the meaning of this odd dress; so that indeed he was the scaramouch of the company. But by that time they had feasted their eyes on him, and filled their stomachs with the victuals, they found the spark was very modest and ingenious, and that his good humour and eloquence was more agreeable to their ears and minds, than his habit to their eyes; and, by his ogling one of the ladies more than the rest, they guessed at his design; and being unwilling to cramp love in its embryo, after dinner they all withdrew, and left that lady and the spark together.

The spark immediately takes the opportunity to apologise for his garb, and told her how necessary it was for him to please his uncle's humour in the thing, which, though it made him ridiculous to the company, he hoped would not lessen her esteem of his person: The young lady (who knew she was to marry the man, and not the cloaths) told him, it was not the garb she looked at, but she had more respect to his other accomplishments; and at this rate they went on in discourse of love and matrimony for about two hours.

The lady then thinking it uncivil any longer to withdraw herself, or detain the gentleman from the rest of the company, she desired him to go into the next apartment, and take a game at cards with the young ladies. The spark, knowing the weakness of his pocket, desired heartily to be excused; but, being pressed by one he could in no wise refuse, he was at last forced to give her the grand argument, by making known to her his Job's condition. She, understanding the humour of his uncle, guessed the money might as well be wanting as new cloaths, and she desired his patience for a minute or two, whilst she stepped out about a little business, which she did, and returns presently with a purse of five pounds, desiring him to make use of it. Upon which he waits upon her into the next room, where he played at cards with the rest of the company, sometimes won, sometimes lost, but always pleased the company to admiration; so that they all thought his mistress extremely happy in having so ingenious and good-humoured a lover, though in an antiquated dress.

To make short of my story, he tarried with his lady a full fortnight, and in that time got her consent, and the consent of her parents, and returns home to his uncle with this joyful news, which extremely pleased the old gentleman; but he took care to tell the oh man, that, according to his own words, he had found indeed that courtship was chargeable, for that he had spent eighteen-pence of the half-crown he gave him, and, putting his hand in his pocket, he gave his uncle the remaining shilling. Well, child, says the uncle, I commend thy prudence and frugality, I find thou art to be trusted with money and any thing else, and therefore I will settle five-hundred a year upon thee in marriage; and giving him a good sum of money to buy him such wedding-cloaths as he should best like, the marriage was soon after solemnised to the satisfaction both of old and young. They were a happy pair, and the old man, dying some years after, left them the remainder of his estate, which made an addition to their happiness.

Politica. Truly, madam, the young gentleman was enough ingenious; had he been cross, and not pleased his uncle's humours, he would ave been disinherited, though I must confess, it is hard to render our

selves ridiculous to a degree of folly, to please an old humourist. But what is not sinful can never be shameful, and how unpleasant soever our actions are in the sight of men, if they are otherwise in the sight of God, it is no matter: A good estate and virtue make a man beautiful in any garb. I believe I could conform myself to the humours of the greatest caprichio, were I afterwards to be as happy as the young lady you have mentioned. We must all of us suffer some way or other in our pupillage: The apprentice serves out his time with chearfulness, in expectation of being his own man at the seven years end. Future ease is a great encouragement to present labour. But I know many young men and women are ruined by the unaccountable humours of their parents and governors, and take such wicked courses, that they are seldom or never reclaimed, especially women, who have once broken through the bounds of chastity. It is a common proverb amongst the men, that, 'Once a whore and always a whore.' Though I have known this proverb crossed; and, to level and make our stories even as we would do marriages, I shall give you an account after what manner:

A country gentleman, who was a justice of the peace in the county of Rnot having been in London in his life, or at least, not for a long time, being in conversation with some of his friends, heard them speak of the practice of lewd women, in picking men up in the streets. The gentleman, being a stranger to this abominable practice, could not believe any women could be so impudent, as they reported them to be; but they told him, he might experience the contrary any evening when he pleased. The gentleman was resolved to make the experiment, and one evening in Fleet-street he takes notice of a very pretty gentlewoman, which eyed him very narrowly, whereupon he asked her to drink a glass of wine; she agreed at the first word, and went with him to the next tavern.

