. Shall this a ' Pasquin,' that a ' Grumbler' write. Like are their merits, like rewards they share. That shines a consul, this commissioner ;" — in the peculiar style of antiquarianism of Thoraas Hearne; and in the divinity of Henley, who, the phenomenon of his day, as an apt type of its intel lectual character, is again brought forward in the full amplitude of his pretensions : — " But where each science lifts its modern type. History her pot. Divinity his pipe. While proud Philosophy repines to show (Dishonest sight !) his breeches rent below, Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo I Henley stands. Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands. How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue ! How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung I Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain. While Kennet, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain. 0 great restorer of the good old stage. Preacher, at once, and zany of thy age I 0 worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes, A decent priest where monkeys were the gods I But fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall. Meek modem faith to murder, hack, and maul ; And bade thee live, to crown Britannia's praise. In Toland's, Tindal's, and in Woolstan's days." From these spectacles the eye of the visionist is 118 VAGARIES OF THE STAGE. [1728. suddenly turned to the modern vagaries of the stage, on which dragons and other monsters were brought as actors, and heaven and hell were made the scenery : — " He look'd, and saw a sable sorcerer rise. Swift to whose hand a winged volume flies ; All sudden, Gorgons hiss and dragons glare. And ten-hom'd fiends and giants rush'd to war. Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth; A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball. Till one wide conflagration swallows all." Greater wonders than these were now crowded into the theatres ; and, to complete the absurdity, in one of the pantomimes Harlequin was hatched upon the stage out of a large egg : — " Thence a new world, to Nature's laws unknown. Breaks out refulgent, with a heav'n its own ; Another Cynthia her new journey runs. And other planets circle other suns : The forests dance, the rivers upwards rise. Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies ; And, last, to give the whole creation grace, Lo ! one vast egg produces human race !" These were the creations of Rich, in his empire in Lincoln's Inn Fields : — " A matchless youth I his nod these worlds controls. Wings the red lightning, and the thunder rolls : Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter round Her magic charms o'er all unclassic ground. Yon stars, yon suns, he rears at pleasure higher. Illumes their light, and sets their flames on fire. Immortal Rich ! how calm he sits at ease Mid snows of paper and fierce hail of peas ; 1728.] PANTOMIMES AND OPERAS. 119 And proud his mistress' orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." He, too, has his rivals : — " But lo ! to dark encounter in mid-air New wizards rise : here Booth, and Cibber there. Booth in his cloudy tabernacle shrined. On grinning dragons Cibber mounts the wind : Dire is the conflict, dismal is the din. Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's Inn." These are pronounced to be the advanced guards of the host of Dulness, who is proceeding surely, " Till, raised from booths to theatre, to court Her seat imperial Dulness shall transport : Already Opera prepares the way, The sure forerunner of her gentle sway." The natural consequence of this general invasion of barbarism in public taste is, that talent is allowed to starve in the obscurity of neglect. " While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends ; Gay dies unpension'd with a hundred friends ; Hibernian politics, 0 Swift, thy fate ; And Pope's whole years to comment and translate." Upon the character of the stage Pope's verses had no more effect than Hogarth's prints ; for masque rades continued to be the favourite amusements of the town till late in the century, and pantomimes and operas have never altogether lost their popularity. The letters of Horace Walpole bear frequent tes timony to the attention which the opera excited in fashionable society: yet satirists of every class continued to attack it, and among others Hogarth, 120 POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE DRAMA. [1728. who, in 1742, shewed his iniraitable skill, in giving the character of grotesque coarseness to what so large a portion of his contemporaries looked upon as at tractive elegance, in a caricature entitled " The Charm ers of the Age," representing the dancing attitudes of two popular artistes of the day. Monsieur Desnoyer THE CHARMERS OF THE AGE, IN 1742. and the Signora Barberina, who performed at Drury Lane. Underneath the plate Hogarth has added an observation, of which we hardly perceive the whole bearing : " The dotted lines show the rising heights." At the same time the stage became every day, until 1737, raore and raore a political agent. The pantomimes, by a harmless tendency to satirise the follies of the day, which they have preserved to the present time, had perhaps some influence in producing this state of things. In October, 1728, a farce called " The Craftsman ; or, the Weekly Journalist," allu ding to the scurrilous paper, so celebrated for its attacks on the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, was performed at the theatre in the Haymarket, 1737.] SEDITIOUS PLAYS. 121 " with several entertainments of singing and dancing." Farces, similar in character, appeared frequently during the following years. In 1733 Rich and his corapany left Lincoln's Inn Fields to take possession of the new and handsome theatre which had been built for them in Covent Garden ; on which occasion Hogarth pub lished a print, representing Rich's triumphal entry into the new house, with a long train of actors, au thors, scenery, &c. Rich, clad in the skin of a dog, one of the personages in the harlequinade of " Perseus and Androraeda," is seated with his mistress in a chariot drawn by satyrs, with Harlequin for his driver. Before them, Gay is carried into the new theatre on the shoulders of a porter. The diminutive figure of Pope is seen in one corner, treating the " Beggar's Opera" in the most conteraptuous manner ; from which we are probably justified in supposing that the poet, jealous (as was usual with him) of the extra ordinary success of his old friend, had expressed an unfavourable opinion of his production. The year 1737 was one more eventful in the history of the stage. In the preceding year. Field ing (who had begun writing for the stage in 1727 as a young man) brought out at the Haymarket Theatre a farce styled " Pasquin," which was a direct lampoon on the Government, and gave no little offence. It may be observed that this was " the new theatre in the Haymarket," which has been already mentioned as occupied, under George I., by a com pany of French actors. Other such pieces attacked different passing folhes in a remarkable style. One, brought on the stage in the beginning of 1737, under the title of "The Worm-doctor, with Har- 122 THE LICENSING ACT. [1737. lequin female Bonesetter," threw ridicule upon two remarkable quacks. Dr. Taylor and Mrs. Mapp, who were then practising upon the credulity of the pub lic. Towards May, several farces were acted at the Haymarket, which were open pasquinades on the mi nistry, and which were universally spoken of as such. The most remarkable of these was a dramatical sa tire, in three acts, entitled the " Historical Register for the Year 1736," by Fielding, which had a great run during the month of April. Some say that Wal pole was alarmed by the effects of this piece ; but, according to Smollett, the manager of a play-house communicated to the minister a still more objec tionable farce in manuscript, entitled " The Golden Rump," which was filled with treason and abuse upon the Government, and had been offered for exhibi tion on the stage. Which of these raight be the real provocation is of little importance ; Walpole brought the raatter before the House of Commons, and descanted on the impudent sedition and irarao rality which had been of late propagated in theatrical pieces. The result was the passing of the act "for restraining the licentiousness of the stage ;" by which it was ordered that no new play should in future be brought on the stage without an express licence, a bill which has remained in force to the present time, and under which was established the office of Licencer of Plays. A great but ineffectual clamour was raised against this bill, both within doors and without, par ticularly by the Craftsman and other opposition papers, who represented it as a violent attempt upon the liberty of the press. Pope's satire upon the literature of his time was raore effectual than that upon the stage; because, 1728.] RECEPTION OF THE "DUNCIAD." 123 though the " Dunciad" was palpably a mere receptacle for all the poet's personal resentments, (which were not always just in themselves,) it contained raore of absolute truth, and was therefore more generally felt. English literature soon afterwards began to rise from the low state to which it had fallen under George I. The " Dunciad" is stated to have been written in 1726 ; surreptitious editions, perhaps with the au thor's connivance, appeared at Dublin (and were re printed almost immediately in London) during 1727 : but it was not publicly owned by Pope till the next year, when he gave to the world an authorised and coraplete edition, with the notes, which conveyed more venom than the poem itself. The uproar among men of letters which this satire caused was almost beyond anything we can conceive. The attack was so general, that almost everybody was up in arms, and the newspapers brought, with provoking regula rity, their weekly load of banter and insult. At first. Pope is said to have enjoyed the annoyance he had given to his enemies ; but, in a short time, his sensi tive feelings gained the mastery, and, as the attacks upon him became more galling, he experienced more and more the inconveniences usually attendant upon a satirical disposition. The poet must have been suffering under an extraordinary attack of sensitiveness, when he condescended to answer a pretended account of his being horsewhipped as he was walking in Ham Walks, near Twickenham, by an advertisement like the following, which appeared in the Daily Post of June 14, 1728 : — " Whereas there has been a scandalous paper cried about the streets, under the title of 'A Popp upon Pope,' insinuating that I was whipped in Ham Walks on Thursday last, this is to give notice 124 ATTACKS ON POPE. [1728. that I did not stir out of my house at Twickenham all that day; and the same is a malicious and ill- grounded report. — A. Pope." Among the most determined of Pope's assailants at this time was the bookseller Curll, who was grossly attacked in the "Dunciad," and who had been the victim of the poet's practical resentment on a former occasion. From his shop issued, within two or three months, the " Popiad," the " Curliad," the " Female Dunciad," and several others, in which the private character of the poet was attacked as freely as his public doings. Pope's personal appearance, which was not prepossessing, was also made the subject of satire ; and a quarto pamphlet, entitled " Pope Alexan der's Supremacy and In fallibility examined," is prefaced by an engraving in which his portrait is placed on the shoulders of a monkey — the per sonality of the title of Poet Pug, which was sometimes given to him. A poem called the " Mar- tiniad," in allusion to the assumed title of Martinus Scriblerus, under which Pope had ushered the POET PUG. ^ " Treatise on Sinking in Poetry " into the world, gives the following description of his person : — " At Twickenham, chronicles remark. There dwelt a little parish clerk. 1729.] ATTACKS ON POPE. 125 A peevish wight, full fond of fame. And Martin Scribbler was his name ; Meager and wan, and steeple crown'd. His visage long, and shoulders round. His crippled corpse two spindle pegs Support, instead of human legs ; His shrivell'd skin, of dusky grain, — A cricket's voice, and monkey's brain." We may give the following from Price's Weekly Journal of May 2, 1729, as an exaraple of the epi grararaatic squibs with which Pope was constantly as sailed in the newspapers. "A Receipt against Pope-ish Poetry. " Select a wreath of wither'd bays. And place it on the brow of P ; Then, as reward for stolen lays. His neck encircle with a rope. When this is done, his look will show it. Which he 's most like, — a thief or poet." Pope seems, indeed, to have found few partisans, either among the writers or among the artists of his tirae. Hogarth has introduced him into several of his compositions. In his caricature of " The Man of Taste," published in 1732, Pope is introduced in all his diminutive deformity, in the character of a plas terer, bedaubing the gate of Burlington House with whitewash, while he is throwing, by his awkwardness, a shower of dirt on a coach below, whicii is understood to have been that of the Duke of Chandos. With his foot he is overturning a pail, and throwing a part of its contents on a man walking beneath, who is designated in the picture by the letter B, which is explained at the foot of the engraving as " anybody that coraes in his way ;" while the hero of the piece 126 POPE BESPATTERING. [1732. is described as " A. P — pe, a Plasterer, whitewashing and bespattering." The poet had indeed obtained the THE CLUMSY DAUBER. character of a bespatterer of everybody he raet. A little before the appearance of Hogarth's caricature, he had, in his " Epistle on Taste," addressed to the Earl of Burlington, lauded that nobleraan's taste in architecture and the other arts at the expense of that of his old patron, the Duke of Chandos, who had recently built himself a magnificent seat at Canons. The satirist was tormented by the number, rather than by the strength, of his assailants, very few of whora were for their talent worthy of his notice, and those who did possess talent were in general the least deserving of his attacks. In 1730, when the uproar occasioned by the "Dunciad" was still at its height, a ballad, entitled " The Beau Monde, or the Pleasures of St. James's," informs us. " There 's Pope has made the witlings mad. Who labour all they can To pull his reputation down, And maul the little man. 1742.] COLLEY CIBBER. 