do any fervice to the factious caufe. The entire piece confifts of a title-page, a dedication to the clergy, a preface, an extract from certain acts of parliament, and about ten pages of dry reflections on the proceedings of the Queen and her fervants; which his coadjutors, the Earl of Nottingham, Mr Dunton, and the Flying Post, had long ago fet before us in a much clearer light.

In Popish countries, when fome impoftor cries out, A miracle! a miracle! it is not done with a hope or intention of converting heretics, but confirming the deluded vulgar in their errors: and fo the cry goes round without examining into the cheat. Thus the Whigs among us give about the cry, A pamphlet ! a pamphlet ! The Crifis! the Crifis! not with a view of convincing their adverfaries, but to raise the spirits of their friends, recall their ftragglers, and unite their numbers by found and impudence; as bees affemble and cling together by the Loife of brass.

That no other effect could be imagined or hoped for by the publication of this timely treatife, will be manifeft from fome obvious reflections upon the feveral parts of it; wherein the follies, the falfehoods, or the abfurdities, appear fo frequent, that they may boldly contend for number with the lines.

When the hawker holds this pamphlet towards you, the first words you perceive are, The Crifis; or, A difcourfe, &c. The interpreter of Suidas gives four tranflations of the word Crifis; any of which may be as properly applied to this author's letter to the bailiff of Stockbridge *. Next, what he calls a discourse, confists only of two pages, prefixed to twenty-two more, which contain extracts from acts of parliament; for as to the twelve laft pages, they are provided for by themselves in the title, under the name of Some seasonable remarks on the danger of a Popish fucceffor. Another circumftance worthy of our information in the title-page, is, that the crown hath been fettled by previous acts. I never heard of any act of parliament that was not previous to what

• Steele addreffed a letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, who appears to have been returning officer for this borough, which Steele reprefented in parliament: Hawkef.

it enacted, unless thofe two, by which the Earl of Straf ford and Sir John Fenwick loft their heads, may pass for exceptions. A difcourfe, reprefenting from the most authentic records, &c. He hath borrowed this expreffion from fome writer, who probably understood the words; but this gentleman hath altogether mifapplied them; and,.. under favour, he is wholly mistaken; for a heap of extracts from several acts of parliament cannot be called a difcourfe; neither do I believe he copied them from the most authentic records, which, as I take it, are lodged in the Tower, but out of fome common printed copy.. I grant there is nothing material in all this, further than to fhew the generofity of our adverfaries in encouraging a writer, who cannot furnish out so much as a title-page with propriety or common fenfe.

Next follows the dedication to the clergy of the church of England, wherein the modesty and the meaning of the first paragraphs are hardly to be matched. He tells. them, he hath made a comment upon the acts of fettlenent, which he lays before them, and conjures them to recommend in their writings and difcourfes to their fellow-fubjects: and he doth all this, out of a just deference to their great power and influence. This is the right Whig fcheme of directing the clergy what to preach. The Archbishop of Canterbury's jurifdiction extends no farther than over his own province; but the author of the Crifisconftitutes himself vicar-general over the whole clergy of the church of England. The bishops in their letters or fpeeches to their own clergy proceed no further than exhortation; but this writer conjures the whole clergy of the church to recommend his comment upon the laws of the land, in their writings and difcourfes. I would fain know, who made him a commentator upon the laws of the land after which it will be time enough to ask him, by what authority he directs the clergy to recommend his comments from the pulpit or the prefs?

He tells the clergy there are two circumstances which place the minds of the people under their direction, the firft circumftance is their education; the second circumftance is the tenths of our lands. This laft, according to the Latin phrafe, is spoken ad invidiam; for he knows well enough, they have not a twentieth: but if you take sit in his own way, the landlord has nine parts in ten of

the

the people's minds under his direction. Upon this rock the author before us is perpetually splitting, as often as he ventures out beyond the narrow bounds of his litera-ture: He hath a confufed remembrance of words fince he left the univerfity; but hath loft half their meaning, and puts them together with no regard, except to their cadence; as I remember a fellow nailed up maps in a gentleman's closet, some fideling, others upfide down, the better to adjust them to the pannels.

I am fenfible it is of little confequence to their cause, whether this defender of it understands grammar or no;, and if what he would fain fay,, discovered him to be a wellwisher to reafon or truth, I would be ready to make large allowances. But when, with great difficulty, K defcry a compofition of rancour and falfehood, intermixed with plaufible nonfenfe, I feel a ftruggle between contempt and indignation at seeing the character of a cenfor, a guardian, an Englishman, a commentator on the laws, an inftructor of the clergy, affumed by a child of obfcurity, without one fingle qualification to fupport them.

