in a sort of carrefour, at
   Chancery-Lane end, a centre of business and company, most proper
   for such anglers of fools.  The house was double-balconied in front,
   as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco,
   with hats and no peruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and
   diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at
   bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions.  They admitted all
   strangers that were confidingly introduced; for, it was a main end
   of their institution to make proselytes, especially of the raw
   estated youths newly come to town.  This copious society were, to
   the faction in and about London, a sort of executive power, and by
   correspondence all over England.  The resolves of the more retired
   councils and ministry of the faction, were brought in here, and
   orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lies,
   defamations, commendations, projects, &c. and so, like water
   diffused, spread over all the town; whereby that which was digested
   at the club over night, was, like nourishment, at every assembly,
   male and female, the next day.  And thus the younglings tasted of
   political administration, and took themselves for notable
   counsellors.” Examen, p. 572.  The place of meeting is altered by
   Dryden, from the King’s-Head, to the Devil-Tavern, either because
   he thought the name more appropriate, or wished slightly to
   disguise what he plainly insinuated.

18.  Our author never omits an opportunity of twitting Hunt with his
   expected preferment of lord chief baron of exchequer in Ireland;
   L’Estrange, whose ready pen was often drawn for the court, answered
   Hunt’s defence of the charter by a pamphlet entitled “The Lawyer
   Outlawed,” in which he fails not to twit his antagonist with the
   same disappointment.

19.  The foul practice of taking away lives by false witness, casts an
   indelible disgrace on this period.  Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville,
   were the perjured evidences of the Popish plot.  To meet them with
   equal arms, counter-plots were sworn against Shaftesbury and
   others, by Haines, Macnamara, and other Irishmen.  But the true
   Protestant juries would only swallow the perjuries which made for
   their own opinions; nay, although they believed Dugdale, when he
   zealously forswore himself for the cause of the Protestant faith,
   they refused him credit when he bore false witness for the crown. 
   “Thus,” says Hume, “the two parties, actuated by mutual rage, but
   cooped up within the narrow limits of the law, levelled with
   poisoned daggers the most deadly blows against each other’s breast,
   and buried in their factious divisions all regard to truth, honour,
   and humanity.”—­

20.  In the Dramatis Personae to Shadwell’s play of Epsom-Wells, we have
   Rains, Bevil, Woodly, described as “men of wit and pleasure.”