127 POPE AND CURLL. But wit and he so close are link'd. In vain is all their pother ; They never can demolish one, Without destroying t'other." In Hogarth's engraving of " The Distressed Poet," a picture attached to the wall of the poet's room, in the first edition of the print, represents Pope triumphing over Curll. The contest between a poet of the rank of Pope, and a bookseller of the character of Curll, carried on in the way in which their quarrel had been conducted, had little of dig nity ; and Pope has been often blamed for giving un due importance to his vic tims, by the mode in which he treated them. But he was perhaps more to be blamed for allowing himself, after the lapse of some years, to republish the " Dunciad" in an altered form, for the purpose, as it would seem, of making an unjust, and not very provoked, attack on a man like Colley Cibber. Cibber's " Non-Juror" had never been forgotten by either of the political parties whom it concerned ; he had been rewarded by the Court in 1730 with the place of poet-laureate, and in curred, on the other hand, during his life, the hatred of the Jacobites and the ill-will of the Tories. He is said to have offended Pope by passing a joke on the stage upon the ill-success of a draraatic piece by the poet, who never forgave hira. In 1742 appeared a fourth book of the "Dunciad," — which was already coraplete in three, — and this fourth book contained a new attack 128 NEW BOOK OF THE "DUNCIAI)." [1742. upon Cibber, who had been lampooned in the former part of the " Dunciad," and in other satirical writings by the same author. Cibber now at last winced, and published a violent pamphlet against Pope, who was so incensed that he iraraediately revised the whole " Dun ciad," printed it anew, and substituted as its hero Cibber, in the place of his old enemy " Tibbald." Pope appears now to have made an entirely new set of antagonists, and in the fourth book of the " Dun ciad," the goddess of Dulness extends her empire over scholars, philosophers, and statesmen. The satirist lampoons, with a mixture of justice and injustice, the course of university education; the corrupting system (then so generally prevalent) of sending youths of family and rank to coraplete their education abroad, by making theraselves proficient in all the vices and follies of continental society ; and the pursuits at home of the naturalist, the philosopher, and the mathematician. The individual instances are again selected according to the poet's personal resentments, and it is enough to say, that, among objects of attack with whom we feel less sympathy, we meet with the names of Bentley, Mead, Clarke, and Wollaston. The only object of at tack in the first " Dunciad," which reappears here, is the Opera, to which Pope's hostility remained un abated. The goddess, in the new book, holds a sort of levee, at which all classes of her worshippers attend. The legitimate theatre is present by raeans of force only, for Pope was one of those who believed that the licensing act was a death-blow to the stage. " But held in ten-fold bonds the Muses lie, Watch'd both by Envy's and by Flatt'ry 's eye : There to her heart sad Tragedy address'd The dagger wont to pierce the tyrant's breast ; 1742.] THE OPERA. 129 But sober History restrain'd her rage. And promised vengeance on a barb'rous age. There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead. Had not her sister Satire held her head." While the new occupant of the stage enters pertly as a willing attendant, supported by that class of society who had learnt to admire her by an early acquaintance in foreign climes : — " When, lo ! a harlot form soft gliding by. With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye ; Foreign her air, her robe's discordant pride In patchwork flutt'ring, and her head aside : By singing peers upheld on either hand. She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand ; Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look. And thus in quaint recitative spoke." VOL. I. K 130 CHAPTER IV. GEORGE II. SIR ROBERT WALPOLe's ADMINISTRATION. PULTENEY, BOLINGBROKE, AND THB "patriots." — ACCESSION OF GEORGE II. — THE CONGRESS OP SOISSONS. PROSECUTION OF THE "CRAFTSMAN." THE EXCISE. INCREASING AT TACKS UPON WALPOLE. VIOLENCE IN THB ELECTIONS. THE GIN ACT. — THE PRINCE OF WALES LEADS THE OPPOSITION. — FOREIGN POLICY : WAL POLE AND CARDINAL FLEURY. RENEWED ATTACKS UPON WALPOLE, AND DIMINUTION OF THB MINISTERIAL MAJORITIES, THE " MOTION," AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. — THE QUEEN OF HUNGARY. WALPOLE IN THE MINO RITY, AND CONSEQUENT RESIGNATION. THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY. The misfortunes of the South Sea scheme had, as we have already seen, placed Walpole at the head of the ministry, upon which the Whigs, who had been divided since his retirement from office in 1717, became again united into one body, and with an overwhelming minis terial majority in Parliaraent, the hopes of the Tory and Jacobite opposition seeraed to be reduced to the lowest ebb. Under Walpole's rule, with comparative tranquillity at home and peace abroad, the country was increasing rapidly in commercial prosperity, and conse quently in riches and strength. It can hardly be doubted by anybody, that, to the firm and able govern ment of Sir Robert Walpole, raore than to any other cause, the house of Brunswick owed its permanent establishment in this country, while his pacific policy counteracted the evils that might otherwise have arisen frora King George's continental partialities, which had been too rauch encouraged by the previous 1724.] PULTENEY AND BOLINGBROKE. 131 ministry. Yet it was Walpole's foreign policy, and his alleged subservience to France, which the opposition attacked with the greatest pertinacity, until they drove the veteran from his post, after he had held the reins of government during twenty-two years. The bitterest and most galling attacks to which Walpole was subsequently exposed arose from a new division among the Whigs, the effects of personal pique and disappointed ambition. William Pulteney, the friend and constant adherent of Walpole for many years, and one of the most effective speakers in the House of Comraons, disappointed because his prorao tion, as he thought, was not so rapid as his services merited, quarrelled with his old colleague in 1724, resigned his office of cofferer to the household, and placed himself at the head of a violent party of dis contented Whigs, who now took the title of "the Patriots." In the meantime Walpole had been in duced to act with leniency towards the exiled Lord Bolingbroke, who had deceived, betrayed, and quar relled with the Pretender and the Jacobites, but had become enriched and, as was said, by a French marriage, by speculations in the Mississippi scheme and was now residing near Paris. A bill was passed in 1724, restor ing him to his forfeited estates, though he was not allow ed to recover his seat in the House of Lords, in spite of the intrigues of the King's mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, whose interest he had secured by liberal bribes. Bolingbroke thus returned to England more enraged on account of what had been withheld from him, than grateful for what he had obtained, and he immediately made common cause with the Tory oppo sition, and year after year his talents and his skill in intriguing furnished the sharpest weapons, and con- K 2 132 THE "Craftsman." [i726. trived the most dangerous plots, against the adminis tration. Pulteney, with the ultra-Whigs, or " Patriots," joined the Tory opposition, whose leader in the House of Commons had hitherto been that staunch old Jacobite, Sir William Wyndham, and, in his personal resent ment against Walpole, he formed a close alliance with Bolingbroke. By their means the country was again filled with seditious attacks upon the Government, in every variety of shape, and the Blob was again raised into importance. In the December of 1726 Boling broke and Pulteney started a political paper under the title of the Craftsman, which was at first issued daily in single leaves, but in 1727 it was changed into a weekly newspaper, published under the title of the Country Journal, or Craftsman, and seeras in that form to have had an extensive circulation. It was edited by Ni cholas Arahurst, under the fictitious name of Caleb d'Anvers. Bolingbroke was, at the same time, pur suing his intrigues with the King's mistress, and it is impossible to say what might have been the result of her determined endeavours to overthrow Sir Robert Walpole, had not her power expired with the sudden death of George I. in the June of 1727. Bolingbroke's faction was doomed, on this occasion, to undergo a succession of disappointments and conse quent mortifications. When the hopes they had de rived from the Duchess of Kendal were overthrown, they hastened to pay their court to the mistress of the new monarch ; but George II. was governed more by his wife than by his mistress, and Queen Caroline was, to the end of her life, Walpole's firmest friend. They next placed their hopes in the elections; but in the Parliament chosen in 1727 the ministerial majo- 1727.] THE ELECTIONS. \ ''§5 \ ^ rity was greater than ever, and the Tories a. were reduced to vent their harmless rage iri> clamations against bribery and corruption. One few caricatures of this period, but of which seV copies are preserved, was entitled " Ready Money tX prevailing Candidate ; or, the humours of an election." The scene is laid in a country town, where a crowd of voters are receiving bribes in the most public manner. One allows the price of his vote to be deposited quietly in his coat pocket, while he is distinguishing himself by the loudness of his cries of " No bribery !" though he adds, in a diminished tone, " but pockets are free." The voice of the opposition was now raised chiefly against the foreign policy of the ministry, who were accused of involving the country in continental quar rels, and of sacrificing the English interest abroad, to gratify the King's partiality for his Hanoverian domi nions. With a perfect disregard for truth or honesty, (which appear indeed to have been in no great estima tion with any party during this corrupt age,) and heed less of anything but personal interests and resentments, when the foreign measures of the Government took a bold and threatening character, the opposition cried out strenuously for peace ; and when the rainisters were bent upon securing peace, their opponents were equally claraorous for war. Peace was, however, established and preserved by the moderation and forbearance of the English and French courts, the councils of the latter being now ruled by Cardinal Fleury; and the threatening combinations which had clouded the foreign politics of the latter part of the reign of George I. were to a great measure dissipated in the Congress of Soissons, opened on the 10th of June, 1728. T!/^ THE CONGRESS OF SOISSONS. [1728. Satisfied with the success of his policy abroad, the minister retired in the autumn, as usual, to seek a brief relaxation at his seat of Houghton Hall, in Nor folk, and indulge in his favourite pastime of hunting. But the Craftsman fell furiously on the proceedings at Soissons; and as winter and the consequent meeting of Parliament approached, ballads and papers were hawked about the streets, turning the foreign measures of the Court into ridicule, and holding up the minister as the dupe of French prejudices and partialities. In November, a squib in prose, with a fictitious imprint, was distributed abroad under the title of " The Norfolk Congress ; or, a full and true account of the hunting, feasting, and merry-making: being singularly delight ful, and likewise very instructive for the public." This was followed in December by a ballad version, under the title of " The Hunter hunted ; or, entertainment upon entertainment. A new ballad." The minister and his adherents, according to this squib, repair to the country for the purpose of a great hunting raatch : — " To Houghton Hall, some few days since. All bonny, blithe, and gay. With menial nobles, like a prince. Sir Blue-String took his way. " A mighty hunting was decreed By this same noble crew ; The fox already doomed to bleed. Already in their view.'' The fox, we are to suppose, represents the wily court of Spain. Before the guests depart for the chase their host gives thera a breakfast, which consists of all kinds of foreign dishes. Their hunting is not very successful, for they only set up a vixen, which they 1728.] FOREIGN DIET. 135 lost, for it was screened by an eagle, (Austria,) and they return disappointed to their dinner, where, instead of finding good English diet, they are again surprised with foreign dishes : — " Westphalia bacon, many a slice ; Of English beef a chine : Dutch pickled herrings, salted nice. And truffles from the Seine. " 'Twas with great cost and charges made. Yet none could eat a bit ; For 't would not easily, they said. On English stomachs sit." At the middle of the table sat the Cardinal. The taste of the host was singular : — " The master of the house was seen Plumb-Tp-adiing to devour, And to regale with stomach keen On stock-Ash a good store." Walpole was always looked upon as the great pa tron of the monied and funded interests. He is ac cused of having imbibed this taste for French dishes only recently : — " At tables once he said and swore. With manly resolution, French kickshaws, bad as poison, tore An English constitution. " But now French sauces all go down. And things garreen'd all pass ; So much a Frenchman he is grovra. So changed from what he was. " Corrupted tongues he daily eats ; On these bestows his praises ; With these his bosom friends he treats. With these his own bulk raises." 