When the Bishop published his History, there was a popish plot on foot, the Duke of York a known papist was presumptive heir to the crown, the House of Commons would not hear of any expedient for securing their religion under a popish prince, nor would the King or Lords, consent to a bill of exclusion:  The French King was in the height of his grandeur, and the vigour of his age.  At this day the presumptive heir, with that whole illustrious family, are Protestants, the Popish Pretender excluded for ever by several acts of Parliament, and every person in the smallest employment, as well as the members in both Houses, obliged to abjure him.  The French King is at the lowest ebb of life; his armies have been conquered and his towns won from him for ten years together, and his kingdom is in danger of being torn by divisions during a long minority.  Are these cases parallel?  Or are we now in more danger of France and popery than we were thirty years ago?  What can be the motive for advancing such false, such detestable assertions?  What conclusions would his Lordship draw from such premises as these?  If injurious appellations were of any advantage to a cause, (as the style of our adversaries would make us believe) what appellations would those deserve who thus endeavour to sow the seeds of sedition, and are impatient to see the fruits?  “But,” saith he[20], “the deaf adder stops her ear let the charmer charm never so wisely.”  True, my Lord, there are indeed too many adders in this nation’s bosom, adders in all shapes, and in all habits, whom neither the Queen nor parliament can charm to loyalty, truth, religion, or honour.

[Footnote 20:  Page 28.] Among other instances produced by him of the dismal condition we are in, he offers one which could not easily be guessed.  It is this:  That the little factious pamphlets written about the end of King Charles II’s reign, “lie dead in shops, are looked on as waste paper, and turned to pasteboard.”  How many are there of his Lordship’s writings which could otherwise never have been of any real service to the public?  Has he indeed so mean an opinion of our taste, to send us at this time of day into all the corners of Holborn, Duck Lane, and Moorfields, in quest after the factious trash published in those days by Julian Johnson, Hickeringil, Dr. Oates, and himself[21]?

[Footnote 21:  The Rev. Samuel Johnson, degraded from his clerical rank, scourged, and imprisoned, for a work called “Julian’s Arts to undermine Christianity,” in which he drew a parallel between that apostate and James, then Duke of York. [S.]

Edmund Hickeringil, a fanatic preacher at Colchester.  He appears, from the various pamphlets which he wrote during the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, to have been a meddling crazy fool.  He was born in Essex, 1630, and was educated at Cambridge.  He entered the army, and went to Jamaica, of which place he wrote a very curious account.  Afterwards he entered holy orders, and became rector of All Saints, Colchester.  He was a most eccentric individual. [T.  S.]]