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regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their benefices, the landed gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to hatred of Puritanism; but during the eighteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. . . . The King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir-presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession of princes hostile to the established faith might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had during many years been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the Reformed Churches. Under such circumstances, it is not strange that the common people should have been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called Bloody Mary." Such was the unhappy state of affairs at this period, and though its effect is soon shown in the advertisement columns of the papers, one would think times were piping and peaceful indeed to read the following, extracted from the London Gazette of October 15-19, 1674:—

WHITEHALL, October 17.-A square Diamond with his Majesty's

Arms upon it having been this day lost out of a seal in or about Whitehall, or St James's Park or House; Any person that shall have found the same is required to bring it to William Chiffinch, Esq., Keeper of his Majesty's Closet, and he shall have ten pounds for a Reward.

Doubtless this Chiffinch, the degraded being who lived

but to pander to the debauched tastes of his royal and profligate employer, thought nothing of politics or of the signs of the times, and contented himself with the affairs of the Backstairs, caring little for Titus Oates, and less for his victims. Some short time after the foregoing was published (March 20-23, 1675), Chiffinch published another loss in the Gazette. This is it :

FL

LOWN out of St James's Park, on Thursday night last, a Goose and a Gander, brought from the river Gambo in the East Indies, on the Head, Back and Wings they are of a shining black, under the Throat about the Eyes and the Belly white. They have Spurs on the pinions of the Wings, about an inch in length, the Beaks and Legs of a muddy red; they are shaped like a Muscovy Mallard, but larger and longer legg'd. Whoever gives notice to Mr Chiffinch at Whitehall, shall be well rewarded.

Whether the prince of pimps ever had to give the reward, we are not in a position to state; we should, however, think that his advertisement attracted little attention, for we are now in the midst of the excitement which led to the pretended plots and troubles that made every man suspect his neighbour, and when the cry of Recusant or Papist was almost fatal to him against whom it was directed. That this feeling once roused was not to be subdued even in death, is shown by a notice in the Domestick Intelligence of July 22, 1679:

W

HEREAS it was mentioned in the last "Intelligence" that Mr Langhorn was buried in the Temple Church, there was a mistake in it, for it was a Loyal Gentleman, one Colonel Acton, who was at that time buried by his near relations there: And Mr Langhorn was buried that day in the Churchyard of St Giles-in-the-Fields, very near the five Jesuits who were executed last.

John Playford, Clerke to the Temple Church.

Here is intolerance with a vengeance, but in the year 1679 reverence for persons or things was conspicuously absent, and this is best shown by the advertisement which was issued for the purpose or discovering the ruffians, or

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HISTORY OF ADVERTISING.

their patron, who committed the brutal assault upon John Dryden. It appears in the London Gazette of

22, 1679:

December

WHEREAS John Dryden, Esq., was on Monday, the 18th instant,

at night, barbarously assaulted and wounded, in Rose

Street

in Covent Garden, by divers men unknown; if any person shall make discovery of the said offenders to the said Mr Dryden, or to any Justice of the Peace, he shall not only receive Fifty Pounds, which is deposited in the hands of Mr Blanchard, Goldsmith, next door to Temple Bar, for the said purpose, but if he be a principal or an accessory in the said fact, his Majesty is graciously pleased to promise him his pardon for the same.

Notwithstanding the offer of this money, it was never discovered who were the perpetrators, or who was the instigator of this cudgelling. Some fancy its promoter was Rochester, who was offended at some allusions to him in an "Essay on Satire," written jointly by Dryden and Lord Mulgrove; while others declare that the vanity of the Duchess of Portsmouth, one of the King's many mistresses, having been offended by a jeu d'esprit of the poet's, she procured him a rough specimen of her favours. Others, again, have suspected Buckingham, who was never on the best of terms with Dryden, and who sat for the portrait drawn in Zimri ("Absalom and Achitophel"); but profligate and heartless libertine as Villiers was, he was above such a ruffianly reprisal. In the Domestick Intelligence of December 23, 1679, the assault is thus described: "Upon the 17th instant in the evening Mr Dryden the great poet, was set upon in Rose Street in Covent Garden, by three persons, who, calling him rogue, and son of a whore, knockt him down and dangerously wounded him, but upon his crying out murther, they made their escape; it is conceived that they had their pay beforehand, and designed not to rob him but to execute on him some Feminine, if not Popish, vengeance." In a subsequent number of the same paper there is the following advertisement :