136 TREATY OF SEVILLE. [1729. At the same time appeared another metrical effusion of a similar stamp, entitled " Quadrille to Perfection, as played at Soissons ; or, the Norfolk Congress, pursu'd, versif/d, and enliven'd ; by the Hon. W. P., Esq.:" in which the various European powers were introduced playing at cards, and uttering sentiments expressive of the motives and designs which the op position attributed to them. These and other similar productions were well calculated to excite the feelings of the populace. With the opening of the year 1729, the prospects of peace were threatened by new misunderstandings with the Spaniards ; and then the opposition cried out that the Government was running the nation into a war ; yet, when these threats ended only in the treaty of Seville, altogether advantageous to England, that treaty was attacked in Craftsman after Craftsman, and the ministers were held up to hatred and ridicule in pamphlets and ballads, as base betrayers of the inte rests of their country to the greediness of Spain. On the 13th of September the Pulteney and Bolingbroke writers issued a tract of twenty pages of ballad verse, entitled "The Craftsman's Business," in which they lampooned the rainisterial party under the character of birds, and described Walpole as " a large macaw," party-coloured with red £(,nd blue. As the interest of the foreign transactions died away, and occasions of attack on the Government measures be came for a tirae less frequent, the satire ofthe opposition papers becarae more personal and more pointed ; and in 1730 and 1731 the country was literally deluged with political ballads, in which the prime minister was intro duced under such names as Sir Blue String, (alluding to his blue ribbon as knight of the Garter,) Sir Robert 1730.] POPULAR EXCITEMENT. 137 Brass, Sir Robert Lynn, and still plainer Robin and Bob ; and held forth as the betrayer and oppressor of his country, the selfish encourager of corruption in the nation, — one who fattened and grew rich upon the public money. Insinuations and rumours of all kinds relating to his domestic life, which were likely to render the minister unpopular with the unthinking part of the community, were industriously propagated. On the 7th of November, 1730, while he was enjoying the relaxation of his country-house, the Craftsman inserted a paragraph stating, that, " from Norfolk they write that Sir Robert Walpole keeps open house at Houghton ; and that so numerous are his attendants and dependants, that it is thought his household ex penses cannot be less than 1500?. a week." The effect of all this was to raise much political excitement among the middle and lower classes. A caricature, entitled " The Politicians," be longing to this period, re presents the politics ofthe day and the conduct ofthe Governraent as the en grossing subject of conver sation among tradesmen and labourers of every kind, each complaining of some iraaginary grievance felt especially by those of his own calling. This caricature furnishes a figure of one of a class of per sons whom we have had frequent occasion to men tion, — the women who hawked seditious papers and THE POLITICAL BALLAD-SINGER. 138 PULTENEY AND LORD HERVEY. [1731. political ballads about the streets. Among other per sonages, the proprietor of a newspaper addresses a Scotchman, (an intimation, probably, that his country men were among the most active of the mercenary writers for the press,) " Mr. Macdonald, will you under take to write me a sraart remonstrance against arbi trary power ?" — and receives for answer from the wary northern, " By my saul, sir, I canna do it, for fear of offanding his lairdship ; for ye ken he 's a mon o' muckle authority." Towards the end of the year last mentioned, as the annual period of the meeting of Parliaraent approach ed, the writings of the opposition becarae more violent and more provokingly personal. The pens of Boling broke and Pulteney were unusually active. Carica tures and satires were handed about more frequently than ever. On the 2nd of January, 1731, the Crafts man contained a political letter dated frora the Hague, but generally understood to be written by Boling broke, which was calculated seriously to embarrass the foreign relations of the country. This was followed by an anonymous pamphlet controversy, begun by Pulteney, in such a libellous tone, that it led, on the 25th of January, to a duel between that gentle raan and Lord Hervey, who was wrongly suspected of being the author of an attack upon Pulteney. " The duel " was the subject of caricatures and ballads, and of satirical pieces of other kinds ; and Pulteney's party sent out a paraphlet under the title of "lago dis- play'd," which gave a pretended account of the causes of the older quarrel between Walpole and Pulteney, and a history of the duel, under the feigned naraes of lago (Walpole), Cassio (Pulteney), and Roderigo (Hervey), little to the credit of the prime minister. 1731.] FOREIGN POLICY. 139 The Craftsman continued to pour on the ministry, and especially on their foreign policy, a continual volley of essays, and misrepresented statements, and verses, and epigrams. They were accused of playing a confused and unintelligible game, which could only turn to the advantage of foreign courts, and entailed upon Eng land a wasteful expenditure of raoney in foreign sub sidies and bribes, without procuring any advantage. It was, in reality, a system into which England was necessarily drawn by the uncertain and unprincipled policy of the different European powers during the greater part of the last century, and is not ill described in the following epigram, which appeared in the Craftsman of March 13, 1731 :— " Have you not seen, at country wake, A crew of dancers merry-make ? They figure in and figure out. Go back to back and tum about ; They set, take hands ; they cross, change sides ; (Each movement a scrub minstrel guides ;) Around the measured labyrinth trace. Till each regains his former place. So certain potentates, (two couple,) Leagued in alliance hight quadruple, After a maze of treaties run, Are e'en just where they first begun. I wont affirm who led the dance, (Yet, for the rhyme, suppose it France,) But this I dare at least to say. Old E d must the piper pay." These attacks in the press were accompanied by an unusually violent opposition in Parliament to King George's foreign policy, to his subsidies and the ex pense of supporting his Hanoverian troops, in all which Pulteney took a very prominent part. In the course of the spring the political essays which had ap- 140 "ROBIN'S REIGN." [1731. peared in the Craftsman since its commencement were collected together, and published in seven volumes, with as many engraved frontispieces, representing, in what were termed " hieroglyphics," the pretended wickedness of the premier's career, and his designs against the liberties of the people. These seven plates were immediately re-produced in the form of a broad side, with verses still more provoking than the prints, under the title, " Robin's Reign; or, seven's the main: being an explanation of Caleb d'Anvers's seven Egyp tian hieroglyphics, prefixed to the seven volumes of the Craftsman." The first of these plates represents John swearing obedience to Magna Charta. In a second, the prime minister is pictured as a harlequin, the minister of Satan, by whose counsel he tramples upon the liberty of the press. " See here, good folks, a harlequin of state. Trembling with guilt, and yet with pride elate. To his great patron see the villain sue. And mark the mischief hell and he can do. Thus Satan speaks : ' Whole quires of w — ts \j0arrants~\ send. And for your messenger lo ! here a fiend ! By arts like these you must your foes controul. Till Justice strike — and I receive your soul.' " The third plate represents the art of printing as the great support of the liberties and prosperity of the nation. In the fourth, the courtiers are seen purchas ing votes with money. The fifth is a satire on the foreign policy which was intended to keep the " ba lance of power" in Europe: Cardinal Fleury is out witting the minister, who is attempting in vain to weigh down the scale with " whole reams of treaties," while the Gallic cock is crowing proudly on the back of the sleeping lion. In the sixth, Walpole is seen 1731.] THE BALANCE OF POWER. 141 aspiring, by a dangerous path, to a coronet ; and the seventh represents Caleb d'Anvers as the oracle of political wisdom. Another version, apparently, of this series of caricatures, or probably only a different THE BALANCE OF POWER. edition, was published under the title " Robin's Game ; or. Seven's the Main." Among the ballads of this period, the titles of which are preserved, we may raen tion, " Sir Robert Brass ; or, the intrigues of the Knight of the Blazing Star," published in February; and " The Knight and the Cardinal, a new ballad," published in .June. The King was so incensed at these virulent attacks, and at the quarter from whence they came, and espe cially at the pertinacious opposition to his foreign measures, that, on the 1st of July, he called for the council-book, and with his own hand struck the name of William Pulteney out of the list of privy council lors. Read's Weekly Journal of July 10, 1731, in forms us that " three hawkers were on Monday last (July 5) coraraitted to Tothill Fields Bridewell, for crying about the streets a printed paper, called ' Robin's Game ; or, Seven 's the Main.' " Two days 142 PROSECUTION OF THE "CRAFTSMAN." [1732. after, on Wednesday, July 7, the grand jury of Mid dlesex presented this same paper, with the seven plates of " Robin's Reign," described above, some numbers of the Craftsman, and several political ballads, as seditious libels. A prosecution was immediately commenced in accordance with this presentment. On the Saturday (10th July) one Collins was taken into custody, on suspicion of being the author of "that scandalous libel" called "Robin's Game;" and Frank lin, the publisher of the Craftsman, with other persons implicated, were subsequently arrested. The ministers now exerted themselves to crush the factious journal, and they obtained a severe verdict of a court of justice against Franklin, which obliged the writers in the Craftsman to be more cautious for some time. The newspapers and magazines during the summer were chiefly occupied in discussing the propriety of legal prosecutions against the press. Bolingbroke and Pulteney, in a somewhat subdued tone, continued their personal attacks upon Walpole. On the 30th of March, 1732, the Craftsman boldly in sinuated, " that all the corruption of this age is owing to one great man now in the ministry;" and in May the same journal attempted to throw odium on the Whigs, by insinuating that they had a design to get all the lands in England into their own hands, and then destroy the British constitution. In the autumn a great outcry was raised in the same quarter, on the dangers to be apprehended from bad ministers. To wards the end of the year a new cause of alarra was started, which eventually raised the greatest storm to which Sir Robert Walpole's administration had yet been exposed, — the rumour already spread abroad of the mi nister's intention of proposing a new scheme of excise. 1733.] THE EXCISE. 143 This scheme, which Pulteney in the House of Com mons stigmatised as " that monster the excise," had nothing very threatening in itself. The trade in wine, and especially tobacco, and the duties which those articles paid, had been liable to very extensive and shameful frauds, injurious alike to the planters, to the raerchants, and to the Government ; several articles of consumption had long been subject to excise duties, and Walpole s plan was to extend those duties to wine and tobacco, by which the frauds on the public would be in a great measure prevented, and the Government revenue would be considerably increased. But the name of excise had been unpopular in England ever since the days of the Commonwealth ; and this circum stance was eagerly seized upon by the opposition, who, long before the ministerial plan was made public, spread abroad misrepresentations of the raost extrava gant kind, raaking people believe that every article of daily use was to be excised under the new plan, and that it was a base design to crush the people and establish tyranny. An incredible quantity of pamph lets and ballads, filled with misstatements, were indus triously spread over the country as early as the months of January and February, although Walpole did not lay his plan before the House until the Mth of March. Among the caricatures issued at this period, one repre sents the lion and the unicorn, broken-spirited and harnessed, and marching in wooden shoes, the usual symbol at this time of French influence. A soldier rides on the unicorn, and is supported by the standing army, one of the great objects of the attacks against the Governraent. The lion is drawing a barrel, on which sits Excise, in the form of a portly individual, intended apparently to represent Sir Robert Walpole. 