To instance only in one.  I have not heard that any care hath hitherto been taken to discover whether Madam Violante[149] be a Whig or Tory in her principles, or even that she hath ever been offered the oaths to the Government; on the contrary I am told that she openly professes herself to be a high-flyer, and it is not improbable, by her outlandish name she may also be a Papist in her heart; yet we see this illustrious and dangerous female openly caressed by principal persons of both parties, who contribute to support her in a splendid manner, without the least apprehensions from a grand jury, or even from Squire Hartley Hutcheson himself, that zealous prosecutor of hawkers and libels.[150] And as Hobbes wisely observes, so much money being equivalent to so much power, it may deserve considering with what safety such an instrument of power ought to be trusted in the hands of an alien, who hath not given any legal security for her good affection to the government.

I confess, there is one evil which I could wish our friends would think proper to redress.  There are many Whigs in this Kingdom of the old-fashioned stamp, of whom we might make very good use; They bear the same loyalty with us, to the Hanoverian family, in the person of King George II.; the same abhorrence of the Pretender, with the consequent of Popery and slavery; and the same indulgence to tender consciences; but having nothing to ask for themselves, and consequently the more leisure to think for the public, they are often apt to entertain fears, and melancholy prospects concerning the state of their country, the decay of trade, the want of money, the miserable condition of the people, with other topics of like nature, all which do equally concern both Whig and Tory, who if they have anything to lose must be equally sufferers.  Perhaps one or two of these melancholy gentlemen will sometimes venture to publish their thoughts in print:  Now I can by no means approve our usual custom of cursing and railing at this species of thinkers under the names of Tories, Jacobites, Papists, libellers, rebels, and the like.

This was the utter ruin of that poor, angry, bustling, well-meaning mortal Pistorides, who lies equally under the contempt of both parties, with no other difference than a mixture of pity on one side, and of aversion on the other.

How hath he been pelted, pestered, and pounded by one single wag, who promiseth never to forsake him living or dead![151]

I was much pleased with the humour of a surgeon in this town, who having in his own apprehension, received some great injustice from the Earl of Galway,[152] and despairing of revenge, as well as relief, declared to all his friends that he had set apart a hundred guineas to purchase the Earl’s carcase from the sexton, whenever it should die; to make a skeleton of the bones, stuff the hide, and shew them for threepence; and thus get vengeance for the injuries he had suffered by the owner.