der, therefore, to find many who call themselves Protestants, favouring the pretensions of a person who has been bred up in the utmost bitterness and bigotry of the church of Rome; and who, in all probability, within less than a twelvemonth, would be opposed by those very men that are industrious to set him upon the throne, were it possible for so wicked and unnatural an attempt to succeed.

I was some months ago in a company, that diverted themselves with the declaration which he had then published, and particularly with the date of it, In the fourteenth year of our reign.' The company was surprised to find there was a king in Europe who had reigned so long and made such a secret of it. This gave occasion to one of them, who is now in France, to inquire into the history of this remarkable reign, which he has digested into annals, and lately transmitted hither for the perusal of his friends. I have suppressed such personal reflections as are mixed in this short chronicle, as not being to the purpose; and find that the whole history of his regal conduct and exploits may be comprised in the re maining part of this half sheet.

The History of the Pretender's fourteen years reign, digested into Annals.

Anno Regni 1°. He made choice of his ministry, the first of whom was his confessor. This was a person recommended by the society of Jesuits, who represented him as one very proper to guide the conscience of a king, that hoped to rule over an isl and which is not within the pale of the church. He then proceeded to name the president of his council, his secretaries of state, and gave away a very honour

able sinecure to his principal favourite, by constituting him his lord high-treasurer. He likewise signed a dormant commission for another to be his highadmiral, with orders to produce it whenever he had sea-room for his employment.

Anno Regni 2°. He perfected himself in the minuet step.

Anno Regni 3o. He grew half a foot.

Anno Regni 4°. He wrote a letter to the pope, desiring him to be as kind to him as his predecessor had been, who was his godfather. In the same year he ordered the lord high-treasurer to pay off the debts of the crown, which had been contracted since his accession to the throne; particularly a milk-score of three years' standing.

Anno Regni 5°. He very much improved himself in all princely learning, having read over the legends of the saints, with the history of those several martyrs in England, who had attempted to blow up a whole parliament of heretics.

Arno Regni 6o. He applied himself to the arts of government with more than ordinary diligence; took a plan of the Bastile with his own hand; visited the galleys; and studied the edicts of his great patron Louis XIV.

Anno Regni 7°. Being now grown up to years of maturity, he resolved to seek adventures; but was very much divided in his mind, whether he should make an expedition to Scotland, or a pilgrimage to Loretto; being taught to look upon the latter in a religious sense, as the place of his nativity. At length he resolved upon his Scotch expedition; and, as the first exertion of that royal authority, which he was going to assume, he knighted himself. After a short piece of errantry upon the seas, he got safe back to

Dunkirk, where he paid his devotions to St. Anthony, for having delivered him from the dangers of the sea, and Sir George Byng.

Anno Regni 8°. He made a campaign in Flanders, where, by the help of a telescope, he saw the battle of Oudernarde, and the Prince of Hanover's horse shot under him; being posted on a high tower with two French princes of the blood.

Anno Regni 9o. He made a second campaign in Flanders; and, upon his return to the French court, gained a great reputation, by his performance in a rigadoon.

Anno Regni 10°. The pope having heard the fame of these his military achievements, made him the offer of a cardinal's cap; which he was advised not to accept, by some of his friends in England.

Anno Regni 11°. He retired to Lorrain, where every morning he made great havoc among the wild fowl, by the advice and with the assistance of his privy council. He is said, this summer, to have shot with his own hands fifty brace of pheasants, and one wild pig; to have set thirty coveys of partridges; and to have hunted down forty brace of hares; to which he might have added as many foxes, had not most of them made their escape, by running out of his friend's dominions, before his dogs could finish the chase. He was particularly animated to these diversions by his ministers, who thought they would not a little recommend him to the good opinion and kind offices of several British fox-hunters.

Anno Regni 12°. He made a visit to the Duke d'Aumont, and passed for a French marquis in a masquerade.

Anno Regni 13%. He visited several convents, and gathered subscriptions from all the well-disposed

monks and nuns, to whom he communicated his design of an attempt upon Great-Britain.

Anno Regni 14°. He now made great preparations for the invasion of England, and got together vast stores of ammunition, consisting of reliques, gunpowder, and cannon-ball. He received from the pope a very large contribution, one moiety in money, and the other in indulgences. An Irish priest brought him an authentic tooth of St. Thomas à Becket, and, it is thought, was to have for his reward the archbishopric of Canterbury. Every monastery contributed something; one gave him a thousand pounds; and another as many masses.

This year containing farther the battles which he fought in Scotland, and the towns which he took, is so fresh in every one's memory, that we shall say no more of it.

No. 37.-FRIDAY, APRIL 27.

-Quod si

Frigidi curarun fomenta relinquere posses;

Quo te cælestis sapientia duceret, ires,

Hoc opus, hoc studium parvi properemus, et ampli,
Si patriæ volumus, si nobis vivere cari.

HOR.

IT is a melancholy reflection, that our country, which in times of popery was called the Nation of Saints, should now have less appearance of religion in it than any other neighbouring state or kingdom; whether they be such as continue still immersed in the errors of the church of Rome, or such as are recovered out of them. This is a truth that is obvious

to every one who has been conversant in foreign parts. It was formerly thought dangerous for a young man to travel, lest he should return an atheist to his native country: but at present it is certain, that an Englishman, who has any tolerable degree of reflection, cannot be better awakened to a sense of religion in general, than by observing how the minds of all mankind are set upon this important point; how every nation is serious and attentive to the great business of their being; and that in other countries a man is not out of the fashion, who is bold and open in the profession and practice of all Christian duties.

This decay of piety is by no means to be imputed to the Reformation, which, in its first establishment, produced its proper fruits, and distinguished the whole age with shining instances of virtue and morality. If we would trace out the original of that flagrant and avowed impiety which has prevailed among us for some years, we should find that it owes its rise to that opposite extreme of cant and hypocrisy, which had taken possession of the people's minds in the times of the great rebellion, and of the usurpation that succeeded it. The practices of these men, under the covert of a feigned, zeal, made even the appearance of sincere devotion ridiculous and unpopular. The raillery of the wits and courtiers, in King Charles the Second's reign, upon every thing which they then called precise, was carried to so great an extravagance, that it almost put Christianity out of countenance. The ridicule grew so strong and licentious, that from this time we may date that remarkable turn in the behaviour of our fashionable Englishmen, that makes them shame-faced in the exercise of those duties which they were sent into the world to perform.