144 THE MONSTER. [1733. On one side trade leans sorrowfully over a hogshead of tobacco. The plate is entitled " The triumphant Exciseman." It was now common to mount carica tures upon fans ; and among the few fan-caricatures still preserved, there are more than one against the excise, which, agreeably to the epithet bestowed upon it by Pulteney, is represented as a bloated monster, fattening itself upon the goods of the people. In another caricature, the monster appears in the form of a many-headed dragon, drawing the minister in his coach, and pouring into his lap, in the shape of gold, THE NEW MONSTER. what it had eaten up in the forms of mutton, hams, cups, glasses, mugs, pipes, and any other articles that fall in its way, while people are flying from its ravages in every direction. A " new ballad," entitled " Bri tain Excised," one of the numerous effusions of a simi lar class which made their appearance early in the year, speaks of it as a mad project, which already ex cited the indignation of the Craftsman (Caleb) : — " Folks talk of supplies To be raised by excise. Old Caleb is horribly nettled ; 1733.] THE MONSTER. 145 Sure B [Boli\ has more sense Than to levy his pence. Or troops, when his peace is quite settled. Horse, foot, and dragoons, Battalions, platoons, Excise, wooden shoes, and no jury ; Then taxes increasing. While traffic is ceasing. Would put all the land in a fury." The monster Excise was the most dangerous of them all:— " See this dragon. Excise, Has ten thousand eyes, And five thousand mouths to devour us ; A sting and sharp claws. With wide-gaping jaws. And a belly as big as a storehouse." He begins, perhaps, with wine and liquors, but his greediness will not be appeased with these : — " Grant these, and the glutton Will roar out for mutton. Your beef, bread, and bacon to boot ; Your goose, pig, and pullet He '11 thrust down his gullet. Whilst the labourer munches a root.'' He will leave no comer unturned that is likely to conceal anything from his ravenous appetite, and threatens the same tyranny which formerly provoked the rebellions of Jack Straw and Wat Tyler : — " At first he '11 begin ye With a pipe of Virginie, Then search ev'ry shop in his rambles ; If you force him to flee From the Custom-house key. The monster will lodge in your shambles. VOL. I. L 146 THE EXCISE AGITATION. [1733. " Your cellars he '11 range. Your pantry and grange, No bars can the monster restrain ; Wherever he comes. Swords, trumpets, and drums. And slavery march in his train. " Then sometimes he stoops To take up the hoops Of your daughters as well as your barrels : Tho' an army can awe A Tyler or Straw, Heav'n keep us from any such quarrels 1" Such arguments as these were well calculated to prevail with the rabble ; and when the minister brought his plan before the House of Commons, the voice of opposition within doors was nothing in com parison wdth the mad clamour of the mob without. Walpole calmly persisted in his project, and explained the absurdity and wickedness of the misrepresenta tions which had gone abroad, but to no purpose; the mob increased daily, and even the minister's life was in danger. During the month of April, ballad after ballad and pamphlet upon paraphlet deluged the raetropolis. The Lord Mayor, who happened to be a noted Jacobite, persuaded the Common Council to draw up a violent petition against the raeasure; and several towns in different parts of the country, such as Coventry, Nottingham, &c., followed the example. Awed by the increasing excitement, Wal pole at length determined to relinquish his plan ; and, M^hen its fate was publicly known, the whole country was filled with rejoicing, as if some extra ordinary advantage had been gained. Bonfires blazed in almost every town, and in London the mob burnt the effigy of the minister in Fleet Street. In the 1733.] WALPOLE AND PULTENEY. 147 University of Oxford, which still preserved its repu tation for Jacobitism, the joy at the defeat of the minister was unbounded, and was openly exhibited in an unbecoming manner. In July, however, after the close of the session, Walpole was received in Norfolk (where the Excise madness appears to have prevailed least) with unusual marks of respect, and his entry into Norwich resembled a triumph. This, in London, was soon made the subject of satirical ballads, in which he was burlesqued under the character of " Sir Sidrophel," and his reception by his constituents turned into ridicule. The overstrained personalities of Bolingbroke and Pulteney were now exciting indignation araong re fiecting people, who began to question their motives and designs. Several biting epigrams upon them and their Craftsmen appeared during the month of May. Something like an intimation appears to have been dropped, of a willingness, on the part of Pulteney, to listen to conciliatory offers from Walpole ; and the Gentleman's Magazine for the month of May, 1733, contains the following parody on the ninth ode of the third book of Horace : — " A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE RIGHT HON. SIR R T W LE AND W M P Y, ESQ. " W. While I and you were cordial friends. Alike our interest and our ends, I thought my character and place Secure, and dreaded no disgrace. No statesman, sure, was more carest. Or more in his good fortune blest. " P. While I your other self was deem'd. And worthy such renown esteem'd, — L 2 148 PULTENEY AND BOLINGBROKE. [1733. Ere great Newcastle won your heart, And in your council took such part, — I was the happiest man in life. And, but with Tories, had no strife. " W. Newcastle, noble and polite. Whom George approves, is my delight ; His loyal merit is his claim. For him I 'd hazard life and fame. " P. Me St . John now, whom every Muse And every grace adorns, subdues. Attach'd to hun, I 've learnt to hate Your person, politics, and state. " W. What if our former friendship should Return, and you have what you would ? If, for your sake, the noble duke Should be discarded and forsook ? " P. Though St. John now my fury warms. And all his measures have such charms, — Though he is fond, indiff'erent you, — Our ancient league I 'd yet renew; For you I 'd speech it in the house. For you write Craftsmen and carouse ; For you with all my soul I 'd vote. For you make friend, impeach, and plot ; For you I 'd do — what would I not ?" Read's Weekly Journal of the 12th of the same month contains the following severe lines on the in gratitude of Bolingbroke : — "AYE AND NO. ' When fi'om the axe good D'Anvers flew. And to his King for mercy cried ; His generous King the axe withdrew, And Yes to all he ask'd replied. 1734.] NEW ELECTIONS. 149 " His monarch's goodness to repay. When moved to act against the foes Of him who gave him life — 'twas Nay 1 And all his voice could breathe were No's. " 0 George ! hadst thou this craftsman known, The sentence had not seem'd amiss. For life when cringing to thy throne, Hadst thou said No ! instead of Yes ! " Yet though his pen so long has raved, Let him in time chastise his quill j That law whose Aye ! has often saved. May one time have a No ! to kill." Every expedient, lawful or unlawful, was, however, now resorted to for the purpose of raising a mob ex citement against the elections, for the ensuing session was the last of the present Parliaraent, and every nerve was strained to render the ministry unpopular with the electors. The excise agitation had not subsided with the year 1733, and to this was now added an outcry against the Riot Act, with exaggerated state ments of the depredations which the Spaniards were suffered to commit upon our trade. Agents of the opposition were eraployed in various parts of the coun try in preparing for the approaching struggle, months before the dissolution of Parliament. On the 5th of January, 1734, the Craftsman says, "They write from Shropshire, that the disputes about the ensuing elec tions run so high there, that the dragoons are often times called in to appease the disorders." The oppo sition candidates made progresses in some of the coun ties during January, which were attended with serious riots and outrages. It has been already observed that caricatures were now frequently mounted on fans : in January, 1784, the newspapers contain repeated ad- 150 SATIRES ON THE "PATRIOTS." [1734. vertisements of " a beautiful excise and election fan." Araong the ballads was one in which the prime minis ter was satirised as " The Norfolk Gamester." The self-named Patriots began in return to be at tacked severely, and their patriotism was cried down as mere selfish ambition — the desire of place. A rhymer in Read's Weekly Journal of January 7th says — " You wish, my friend, I'd be so kind. Sincerely to declare my mind Of those who talk so loud and wise Against oppression and excise. Briefly, the case is now no more Than what it oft. has been before. The quarrel, that has been so long. Is not in fact who 's right or wrong ; But this, my friend, no longer doubt, 'Tis who is in, and who is out.'' The same journal, on the 26th of January, pub lishes an attack on the opposition under the title of " The Modern Patriots : a proper new Ballad ;" in which the electors are warned against the evil designs of a faction, the chief leaders of which are pictured in no very flattering colours. Bolingbroke heads the list : — " Of all these famed Patriots, so tight and so true. It would take too much time for a thorough review ; But a few of these worthies 'tis fit to record : And the first is a 'squire, that once was a lord. With a hey derry, &c." After giving an account of the ex-peer's offences, the ballad adds, with an allusion to his friend Pope, who had written a play for the stage, whicii was un successful — 1734.J THE COUNTRY INTEREST. 151 " Whate'er were his faults, they have taught him the wit The blots of his neighbours the better to hit ; As oftentimes poets, whose writings were damn'd, Have after for critics been notably famed. With a hey derry, &c. " Next comes Pulteney, who had drawn up the report of the parliamentary committee against Bishop Atter bury, Bolingbroke's friend : — " The next is a 'squire, who once roasted a bishop. And an excellent feast to the courtiers did dish up ; But he turn'd cat in pan, as soon as debarr'd Of the perquisite sauce, which he thought his reward. With a hey derry, &c." " And now ever since he hath warmly espoused The cause of his countiy, and liberty roused ; And he'll rouse it again, for he that 's possess'd With the spirit of envy, can let nothing rest. With a hey derry, &c." Wyndham, and one or two others, are described in a similar strain. The faction led by Bolingbroke and Pulteney seem now to have discarded their title of Patriots, and adopted that of the Country Interest, which was their watchword in the elections of 1734. During the month of April a greater nuraber of ballads and pamphlets were sent forth than had pro bably ever been issued before in the same space of time. An anniversary of the defeat of the excise scheme was celebrated by the populace early in the month. On the 16th the Parliament was dissolved, and the elections took place at the end of the month and at the beginning of May. The opponents of minis ters never exerted themselves so rauch ; and they prac tised bribery and corruption as uublushingly as their antagonists. In cases where the corporation of a town 152 VIOLENT ELECTIONS. [1734, were in their interest, they endeavoured to make a majority by creating honorary freemen. Their anxiety about the result is shewn strikingly in the following paragraph of the Craftsman of the 20th of April : — " We are credibly informed it will be so ordered that the elections of raost counties and corporations, where the friends of a certain great gentleman are most likely to succeed, will be brought on first, by way of pre cedent and encouragement to the others. We don't mention this as any extraordinary piece of news, but only to prevent any surprise at \he first returns" The elections were in most cases hotly contested, and were unusually tumultuous. There was a riot even at Nor wich ; and the Craftsman states, that when Walpole mounted the hustings there, to give his vote as an honorary freeman, "the people called aloud to have the oath administered to him, that he had received no money for that purpose" Pulteney's faction was again dooraed to disappointment ; for, although they had gained a few votes, the strength of the ministry re mained unshaken ; and they did not even attempt to conceal their mortification. On the 18th of May, a political pamphlet was advertised, under the title of " The City Garland," " with a curious copper-plate representing the humours of an election." It was in the session of Parliament which had closed in April, that Sir Wilham Wyndham made his famous personal attack on Walpole in the House of Com mons, when the minister retorted with a no less vio lent, but truer, character of Bolingbroke. This is said to have contributed, with several other causes, to drive the latter from the arena of political strife ; and he soon afterwards retired to the Continent, with the conviction that his party was carrying on a hopeless 1734.J THE OPPOSITION DISCOURAGED. 