When the gentleman and his doxy were seated in a room, and had some wine brought them, they drank very civilly one to the other; but miss expected to be attacked, after another sort of manner than she found by the gentleman: For he asked her, how long she had continued that trade; she told him, as they all do, but a very short time; then he continues, how can you dare to live in rebellion both against the laws of God and man, and impudently pursue methods to destroy both your body, and your immortal soul? In short, he read her such a lecture, that she, not being hardened in sin as are the generality of those miscreants, burst out into a flood of tears, and told him, that it was not without a wonderful remorse of conscience she followed that wicked course of life, and protested to him, that it was pure necessity obliged her to it, for otherwise she could not get a subsistence. The gentleman asked her further, how she came first to be debauched? She told him her father was a country gentleman, who had extravagantly spent a plentiful estate, and then dying, left her to the wide world unprovided for: She thought London was the best place to get her a livelihood in, and thither she came, but very unfortunately fell into the hands of a lewd woman, who betrayed her to the lust of a gentleman, who was no more than once concerned with her, and then advised her to ply the

1

streets; and, that he himself was the first person that ever had picked her up.

The gentleman told her, it was hard to believe persons who had been guilty of such heinous crimes, and very heartily admonished her to forsake her evil practices, to repent of what she had already done, and to amend her life for the future. She gave him many thanks for his good advice, and told him, she should think herself a very happy person, if either he, or any one else, would put her in a way to live otherwise. He told her, if she would resolve to amend for the future, he would take care to provide for her. She promised him, with all the asseverations imaginable, that she would: Whereupon he told her, that she should meet him the next day at a certain time and place; she coming according to appointment, he put her into a lodging he had provided, and, being well assured of her repentance and sincerity, and finding her an accomplished gentlewoman, soon after married her; and she made him a chaste and happy wife, and he lived as happily with her, as if she had been possessed of a portion of thousands of pounds.

Sophia. If I had here a bottle of wine, I would drink that gentleman's health; he, under God, saved the body and soul of that poor creature, and made a saint, by taking a sinner to his bed. I cannot chuse but reflect on our discourse, how naturally we have fallen from the discourse of matrimony, to love stories; we have talked away the time, as children cry themselves to sleep. But we must be gone, the sun is just down, and we shall be wanted at supper.

THE

SECRET HISTORY

OF THE

CALVES-HEAD CLUB:

OR, THE

REPUBLICAN UNMASKED:

Wherein is fully shewn the Religion of the Calves-Head heroes, in their anniversary thanksgiving-songs on the thirtieth of January, by them called Anthems, for the years 1693, 1694,1695, 1696, 1697; now published to demonstrate the restless, implacable spirit of a certain party still among us, who are never to be satisfied, till the present establishment in church and state is subverted.

Discite justitiam moniti, & non temnere divos.

VIRG.

London, printed, and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1703. Quarto, containing twenty-two pages.

THE PREFACE.

THE following collection has been so industriously handed up and down, where it was thought it would be well received, and confirma

those principles which too many have unhappily sucked in, and raise the confidence of those who were thought too bashful by their party, that some honest men have thought there could be no more effectual remedy for the mischief it might do, nor any surer way to stop the career than a publication: For, though many may presume, that, under the disguise of mirth, and the protection of a free conversation, they might safely venture to make an experiment how far the poison would work upon the undiscerning of untried constitutions, especially when rhime and musick were the vehicles, and 'under the rose' was the word; yet it is believed, when the malignity of the draught is publickly discovered, few will venture upon it without a sufficient antidote, and fewer have the hardiness to administer it.