This writer, who either affects, or is commanded of late to copy after the Bishop of Sarum, hath, out of the pregnancy of his invention, found out an old way of infinuating the groffeft reflections under the appearance of adinonitions; and is fo judicious a follower of the prelate, that he taxes the clergy for inflaming their people with apprehenfions of danger to them and their confitution from men, who are innocent of fuch designs; when he must needs confefs, the whole defign of his pamphlet is to inflame the people with apprehenfions of danger from the prefent miniftry, whom we believe to be at least. as innocent men as the last.

What shall I fay to a pamphlet, where the malice and falfehood of every line would require an answer, and where the dulnefs and abfurdities will not deferve one?

By his pretending to have always maintained an inviolable refpect to the clergy, he would infinuate, that thofe papers among the Tatlers and Spectators, where the whole order is abufed, were not his own. I will appeal to all who know the flatness of his style, and the barrennefs of his invention, whether he doth not grofsly prevaricate was he ever able to walk without leading-ftrings, or (wim without bladders, without being discovered by his

hobbling

hobbling and his finking? hath he adhered to his character in his paper called the Englishman, whereof he is allowed to be fole author without any competition ? what does he think of the letter figned by himself, which relates to Molefworth*, in whofe defence he affronts the whole convocation of Ireland?

It is a wife maxim, That because the clergy are no civil lawyers, they ought not to preach obedience to governors; and therefore they ought not to preach temperance, because they are no phyficians. Examine all this author's writings, and then point me out a divine who knoweth lefs of the conftitution of England than he; witness those many egregious blunders in his late papers, where he pretended to dabble in the fubject.

But the clergy have, it seems, imbibed their notions of power and obedience, abhorrent from our laws, from the pompous ideas of imperial greatness, and the fubmiffion to abfolute emperors. This is grofs ignorance, below a fchoolboy in his Lucius Florus. The Roman history wherein lads are inftructed, reacheth little above eight hundred years, and the authors do every where inftil republican principles; and from the account of nine in twelve of the first emperors we learn to have a deteftation against tyranny. The Greeks carry this point yet a great deal higher, which none can be ignorant of, who hath read or heard them quoted. This gave Hobbes the: occafion of advancing a polition directly contrary, That the youth of England were corrupted in their political principles by reading the hiftories of Rome and Greece, which, having been written under republics, taught the readers to have ill notions of monarchy. In this affertion there was fomething fpecious, but that advanced by the Crifis could only iffue from the profoundeft ignorance. But would you know his fcheme of education för

"The Right Honourable Robert Molefworth, Efq; one of the privy council, and member of the house of Commons, erea. ted a peer by K. George I. The lower house of convocation there preferred a complaint against him for disrespectful words, which being reprefented in England, he was removed from the council: to juftify him against this complaint, was the subject of Steele's letter. Hawkef.

young

young gentlemen at the univerfity? it is, That they Thould fpend their time in perusing thofe acts of parlia ment, whereof his pamphlet is an extract, which if it had been done, the kingdom would not be in its prefent condition, but every member fent into the world thus inftructed fince the revolution, would have been an advosate for our rights and liberties.

Here now is a project for getting more money by the Crifis; to have it read by tutors in the universities. I thoroughly agree with him, that if our ftudents had been thus employed for twenty years past, the kingdom had not been in its prefent condition but we have too many of fuch proficients already among the young nobility and gen try, who have gathered up their politics from chocolate houfes, and factious clubs, and who if they had spent their time in hard ftudy at Oxford or Cambridge, we might indeed have faid, that the factious part of this. kingdom had not been in its prefent condition, or have fuffered themselves to be taught, that a few acts of parliament, relating to the fucccellion, are preferable to all other civil infiitutions whatsoever. Neither did I ever before hear, that an act of parliament relating to one particular point could be called a civil inftitution..

He spends almost a quarto page in telling the clergy, that they will be certainly perjured, if they bring in the pretender, whom they have abjured; and he wifely reminds thein, that they have fworn without equivocation or mental refervation; otherwife the clergy might think, that as foon as they received the pretender, and turned Papists, they would be free from their oath.

This honeft, civil, ingenious gentleman knows in his confcience, that there are not ten clergymen in England, except nonjurors, who do not abhor the thoughts of the pretender reigning over us, much more than himself. But this is the spittle of the Bishop of Sarum*, which our author licks up, and swallows, and then coughs out again. with an addition of his own phlegm. I would fain fup pofe the body of the clergy were to return an answer by one of their members to thefe worthy counsellors. I conceive it might be in the following terms.

Dr Gilbert Burnet,

Mr