153 contest. A poet of the Gentleman's Magazine, in the month of June, compares their unwearied efforts to the labours of Sisyphus : — " Thus (as ancient stories tell) Sisyphus, condemn'd in hell. Up a hill, eternal, toils To roll a stone, which back recoils. Since the labour 's much the same, Sisyphus be P y's name. Ever may he toil in vain, W le's life or place to gain! Still to aim, and still to fail. Striving still, and ne'er prevail ! Be his hell in life — and can Worse befall th' ambitious man ?" Pulteney was, indeed, discouraged and gloomy, and he shewed now some inclination to seek a reconcilia tion with the minister. A calm, as usual, followed the political storm ; and during the rest of the year the only occurrences which made much noise were some religious disputes, arising chiefly from the ultra High- Church zeal of one Dr. Codex, and the extraordinary celebrity of the pills of a quack named Ward. While the opposition were exclaiming loudly against the dangers to be apprehended from a standing array, the provinces were suffering from riot and tumult which there was no efiicient superior force to control. In the western counties, and more especially in Glouces tershire and Herefordshire, an active rebellion had for several years been carried on against turnpike -gates, in which, singularly enough, the insurgents disguised themselves in woraen's clothes, thus presenting a re markable reserablance to those who, within the last few years, figured so prominently under the title of " Re- 1S4 REBECCA AND HER DAUGHTERS. [1735. becca and her Daughters." We hear of the proceed ings of these people as early as 1730 and 1731 ; and, as the excitement of political faction left a moment of leisure to the newspapers, they convey glimpses of their proceedings until 1735, when the turnpike destroyers in Herefordshire had carried their outrages to so ex traordinary a height, that they awed even the county magistrates.* With respect to Walpole's foreign policy, the fac tious character of the opposition was becoming so ap parent, that it now caused little embarrassment or un- * The following particulars re lating to these insurgents are taken from the Daily Gazetteer of Oct. 8 and Dec. 9, 1735:— "Hereford, October 4. — There are now committed to the county gaol two, and more are daily ex pected, of the Ledbury rioters, who rather deserve the name of rebels, for they appeared a hun dred in a gang, armed with guns and swords, as well as axes to hew down the turnpikes, and were dressed in women's apparel, with high-crown'd hats, and their faces blacken'd. I suppose you have heard of the attack they made at Ledbury on the 2 Ist of September, about nine o'clock at night, when in two hours' time they cut down five or six turn pikes to the ground; but, before they had gone through all their work, they were disturbed by a worthy magistrate in the neigh bourhood, John Skipp, Esq.; who, being in the commission of the peace, caused the proclamation to be read against riots, and then the act of Parliament ; but to no purpose ; for this gentleman, with his servants and neighbours, go ing to defend the last turnpike, a skirmish ensued, in which he took two of those miscreants pri soners, whom he secured for that night in his own house ; but the whole gang appeared soon after, who demanded the said prisoners, threatening, in case of refusal, to pull his house down, and burn his barns and stables, and imme diately discharged several loaded pieces into the house, which hap pily did no damage. The justice finding himself and family beset in such a manner, discharged se veral blunderbusses and fowling- pieces at them, whereby one was shot dead on the spot, and several so wounded, that 'tis not believed they will recover. At this the rioters fled with precipitation, leaving their two companions be hind them. But 'tis fear'd that more blood will yet be spilt, the country being in the greatest con fusion, and I am informed that an attempt is designed upon the county gaol ; but the quarter ses sions being to be held next week, a petition will no doubt be pre sented to the justices for relief." " Hereford, Dec. 6. — You have 1735.] FOREIGN POLICY. 155 easiness to the Government, and exhibited itself pub lickly in a way not likely to produce much effect. At the beginning of 1734, when a peace seemed to be se curely established, the " Patriots " had clamoured for war. A few months after this a war appeared irami nent, and then the same opposition cried out for peace, and coraplained that the Government was unnecessarily involving the nation in hostilities with its neighbours. Before the end of 1735 the danger had vanished, and then the opposition became as warlike as ever, and the English people was told daily and weekly of the pusil lanimity of its rulers. The " balance of power," which already heard that two men were committed to the keeper of the gaol of this county, for the riot at Ledbury. I am now to acquaint you, that on Sunday last above twenty of those turnpike cutters or levellers, as they call them selves, though that is a character by much too good for them, met with the said keeper at the King's Head Inn at Ross fair, and de manding his reasons for detaining those two men in custody, with out giving him time to retum an answer, dragged him out of the inn into the street, knocked him down several times, and almost murdered him, notwithstanding all that the innkeeper and his servants could do to prevent it, who were used in a very cruel manner for assisting him. The villains immediately carried the keeper to Wilton's Bridge, where at first they concluded to throw him into the river Wye ; but at length they agreed to carry him to a place where they would se cure him till they themselves had fetched the prisoners out of cus tody. The better to complete that design, they dragged him four miles in his boots and spurs, to a place called Horewithey, a public-house, where he was kept prisoner, beat in a shameful man ner by those merciless wretches, and obliged to write a discharge to the turnkey, being threatened, in case of refusal, to be hanged upon the spot. Four gentlemen from Hereford, who followed them, and endeavoured to dissuade them from such wickedness and cruel ty, were inhumanly beat, and obliged to ride off for their lives. After they had detained the keeper near six hours at the house afore said, they ferried him over the Wye, walked him about the coun try till near four o'clock in the morning, and then robbed him of his money. Those that robbed him made off", but left others to guard him, who, quarrelling and fighting about dividing the booty, it gave the keeper an opportunity to make his escape out of the vil lains' hands with his life, but not without bruises in abundance." 156 THE BALANCING MASTER. [1736. was the watchword of Walpole's foreign politics and the object of his negotiations, was made the object of ridicule, and his brother, Horace Walpole, who was his great negotiator, received the sobriquet of "the ba lancing master." When he returned from Holland to attend to his parliamentary duties, in the beginning of 1736, the Craftsman of Jan. 17 published the follow ing satirical announcement : — Just arrived from Holland, THE GREATEST CURIOSITY IN EUROPE ! " Being a, fine large dove, of the male kind, lineally descended from that of Mount Ararat ; which hath had the honour to be shewn in several courts, and given entire satisfaction. " His feathers are formed exactly in the shape of olive leaves, with a little tufl; just rising upon his head, somewhat like a coronet. He is of such a wonderful pacific nature, that, as soon as he begins to coo, the most inveterate enemies cannot help shaking hands and growing friends again. He hath not only reconciled several men and their wives, after all other remedies have proved ineff'ectual, but also divers great princes, who have had an hereditary hatred against each other for many generations. " He likewise sings a variety of merry tunes and catches, to the admiration of all that have heard him.* " To be seen every day, during the sitting of Parliament, in a room adjoining to the Court of Requests ; where all gentlemen and ladies are desired to satisfy their curiosity, before he is sent abroad agam." People in general seem not to have partaken in the warlike propensities of the opposition papers at this time ; and when the King went to open the Parliament in the middle of January, he was greeted by the mob with unusual acclamations. The next Craftsman let * Old Horace Walpole was an opposition aff'ected to laugh at his active speaker in the House of speeches, which are perhaps al- Commons, though he appears by luded to here as the " merry tunes no means to have possessed the and catches," that caused so much eloquence of his brother. The admiration. 1736.] ATTACKS ON THE "PATRIOTS." 157 out its spleen in an intemperate article, in which it accused the mob of being bribed, spoke of "hired huzzas," and stigmatised those who uttered them as a " ragged rabble." On this occasion, the following spirited epigram went the round of the Whig jour nals : — " Round Brunswick's coach the happy Britons throng. And bear with grateful shouts their Prince along ; Joy fills the skies, with intermingled prayers. And Europe's general voice seems raised in theirs. Caleb alone with grief surveys the crowd. Nor can contain his rage, he vents aloud : ' Are thus my toils repaid, ye witless herd ? Is Britain's peace at last to mine preferr'd ? Ye ragged rascals, ye are hired to this ; Be incorrupt like me, and give a hiss. Huzzah, ye bribed I but give me patriot strife. And let me, gratis, hiss away my life.' " The disappointed " Patriots " were now exposed to ridicule in their turn, and the newspapers contain sa tirical allusions to their eagerness to obtain the places held by their opponents. The following is taken from the Daily Gazetteer of December 26, 1735 : — "AN ADVERTISEMENT. " To be sold at a stationer's shop in Covent Garden, a neat and curious collection of well-chosen similes, allusions, metaphors, and al legories, from the best plays and romances, modem and ancient ; pro per to adom a poem or a panegyric on the glorious patriots designed to succeed the present ministry. The similes 5s., the metaphors ten, and the allegories a guinea each. " The author gives notice, that all sublunary metaphors, of a new minister being a rock, a pillar, a bulwark, a strong tower, or a spire- steeple, will be allowed very cheap ; celestial ones must be disposed of something dearer, as they are fetched at a greater expense from another world. The new treasurer (W. W.)* may be a Phcebus, the new • Sir William Wyndham. 158 ATTACKS ON THE "PATRIOTS." [1736, secretary (W. S.)* a Mercury, the new general (D. of 0 d) a Mars, for a moidore each ; and a tip-top Neptune, to introduce the Chevalier, at the same price. A right Jupiter, being a capital allu sion, and fit only for a prime favourite, will be rated at a duckatoon. Comets and blazing stars are reserved for privy-councillors only; twelve of which are already bespoke and paid for. Mr. Fog and Mr. A rst \ have desired to be each a satellite of Jupiter, at a penny the satellite, which is granted. A vagrant, thin, whiffling meteor, dark, yet easily seen thro', is set aside for E. B ll,X Esq. ; and another of the same odd qualities, for the author of the ' Persian Letters.' The belt of Saturn, little worse for wearing, will be sold a pennyworth. The North Star is bespoke for a hero in the south,§ as soon as he ar rives next in Scotland to finish his conquests ; and the Great Bear for his first minister and confessor. || All the signs in the zodiac, except Scorpio, will be sold in one lot ; which, for its biting, stinging, scratch ing, poisonous quality, is set aside for a Grays-Inn barrister. IT For his steady, regular, uniform motion, W. P.,** Esq., may, with great pro priety, be a fixed star ofthe first magnitude, for five guineas ; and a certain viscount,tt the Syrius ardens of Horace, or the incendiary en- flaming light in capite Leonis, at the same price. " P.S. — The same author has, with great pains and study, prepared a collection of state satires, enriched with the newest and most fashion able topics of defamation, which may serve, with a very little varia tion, to libel a judge, a bishop, or a prime minister. The maker of these satires, a great observer of decorums, begs leave to acquaint the public, that he thinks, a king, in respect to the dignity of his charac ter, ought never to be abused but in folio, morocco leather, and the leaves gilt ; a queen in quarto, neatly bound ; a peer in octavo, let ter'd on the back ; and a commoner in 1 2mo., stitch'd only. * William Shippen, M.P. after this date. A series of at- t Fog's Journal, the successor tacks were made on the English to Mist's, was the chief organ of ministry at this period, under the the Tories after the Craftsman, fictitious character of memoirs of The latter was, as has been al- Persian affairs. ready stated, edited by Nicholas § The Pretender. Amhurst, under the assumed || Probably Bishop Atterbury. name of Caleb d'Anvers. f Amhurst, the editor of the :[ Perhaps Eustace Budgell, Craftsman, was of Gray's Inn. Esq., a writer in the Craftsman, ** William Pulteney. who committed suicide not long ft 1 Lord Carteret. 1736.] PREVALENCE OF GIN-DRINKING. 