These lines (for such ribaldry and trash deserve not the name of poems) were composed and set to musick for the use of the CalvesHead Club, which was erected by an impudent set of people, who have their feast of calves heads in several parts of the town, on the thirtieth of January, in derision of the day, and defiance of monarchy; at divers of which meetings the following compositions were sung, and, in affront to the church, called Anthems. These, which are here published, are said to have been written by Mr. Benjamin Bridgewater, and that he was largely rewarded by the members of the club for his pains. Whether Mr. Stevens was so well gratified for his sermons to the same tune, and on the same days, is more than the publisher dares say; but, perhaps, the pulpit was a bar to his pretensions, and the poet had been better rewarded than the preacher, had his sermons been put into rhime.

However, it is hoped, that this publication may give a check to the evil of the example, and destroy the continuance of the practice, or at least give fair warning, and take away the pretence of surprise from those who shall proceed to insult the government in so saucy and so villainous a manner.

But, whatever the success may be, the publisher doubts not but his intentions are justified, and wishes the effect may demonstrate the reasonableness of them, by putting an end to so unchristian and scandalous a practice.

IT is a prodigious thing to consider (and, for the honour of my native country, I wish I could say it was a false imputation upon her) that the execrable regicides of king Charles the First should find any advocates, or abettors, still among us.

I say, it is prodigious, that, after the whole nation, by their representatives in parliament assembled, has enacted so solemn a detestation of this unnatural parricide, and appointed a day of humiliation for it, to continue to all ages of the world, there should be such a set of boutefeus yet remaining, so impudently audacious, as to justify a crime, for

VOL. XII.

P

which the three kingdoms have smarted so severely; and, in their wick ed merriment, to act over, as much as in them lies, that tragical scene, which has justly made us infamous in the remotest corners of the uni

verse.

Was it not enough that a powerful prince, allied to most of the crowned heads in Christendom, was despoiled of that just authority, wherewith the laws of God and man had invested him, and, lastly, of his life, but that he must be most barbarously persecuted after his death, and suffer those indignities in his memory, when dead, which he had so plentifully suffered in his person, when living?

There is a time, when the most implacable malice is satiated, and exerts itself no louger. The most savage nations seldom, or never, carried their resentments beyond the grave; and thought it a piece of barbarous cowardice, to insult upon the ashes of those that could not speak for themselves.

But the royal martyr has been treated, if it is possible, with more inhumanity after his desolation, than he was exposed to when under the power of his rebellious subjects. He has not only been stigmatised by the odious name of tyrant, who was, in truth, the best and most merciful father of his country, and loaded with a thousand undeserved calumnies; but, what shews the restless malice of his adversaries, even that incomparable book of devotion, composed by him in his solitude, and the time of his deepest afflictions, and which no pen, but his own, could have written, has been adjudged from him by a *late mercenary author; although it is certain to any man, at least, that can distinguish stiles, that the person, to whom the republicans ascribe it, was no more capable of writing so excellent a piece, than the aforesaid compiler of Milton's Life, of writing an orthodox system of the mysteries of christianity.

Thus, as he was torn from his queen and children in his life, he was robbed, as far as it lay in the power of his malicious enemies, even of the legitimate issue of his brain: Tho' as truth, but especially truth injuriously oppressed, never wants some generous hands to defend its cause; so all the arguments that have been used by the republicans, to prove it a spurious piece, have been fully answered by a worthy † divine now living, beyond all possibility of a reply.

The barbarity of his enemies stopped not here; for, not content to have assassinated his person and reputation, they even dispossessed him of his sepulchre, a piece of cruelty, which none but thorough paced villains ever executed, for, when the long parliament had voted an honourable interment for their late prince, who had suffered so unjustly, all was stopped, by reason that the persons, ordered to regulate the ceremony, when they came to examine the royal coffin, found the body missing.

This puts me in mind of what a worthy gentleman, who travelled with my Lord A-- into Italy, told me some years ago, viz. That, during his short stay at Bern in Switzerland, a syndic of the town, who

See Toland's Life of Milton. + Dr. Wagstaff, King's Trial.

See Dr. Nelson's Preface to the