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to be punished as they deferve, according to a Judgment
of all the Judges of England 2 Jacobi, we fuppofe it
may gratific our Readers curiofity,(and prevent his dan-
ger too) to fee what the Law Books fay therein. Judge
Crook in his Reports, folio 37, faith, That by command
from the King, all the Juftices of England, and divers
of the Nobility, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
Bishop of London, were Affembicd in the Star-chamber
when the Lord Chancellor demanded of the Judges,
whether it were an Offence punishable,and what punish-
ment they deferve, who frained Petitions, and Colle&cd
a multitude of hands thereto, to prefent to the King in a
publick caufe, as the Paritans had done, (which was as
it feems for Alteration of the Law (with an intimation to
the King, that if he denied their Suit, many Thousands
of his Subjects would be difcontente ;) whereto all the
Juftices answered, "That it was an Offence fineable at
"Diferation, and very near Treafon and Fellony, in the
"punishment, for they tended to the Raifing of Sediti
"on, Rebellion, and Difcontent among the People, To
which Refolution all the Lords agreed, and then many
of the Lords declared that fome of the Puritans had
raised a falfe Rumor of the King, how he intended to
to grant a Toleration to Papifts, which offenee the Ju
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ftices conceived to be highly fineable by the Rules of the Common Law. either in the Kings Bench, or by the King and his Council, or now fince the Statute of the 3. Henry 7. in the Star-chamber, The Lords feverally, declared how the King was difcontented with the faid falfe Rumor, and had made but the day before a Proteftation unto them, That he never intended it, and that he would spend the laft Drop of Blond in his body-before be would do it, and prayed that before any of his iffue should maintain any other Religion then what he truly profeffed and maintained that God would take them out of the world.

There were Eleven Perfons Condemned to dye the laft Seffions in the Old Badly, fix Men and five Women, but one man and three worhen received a Gracious Reprieve from His Majefty, the other feven fuffered at Tyburn upon Friday laft the Nineteenth Inftant, whofe Names and Crimes follow, John Parker by Trade a Watchmaker, for Clipping and Coining, having been formerly Convicted of the like at Salubury Benjamin Penry, a lufty ftout man, convicted of being a Notorious Highway-man, and Companion with French Executed laft Seffions; John Dell, who with Richard Dean, his Servant were heretofore Tryed, for the Murder of Dells wives Brother, and now of his wife, which feemed rather to want Proof then Truth, they were both Condemned for ftealing a Mare, and Executed for the fame; This Dean fer fire of the Room wherein he lay at two Places the Night before he was Executed; william Atbins for Fellonv. being an old Trader in

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There is a Report that three Suns were lately feen a-
bout Richmond in Surrey, by divers credible perfons, of
which different obfervations are made according to the
fancy of the People.

This day, Decemb. 22. Captain William Bedlow one
of the Kings Evidence, who has been fo inftrumental
in difcovering the Hellijh Popish Plot, and thereby (un-
der God) for preferving his Majefties Perfon and the
whole Nation, was married to a Lady of a very confi-
derable Fortune.

There being Intimation given, that Mrs. Colier the
Popish Midwife now a Prifoner in Newgate, would make
fome Discovery both of the Plot, aud the Counter Plor;
She was brought before the Councill last week, but
would confefs nothing; whereupon Juftice warcap pro-
duced fome Informations against her taken before him;
Upon which the acknowledged the greateft part of
what was charged against her, and thereby gave very
ftrong Confirmation to the Truth of Mr. Thomas Danger-
fields Depofitions, concerning that curfed Confpiracy
managed by the Lady Powis, her felf,and feveral others,
for the deftruction of many Hundreds of his Majefties
Loyal Proteftant Subje&ts.

It is reported,that a Quaker fell in love with a Lady of
very greatQuality,and hath extraordinarily petitioned to
obtain her for his Wife.

Upon the 17th. inftant in the evening Mr. Dryden the great Poet, was fet upon in Rofe-street in Covent Garden box three perfans who calling him roue and

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