159 " N.B. — The same satirist has collections of reasons ready by him against the ensuing peace, though he has not yet read the prelimi naries, or seen one article ofthe pacification." While the violence of opposition appeared to be sub siding, a new subject of popular discontent suddenly arose in 1736. The depravity of the lower orders, and the debased state of public morals, had frequently been made a subject of declamation, and had been attributed to a variety of causes. Many persons of late had ascribed the worst disorders of the times to the in creasing vice of drunkenness ; and, in fact, the drink ing of gin and other spirituous liquors appears to have prevailed among the lower classes of society to a degree at once alarming and revolting. A paragraph in the Old Whig of Feb. 26, 1736, informs us, " We hear that a strong-water shop was lately opened in Southwark, with this inscription on the sign :''¦ — « ' Drunk for \d. Dead drunk for 9,d. Clean straw for nothing.' " The newspapers of the period contain frequent an nouncements of sudden deaths in the taverns from excessive drinking of gin. Sorae zealous reforraers of public raanners formed the project of putting a stop to this bane of society by prohibiting the sale of the article which fed it, or, which was the same thing, laying on it a heavy duty, which would make it too expensive to be purchased by the poor, and at the same time pro hibiting the sale of it in small quantities. A bill with this object was brought into Parliaraent by Sir Joseph Jekyl, and, although Walpole seems not to have given * This inscription was after- was remembered at the time of wards introduced by Hogarth into the repeal of the Gin Act in 1 743. his caricature of Gin Lane, and See Smollett. 160 THE GIN ACT. [1736. it his entire approbation, was passed, after an energetic opposition by the Patriots in the House, and by those whose interests it affected out of the House. This bill was to come into operation on the 29th of September following. It appears to have caused no great excite ment at first ; but, as the time approached when the populace was to be deprived of their favourite gin, their discontent began to show itself in a riotous shape, and the opponents of the ministry urged them on in every possible manner. Ballads in lamentation of " Mother Gin" were sung in the streets. As early as the 17th July, the Craftsman announces the publication of a caricature, entitled " The Funeral of Madam Geneva," with the addition, "who died, Sept. 29, 1736." As the date last raentioned approached, the excitement increased, and serious riots were prevented only by the watchfulness of the authorities. The signs of the liquor-shops were everywhere put in mourning; and some of the dealers made a parade of mock ceremonies for " Madara Geneva's lying in state," which was the occasion of mobs, and the justices were obliged to commit " the chief mourners " to prison. The Daily Gazetteer says, " Last Wednesday (Sept. 29), several people made themselves very merry on the death of Madam Gin, and some of both sexes got soundly drunk at her funeral, for which the mob made a formal pro cession with torches, but committed no outrages." The same newspaper adds : " The exit of Mother Gin in Bristol has been enough bewailed by the retailers and drinkers of it ; many of the latter, willing to have their fill, and to take the last farewell in a respectful manner of their beloved dame, have not scrupled to pawn and sell their very clothes, as the last devoir they can pay to her memory. It was observed, Monday, 1736.] MOTHER GIN. 161 Tuesday, and Wednesday, that several retailers' shops were well crowded, some tippling on the spot, while others were carrying it off from a pint to a gallon ; and one of those shops had such a good trade, that it put every cask they had upon the stoop ; and the owner with sorrowful sighs said, ' Is not this a barbarous and cruel thing, that I must not be permitted to fill them again V and pronounced a heavy woe on the instru ments of their drooping. Such has been the lamenta tion, that on Wednesday night her funeral obsequies were performed with formality in several parishes, and some of the votaries appeared in ragged clothes, some without gowns, and others with one stocking; but among them all, we don't hear of any that have carried their grief so far, as to hang or drown theraselves, ra ther choosing the drinking part to finish their sorrow; and accordingly a few old woraen are pretty near tip ping off the perch, by sipping too large a draught. We hear from Bath, that Mother Gin has been lamented in that city much after the same manner." Similar scenes were witnessed in other cities and towns. In reading accounts like these we seem to have before our eyes the pictures of Hogarth. The Gin Act did but little good ; for while, on one hand, it encouraged a troop of common informers, who became the pest of the country, it was on the other hand evaded in every possible manner, and with great facility. Not only was gin publicly sold in shops, but hawkers carried it about the streets in flasks and bottles, under fictitious names. The titles thus adopted were in some cases amusing enough. Read's Weekly Journal of October 23rd tells us, "The following drams are sold at several brandy- shops in High Holborn, St. Giles's, Thieving Lane, VOL. I. M 162 WORKING OF THE GIN ACT. [l737. Tothill Street, Rosemary Lane, Whitechapel, Shore ditch, Old Mint, Kent Street, &c. ; viz. Sangree, Tom Row, Cuckold's Comfort, Parliament Gin, Make Shift, the Last Shift, the Ladies' Delight, the Baulk, King Theodore or Corsica, Cholick and Gripe Waters, and several others, to evade the late act of Parliament." Others coloured the liquor, and exposed it in bottles, labelled " Take two or three spoonfuls of this four or five tiraes a day, or as often as the fit takes you." Some people set up as chemists, selling chiefly " cho lick- water" and " gripe-water," with the further inti mation that they gave " advice gratis." And when some of the evaders of the law were brought before the courts for examination, and it was observed that the chemists' shops were much more frequented than formerly, they are represented as giving for answer, " that the late act had given many people the cholic, and that was the reason they had so many patients." The gin agitation continued unabated through the years 1737 and 1738, and gave rise to many a ballad and broadside. In the July of the former year appear ed, among many other sirailar productions, " The Fall of Bob ; or. The Oracle of Gin : a tragedy ;" and " Deso lation ; or. The Fall of Gin : a poem." It was not an unusual thing to hear of three or four hundred infor mations against people for the illegal sale of gin at one time. The informers were unprincipled people, who not only used all kinds of snares to decoy their victims, but sometimes laid false inforraations, to gratify private revenge. They thus becarae objects of extreme hatred to the mob ; and whenever they fell into the hands of the populace, they were treated in an unmerciful man ner, beaten rudely, rolled in the dirt, pumped upon, and often carried to some horse-pond outside the town 1737.] THE PRINCE OF WALES. 163 to be ducked. In some cases this last operation was performed in the Thames ; and there were instances in which the offender was thrown into the river, and nar rowly escaped drowning. This exercise of mob-justice had become so frequent in the autumn of 1737, that it was found necessary in September to issue a procla mation, offering a reward of £20 for the discovery of any person concerned in such outrages, a measure which had, however, a very limited effect in checking them. In the course of 1737 Walpole lost his best sup porter in Queen Caroline, who died on the 20th of November; and the opposition had already been strengthened by the accession to their ranks of Frede rick Prince of Wales, who had first been led into a violent quarrel with his father, and then took the lead in all measures likely to embarrass his father's govern ment. The Prince had taken up his residence at Norfolk House, Avhere, from this time, all the move ments of the opposition were discussed and resolved upon. Encouraged by this great addition to their strength, the allied " Patriots " and Tories roused themselves for the senatorial strife, and the session of 1738 was perhaps the most stormy one that Walpole had yet passed. The object of attack was the foreign policy; for the opposition believed, that, if they could once push the country into a war, the present ministry would be obliged to go out of office. The English merchant-vessels had been long in the habit of carry ing on an illicit commerce on the coasts of the Spanish possessions in America, to hinder which the Spanish government had lately ordered its guarda-costas to be more watchful in their duties, and the Spanish com manders, in carrying out these duties, seem often to have shewn an unnecessary degree of insolence and M 2 164 THE CONVENTION WITH SPAIN. [l738. severity. The right of search, which has usually been claimed under such circurastances, was always a tender question ; and the English merchants, on the present occasion, made loud complaints of the injuries they were daily suffering. One Captain Robert Jenkyns pretended, that, when his vessel had been searched, the Spaniards had, in an insolent and cruel manner, cut off oue of his ears. It was insinuated by the ministerial supporters, that, if Jenkyns had lost his ear at all, it had been taken from him on the pillory. He was evi dently the tool of a party. Nevertheless, this story, which Edmund Burke afterwards called " the fable of Jenkyns' ears," produced au extraordinary sensation, and the captain was brought forward to make a state ment of his wrongs before the House of Commons. Walpole found himself, to a certain degree, obliged to give way to the popular clamour, and make a slight show of warlike demonstration. He felt, in fact, that the conduct of the Spaniards could not in all respects be defended; but he still clung to his pacific policy, and carried on negotiations with the court of Spain which led at the end of the year to a convention, sti pulating for the release of sorae prizes and the payment of certain sums of money, but which convention was understood in the light of a preliminary to the arrange ment of a subsequent treaty. These negotiations were not what the opposition wanted, and they openly accused the minister of sacri ficing the interests of his country, with no other object than that of keeping his place. In November, we find the Craftsman employing its pleasantry on Walpole's great belly and on his luxurious living, and accusing him of suppressing the truth, in order to conceal the real extent of the Spanish depredations. 'Among the 1738.J THE BRITISH LION IN LOVE. 165 most popular caricatures published at this time, was a series of prints (continued in the year following) under the title of "The European Races," which require, what was really printed, a pamphlet to explain them. Another caricature, entitled " In Place," represents the minister sitting at his official table, and refusing to hear the numerous petitions and complaints, while a man with a candle is burning one of the nurabers of the Craftsman. A print, entitled " Slavery," exhi bits the well known story of Jenkyns' ear. Another, pubhshed in October, 1738, applies the fable of the lion in love, and represents Sir Robert Walpole keep ing the lion of England tame, while the Spaniard cuts PARING THE NAILS OF THE BRITISH LION. his nails. The character of the pamphlets on the same subject may be surmised from the title of one adver tised in the month of September, " Ministerial Virtue ; or, Long-suffering extolled in a great Man." The ne gotiations of the minister were satirised bitterly in " The Negotiators ; or, Don Diego brought to reason : an excellent new ballad;" which may be cited as an 166 THE NEGOTIATORS. [1738. example of the political ballads made on this occasion. Walpole's negotiations, according to this ballad, must silence the clamours of the injured merchants : — " Our merchants and tars a strange pother have made. With losses sustain'd in their ships and their trade ; But now they may laugh and quite banish their fears, Nor moum for lost liberty, riches, or ears : Since Blue- String the great. To better their fate. Once more has determined he'll negotiate; And swears the proud Don, whom he dares not to fight, Shall submit to his logic, and do 'em all right. " No sooner the knight had declared his intent. But straight to the Irish Don Diego he went ; And lest, if alone, of success he might fail. Took with him his brother to balance the scale. For long he had known, What all men must own. That two heads were ever deem'd better than one : And sure in Great Britain no two heads there are That can with the knight's and his brother's compare." The Don will not receive them on their first call, but he admits them on the second day, and the knight (Walpole) states their business, and petitions for the delivery of the ships of the English merchants detained by the Spaniards. Horace recounts the various secret services which his brother has performed for the latter power : — " ¦¦ Consider how oft himself he exposed. And 'twixt you and Great Britain's just rage interposed ; When her fleets were equipp'd, you must certainly know, By him they were hinder'd from striking a blow. Thus Hosier the brave Was sent to his grave, On an en-and which better had fitted a slave ; Being order'd to take (if he could) your galleotis, By force of persuasion, not that ofhis guns.'" 1738.] THE NEGOTIATORS. 167 The Don replies in a tone of astonishment : — " Quoth the Don, ' What you say, my good friends, may be true. But I wonder that you for such varlets will sue. Merchants ! ha ! they were once sturdy beggars, I think,* And, were I in your place, I would let them all sink. They opposed your excise ; Then, ifyou are wise. Reject their petitions, be deaf to their cries ; And let us like brothers together agree, — You excise them on land, I'll excise them at sea.'" The minister's answer is in perfect accordance with the sentiments of the Don : — " ' Noble Don,' quoth the knight, ' I should heartily close (For hugely I like it) with what you propose. Our merchants are grown very saucy and rich. And 'tis time to prepare a good rod for their breech : Were I once to speak true, Give the Devil his due, I love them as little, nay, far less than you ; And would willingly crush them, but that I 'm afraid Of this a bad use by my foes might be made.' " * During the debates on the those who brought them to that Excise scheme in the beginning of place could not be certain but that 1 733, the House of Commons was they might behave in the same beset by a tumultuous mob, who manner. This insinuation was not only solicited the members to resented by Sir John Barnard, vote against the ministerial mea- [the member for London,] who ob- sure, but even employed threats, served that merchants of charac- Smollett informs us, that one day ter had a right to come down to " Sir Robert Walpole took no- the Court of Requests and lobby tice of the multitudes which of the House of Commons, in had beset all the approaches to order to solicit their friends and the House. He said it would acquaintance against any scheme be an easy task for a designing or project which they might think seditious person to raise a tumult prejudicial to their commerce : and disorder among them : that that when he came into the gentlemen might give them what House, he saw none but such as name they should think fit, and deserved the appellation of sturdy affirm they were come as humble beggars as little as the honourable suppliants ; but he knew whom gentleman himself, or any gentle- the law called sturdy beggars, and man whatever." 168 WAR WITH SPAIN. [l739. In the sequel, a private arrangement is made; the Spaniard takes a bribe, and agrees to appear more mo derate; and the King and the nation are equally de ceived by a specious story of the terror inspired by the renown of the British arms. The outcry against the insolence of the Spaniards continued unabated in 1739, and the " convention," signed at Madrid on the 14th of January, was desig nated as an " infamous" betrayal of the natural rights of Englishmen, because it did not insist upon claims which really had never been allowed by Spain. When Parliament met, the opposition had increased in vio lence; their clamours against the articles and principles of the "convention'' were loud in both Houses, and Jenkyns' " ear" raade a greater figure than ever. In this debate Williara Pitt, then a young man, first dis tinguished himself in the ranks of the opposition. The minister, however, still carried the day by his majori ties ; and a portion of the opposition, led by Sir Wil liam Wyndham, had recourse to the dramatic effect of a public secession frora the House, a raeasure very ac ceptable to the Government, and which was far from producing the results expected from it. But the over bearing conduct of Spain soon seconded the efforts of the English " Patriots" in hurrying the two countries into a war, which was declared on the 19th of October, 1739, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the mob. The French court showed anything but a friendly aspect towards England on this occasion ; and, by its threats and persuasions, Holland was induced to reraain neu tral, and withhold the auxiliary troops which the States were bound by treaties to furnish to their ally; so that England was left to fight single-handed, with a small army and not a well-manned fleet, and a Parliamentary 1739.] DUTCH FRIENDSHIP. 169 opposition who cried out against every raethod of in creasing the former or raising sailors for the latter, and yet who began soon to blame the Government for their want of vigour in carrying on hostilities. The beha viour of the Dutch was the subject of a caricature, en titled "The States in a Lethargy," in which they are represented by a lion asleep in a cradle, rocked by Cardinal Fleury. The caricatures began now to be more numerous and more spirited than at any previous period. Among those which appeared towards the end of the year, we may mention one, bearing date the 8th of Octo ber, 1739, and entitled "Hocus Pocus; or, The Poli tical Jugglers," whicii is divided into four compart ments. In the first an Englishman is seen fighting with a Spaniard, while "Hogan" (the Dutchraan) DUTCH FRIENDSHIP. takes the opportunity of picking his pocket. The second compartment represents Commerce, in the form of a bull, baited by all the powers concerned on this occasion. In the third, Cardinal Fleury ap- 170 JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. [1739. pears as a negotiator, with money on a table ; while the fourth represents Gibraltar besieged by the Spa niards. This port had now begun to be looked upon as one of vital importance for English commerce. Another caricature, published about the end of the year, under the title of " Fee Fau Fum," and like the former divided into four compartraents, pictures the minister in the character of .Tack the Giant-killer. In the first compartment the political hero has be trayed a mighty giant, the personification of the Sink ing Fund, into a pit, and is destroying him with his THE POUTICAL JACK THE GIANT-KILLER. pick-axe. On the giant's girdle is inscribed the word " Convention," and round his garter " The Ear" of course the celebrated ear of Captain Jenkyns, which, with the subsequent convention, had brought on the war that had obliged the Government to draw heavily upon the Sinking Fund in order to defray its expenses. In the second compartment Jack is encountering the giant Fleury. In the third he is pursuing a two- headed giant, armed with a club (? Spain and France.) In the fourth, the minister, in his character of the hero, is knocking boldly at the castle gate, while a 1739.] CAPTURE OF PORTO BELLO. 171 JACK IN HIS GLORY. three-headed giant (Spain, France, and Sweden) is looking upon him from a window above. The En glish government had nar rowly escaped a war with the latter of these three powers ; France, as we have already seen, acted a part calculated to excite the ap prehensions of the English ; and Spain was engaged in open hostilities, and inflict ing on the merchants much greater injuries than they had sustained from her guarda-costas. The war with Spain was carried on with no great activity ; and the only event which threw any credit upon it was the taking of Porto Bello, in the Isthmus of Darien, on the 22nd of Noveraber, 1739, by Ad miral Vernon, with six ships of the line. It appears that this success was owing more to the cowardice of the garrison, than to the conduct of the English admiral, who was a vain man with no great capacity. But he was a personal enemy of the minister, and he was on that account cried up by the opposition, and became in consequence the popular hero of the mob, who were made to believe that the Government was jealous of him because he was a "patriot." When the news reached home in March, 1740, his friends in England fed his discontent, by telling him that the Court opposed the public acknowledgment due to his merits ; and he wrote back to his friends, that he was checked in his victorious career by the neglect of the ministers at home. It was hinted that the Go- 172 hosier's ghost. [1740. vernment would willingly see Vernon's armament perish in inactivity, as they had suffered that of Ad miral Hosier to die away on the same station in 1726. This was a means of reviving old clamours and ani mosities, for the fate of poor Hosier had excited great sympathy. A print was published, entitled " Hosier's Ghost," and representing the spectres of the unfor tunate brave who had thus perished in those un healthy seas, calling upon Vernon's sailors for revenge ; and a pathetic ballad was distributed, which has re tained its popularity even in modern tiraes, from the circumstance of its insertion in the " Reliques" of Bishop Percy. It was attributed to Pulteney; but the true writer is understood to have been Glover, the author of " Leonidas." ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST. " As near Porto Bello lying On the gently swelling flood. At midnight with streamers flying Our triumphant navy rode ; There while Vernon sate all-glorious From the Spaniards' late defeat. And his crews, with shouts victorious. Drank success to England's fleet, " On a sudden, shrilly sounding. Hideous yells and shrieks were heard ; Then, each heart with fear confounding, A sad troop of ghosts appear'd. All in dreary hammocks shrouded. Which for winding-sheets they wore. And with looks by sorrow clouded Frowning on that hostile shore. " On them gleam'd the moon's wan lustre. When the shade of Hosier brave His pale bands was seen to muster Rising from their watery grave. 1740.] HOSIER'S GHOST. 173 O'er the glimmering wave he hy'd him, Where the Burford* rear'd her sail. With three thousand ghosts beside him. And in groans did Vernon hail. " ' Heed, oh heed our fatal story, — I am Hosier's injured ghost, — You who now have purchased glory At this place where I was lost ! Though in Porto Belle's ruin You now triumph free from fears. When you think on our undoing, You will mix your joy with tears. " ' See these moumful spectres sweeping Ghastly o'er this hated wave, Whose wan cheeks are stain'd with weeping — These were English captains brave ! Mark those numbers pale and horrid, — Those were once my sailors bold I Lo, each hangs his drooping forehead, While his dismal tale is told. " ' I, by twenty sail attended. Did this Spanish town aflright : Nothing then its wealth defended But my orders not to fight. Oh ! that in this rolling ocean I had cast them with disdain. And obey'd my heart's warm motion. To have quell'd the pride of Spain I " ' For resistance I could fear none. But with twenty ships had done What thou, brave and happy Vernon, Hast achiev'd with six alone. Then the bastimentos never Had our foul dishonour seen. Nor the sea the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been. * The name of Admiral Vernon's ship. 174 HOSIER'S GHOST. [1740. " ' Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying. And her galleons leading home. Though, condemn'd for disobeying, I had met a traitor's doom. To have fallen, my country crying He has play'd an English part, Had been better far than dying Of a griev'd and broken heart. " ' Unrepining at thy glory. Thy successful arms we hail ; But remember our sad story. And let Hosier's wrongs prevail. Sent in this foul clime to languish. Think what thousands fell in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish. Not in glorious battle slain. " ' Hence with all my train attending From their oozy tombs below. Thro' the hoary foam ascending. Here I feed my constant woe : Here the bastimentos viewing. We recal our shameful doom. And our plaintive cries renewing. Wander thro' the midnight gloom. " ' O'er these waves for ever mouming Shall we roam deprived of rest. If to Britain's shores returning You neglect my just request. After this proud foe subduing, When your Patriot friends you see. Think on vengeance for my ruin. And for England shamed in me 1 " For a while nothing was talked of but Vernon and Porto Bello, and even the French were said to have become alarraed at our rising power in America. A caricature, published in July, 1740, under the title of "The Cardinal in the Dumps, with the Head of 1740.] THE CARDINAL IN THE DUMPS. 175 the Colossus," represents Fleury looking with amaze ment on the portrait of Adrairal Vernon, and exclaim- THE CARDINAL IN THE DUMPS. ing, " G — d, he '11 take all our acquisitions in Ame rica ! His iron will get the better of my gold !" In the background the head of Walpole appears raised on a pole, under which is written, " The preferment of the Barber's Block;" and still lower, through an aperture of the wall, is seen the picture of " Poor Ho sier's " [Ghost.] In several prints issued during this year Walpole was caricatured as the Great Colossus, as the idol to whom all must bow who would obtain Court favour; and the clamour daily became louder against the possession of too much power by a prime rainister. No actions of iraportance followed the capture of Porto Bello, while the merchants suffered much more seriously frora the Spanish cruisers and privateers than from the petty aggressions of their guarda-costas, and they filled the country with their complaints against the mismanagement of the war. This, joined with a great scarcity of provisions in consequence of an un favourable season, increased so much the general dis satisfaction, that riots of the most serious character 176 PREPARATIONS FOR THE ELECTIONS. [1741. took place in different parts of the island, attended in some instances with bloodshed, and the name of Walpole became exceedingly unpopular. The oppo sition looked forward with confident hopes to the ef fect of this excitement on the elections, which were to come on in the spring of 1741, and for which they were making active preparations before the end of the year. In November appeared a bitter metrical lampoon on Walpole, entitled "Are these Things so? The previous Question, from an Englishman in his Grotto to a Great Man at Court," pointing out all the political sins ascribed to his administration in very strong language, and taking for its significant motto the words of Horace — " Lusisti satiSj edisti satis, atque bibisti, Tempus abire tibi." It was immediately followed by another paraphlet in the same strain, under the title " Yes, they are ;" and these, with one or two answers and rejoinders, seem to have raade a consider able sensation. In the be ginning of 1741 all the old subjects of clamour against the Governraent were re vived, and almost every opposition paper was filled with new attacks on the excise project and on the " infamous " convention. Lists of the members who voted for and against the latter measure were indus triously spread among the THE DEVIL UPON TWO STICKS. 1741.] THE MOTION. 177 electors. Amidst a variety of political squibs, there appeared on the 9th of January a caricature entitled " The Devil upon two Sticks. To the worthy Electors of Great Britain ;" in which two of the members are represented carrying the minister over a slough or pond upon their shoulders, whilst some have got over in safety, though not without evident marks of the wet and dirt through which they had passed. Bri tannia and her " Patriots" remain behind. Under neath are written the words " Members who voted for the Excise and against the Convention." The expectations of the opposition had now become so sanguine, that they determined not to wait for an other session to impress upon the minister the truth of the motto which had been applied to him in the title-page just alluded to. Sandys, one of the most discontented of the discontented Whigs, and who, for the readiness with which he always put himself for ward on such occasions, had obtained the narae of "The Motion Maker," was again chosen to take the lead. On the 13th of February, 1741, at the conclu sion of a long and violent attack upon Walpole, re viewing the whole of his foreign policy, stigmatising him as a tool of France, who had sacrificed the real English interests on the Continent to the aggrandise ment of the house of Bourbon, and charging him with arrogating to himself the " unconstitutional" place of sole minister, and with unnecessarily burthening his country with debts and taxes, Sandys moved an ad dress to the King, "that he would be graciously pleased to reraove the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole from his Majesty's presence and councils for ever." This motion was seconded by Lord Limerick and warmly supported by Pulteney, Pitt, and others. VOL. I. N 178 THE MOTION. [1741. As the opposition seemed to approach nearer to the attainment of power, the discordant materials of which ib was coraposed began to shew their want of cor diality, and on Sandys' motion the Jacobites and many of the Tories left the house before the division. The consequence of this desertion was, that the minister, who made an able speech in his own defence, triumphed by an unusually large majority. On the same day. Lord Carteret (who had become one of Walpole's most violent opponents, and aspired to his place) produced a similar motion in the House of Lords, and was seconded by the Duke of Argyle, and supported by the Duke of Bedford and other opposition peers; but the victory of the court party was here as com plete as in the other House. The opposition shrunk back confused and morti fied ; and Walpole's friends and supporters set no bounds to their exultation. Within a few days ap peared a print entitled " The Motion," of which a copy is given in the accompanying plate. It was one of the raost spirited, and becarae one of the most celebrated, caricatures of the day. The background represents Whitehall, the Treasury, and the adjoining buildings, as they then stood. Lord Carteret, in the coach, is driven towards the Treasury by the Duke of Argyle as coachman, with the Earl of Chesterfield as postilion, who, in their haste, are overturning the vehicle; and Lord Carteret cries " Let me get out !" The Duke brandishes a wavy sword, instead of a whip ; and between his legs the heartless changeling Bubb Dodington sits in the form of a spaniel. Their characters are thus set forth in the verses printed be neath the original engraving: — 1741] CARICATURE ON THE MOTION. 179 " Who be dat de box do sit on ? 'Tis John, the hero of North Briton, Who, out of place, does place-men spit on. Doodle, &c. " Between his legs de spaniel curr see, Tho' now he growl at Bob so fierce. Yet he fawn'd on him once in doggerel verse. Doodle, &c. " And who be dat postilion there. Who drive o'er all, and no man spare ? 'Tis Ph — 1 — p e — le of here and there. Doodle, &c. " But pray who in de coache sit-a ? 'Tis honest J — nny C — t — ritta. Who vant in place again to get-a. Doodle, &c." Lord Cobham holds firmly by the straps behind, as footraan ; while Lord Lyttelton follows on horseback, characterised equally by his own lean form, and by that of the animal across which he strides. " Who 's dat behind ? 'Tis Dicky Cobby, Who first would have hang'd, and then try'd Bobby. Oh ! was not that a pretty jobb-e ? Doodle, &c. " Who 's dat who ride astride de poney. So long, so lank, so lean, and bony ? Oh ! he be the great orator, Little-Toney ! Doodle, &c.'' In front, Pulteney, drawing his partisans by the noses, and wheeling a barrow laden with the writings of the opposition, the Champion, the Craftsman, Common Sense, &c., exclaims, " Zounds ! they are over !" " Close by stands Billy, of all Bob's foes The wittiest far in verse and prose ; How he lead de puppies by de nose !" N 2 180 CARICATURE ON THE MOTION. [1741. To the right, Sandys, dropping in astonishment his favourite Place Bill, (which had been so often thrown out of the House,) cries out "I thought what would come of putting him on the box !" " Who 's he dat lift up both his handes 1 Oh ! that 's his wisdom. Squire S s 1 Oh I de Place Bill drop ! oh ! de army standes !" The prelate, who bows so obsequiously as they pass, is Smallbrook, Bishop of Lichfield. " What parson 's he dat bow so civil ? Oh ! dat 's de bishop who split de devil. And made a devil and a half, and half a devil !" Several editions of "The Motion" were published, and one, in the collection of Mr. Burke, is fitted for a fan. Another, very neatly drawn and etched on a folio plate, and dated February 19th, contains great variations, and wants much of the pointed meaning of the genuine print. They here appear to be driving into a river ; Pulteney and Sandys are omitted ; two prelates hold on by the straps behind the coach, which seems in no imminent danger of falling ; yet Carteret cries out to his driver, " John, if you drive so Tast, you'll overset us all, by G — d !" Horace Walpole, who received a copy of " The Mo tion" at Florence, writes to his friend Conway, " I have received a print by this post that diverts me extremely — ' The Motion.' Tell me, dear, now, who made the de sign, and who took the likenesses; theyare admirable; the lines are as good as one sees on such occasions." On the 2nd of March the "Patriots" retahated with a caricature entitled "The Reason," in which we have another carriage, with the portly forra of Sir Robert Walpole as coachman : — 1741.1 THE REASON AND MOTIVE. 181 " Who be dat de box do sit on 1 Dat 's de driver of G B — Whom all de Patriots do spit on." The verses, as it will be seen by this specimen, are a parody on those attached to " The Motion," to which it is inferior in point and spirit. On one side the foppish and effeminate Lord Hervey, so well known by Pope's satirical title of " Lord Fanny," who had distinguished himself on the ministerial side in the debate in the House of Lords, is repre sented as riding on a wooden horse, drawn by two individuals, one of whom says, encouragingly, " Sit fast, Fanny, we are sure to win." The verses referring to this figure, are — LORD FANNY. " Dat painted buttei-fly so prim-a, On wooden Pegasus so trim-a. Is something — nothing — 'tis a whim-a." Lord Hervey was in the habit of painting his face to conceal the ghastly paleness of his countenance. Another copy of this caricature, with some variations, was published so quickly after the original, that, in the advertisement of the latter in the London Daily Post of March 3rd, (the day after the date engraved on the plate,) the public are desired to beware of a " piratical print" under the same title. Another rather elaborate caricature was published about the same time under the title of " The Motive ; or, Reason for his Honour's Triumph ;" directed, like 182 THE POLITICAL LIBERTINES. [1741. the last, against the ministry, and with similar verses at the foot. Walpole, in the same character of coach man, drives the carriage inscribed as the " Common wealth," with the King within it, and, with the Duke of Marlborough as his second, goads on Merchandise, the Sinking-fund, and Husbandry as his horses. A number of different groups bear allusion to the va rious methods by which the bribery and corruption with which Walpole was charged influenced his sup porters. On March the 6th was advertised a caricature entitled " A Consequence of the Motion." The Daily Post announces the publication, on Saturday the 7th of March, of another caricature against the opposition, under the title of " The Political Libertines ; or, Motion upon Motion." In this print the coach is again broken down in front of the Exchequer, and most of the characters are reproduced who had figured in the former print of " The Motion," in very similar posi tions. Lord Lyttelton is as before riding on " poor Rosinante ;" Chesterfield is again postilion ; Pulteney disapproves of the driver ; and Sandys, with the Pen sion Bill hanging frora his pocket, shrugs his shoulders and exclairas " Z — ns ! it 's all over !" " Grave Sam was set to put the motion. For his honour's high promotion. But the House disliked the notion." Bishop Smallbrook also makes his appearance again, accompanied by a hog, which grunts fiends from its mouth ; while the churchman says, " I can pray, but not fast !" " Next the prelate comes in fashion. Who of swine has robb'd the nation, Though against all approbation." 1741.] THE GROUNDS. 183 There are in the sarae print many other allusions to the minor subjects of political agitation of the day. An advertisement in the same nuraber of the Daily Post (the 7th of March) states that " on Monday next will be published (to supply the defects of ' The Reason' and ' The Motive') ' The Grounds ;' a print setting forth the true reasons of the motion, in opposition to a print called ' The Motion.' " In the same paper, of the 10th of March, "The Grounds" is advertised for sale. This caricature, which is rather gross, was intended to expose the various ways in whicii the minister ex torted money from the country, and expended it in bolstering up his own power in office. He is repre sented, under the title of Volpone the Projector, cutting up au infant, intended to represent the Sinking Fund, on a machine which is called the money-press. It is drawn by a pack ofhis supporters, yoked and harnessed; and, in its way, manufactures, trade, honesty, and liberty, are crushed under the wheels. Behind it, the Gazet teer and Freeman's Journal, with others of the minister's paid organs of the press, are beating for recruits. In the foreground " Bribery and Corruption," personified by a fair and gaily dressed lady, is distributing bishop rics and law appointments to prelates and judges, who likewise have yokes round their necks : one of the former exclaims " Thy yoke is easy, and thy bur den light ;" while a judge says, with equal eagerness, " Your will to us shall be a law !" Behind the pre lates are a crowd of yoked excisemen, longing for a general excise ; and on the other side the oflicers of the army standing in a similar predicament. In the distance are Torbay with the English fleet, and the harbours of Brest and Ferrol with the fleet of France : Walpole is emitting two winds, one of which hinders 184 THE FUNERAL OF FACTION. [1741. the English fleet from leaving its station in Torbay, while the other blows the French fleet on its way to the West Indies. Contrary winds had delayed Admiral Ogle's departure from Torbay to reinforce Vernon at this critical raoment, which the opposition unjustly attributed to Walpole's mismanagement. " De Register Bill he take lately in hand, Dat de fbrces by sea, as well as by land. Might be slaves to his will and despotic command. Fifteen years he withold dem from curbing deir foes. Who plunder and search dem ; den, to add to deir woes. In place of redress would de convention impose. Brave Vernon resolve deir proud enemies' ruin ; But, instead of sending any forces to him. Both de French and Spanish fleets were let loose to undo him." This famous " motion " was the subject of several other caricatures besides those mentioned above. One, entitled " The Funeral of Faction," was a satire on the opposition, and had beneath it the inscription " Funerals performed by Squire S s " [Sandys]. Two or three are too gross to bear a description. The exultation of the ministerial party was shewn also in a few ballads, and in pamphlets in prose and verse. The old comparison of Sisyphus, who toiled everlast ingly without approaching any nearer to the object of his labour, was again applied to the Patriots. But this comparison was no longer true, for the days of Walpole's reign were already numbered. Age was creeping upon the veteran statesman ; and that energy, with which for so many years he had discover ed and defeated the intrigues of his enemies, seemed to be forsaking him. The Court party rated too high the triumph they had just obtained over the oppo sition, and lost themselves by their self-confidence. 1741.J THE ELECTIONS. 185 On the 13th of March the news of the takin