history, and I shall not be scrupulous in my

narrative.

"At what time this conspiracy was formed I have not been able to learn; but the more early conspirators betrayed their designs as far back as the 17th century. I have been able to recover the names of Evelyn, Ashmole, and Pepys, who left large collections of heads severed from the bodies of the most distinguished characters of their day. The Earl of Oxford, in the beginning of the last century, was another of the same school. One Ames, in later times, wrote a book expressly in favour of their doctrines, which he called a Catalogue; as the French Illuminati chose to disperse their principles in a Dictionary, or Encyclopædia. It is not difficult to see through such tricks. The late Earl of Orford, better known by the name of Horace Walpole, was a distinguished partizan of this sect, and contributed more to beheadings than any man in our times. It is incredible how many persons of note he brought to the block; and so hardened was he in this wickedness, that, when he published what he had done, he called the work Anecdotes. I could also mention a Mr. Cracherode, lately deceased, of whom it was said, that no money could stand between him and any man's head

he took a fancy to.' And I might point out some of the sect who are living, and, what is very extraordinary, hold valuable and lucrative offices under Government, and yet are notoriously addicted to the principles of the Illus

trantes.

"But I wave the mention of individuals, some of whom, we must in charity believe, may have been artfully seduced into the notion that detruncation is necessary to human happiness, and that an English gentleman is valued, like an Indian warrior, for the number of scalps he can produce. I say, I wave this, and pass to one GRANGER, whom I take to be the Robespierre of the faction, the hydra headed monster, whom nothing could satisfy, who devoured innumerable ranks and classes, and fixed their heads in his repositories, as the Turks are said to decorate their palaces with the heads of their prisoners. To this man, who, strange to say! was a clergyman of the Church of England, we are to look, if not for the rise, certainly for the extensive spread of the sect of Illustrators; and it is wonderful to me that he should have been so long unnoticed, and permitted to die quietly in his bed, although, I make no doubt, he must in his last days have been haunted by the headless corpora, opera omnia, systemata, &c.

may

which he had so cruelly mutilated. Be that as it may, he wrote four volumes explaining the doctrines of the sect, offering rules and maxims, and pointing out where heads be got let them be ever so private. Of this work I am sorry to record the success; but my library furnishes me with so many melancholy proofs, that I cannot be silent and lest this should be thought a matter which personally concerns myself only, I appeal to those standing evidences, the book-stalls of London and Westminster, where the trunks of all the eminent men of the last three centuries lie exposed without a head among them, and are sold as mere trash and rubbish; for, alas! in the opinion of most men, what is a body without a head?

"I have stated some degrees of comparison between the Illuminati and the Illustrators; but I must now explain wherein they differ, and wherein, in my opinion, the former are the more consistent characters. The Illuminati had for their object the destruction of monarchy and religion. Thus far we know; they scarcely affected to disguise it, for the object pervades all their undertakings. But the Illustrators cannot be accused of aiming their weapons at the heads of kings and clergy so much as at confounding all ranks, orders, and degrees, jumbling together peers, gentry,

women,

without

clergy, lawyers, soldiers, authors, artists, and any distinction arising from professional merit, wisdom, valour, wit, or beauty; often indeed preferring deformity to symmetry, a Hunchback to an Adonis, a Fool to a Newton, and setting a value on some heads for no reason that I can discover but because the parties they belonged to happened to be hanged. The object of the sect, therefore, you may perceive, Mr. PROJECTOR, is sheer anarchy, as may be farther elucidated by mentioning some of their well-known practices.

“And here, I must say, they discover an uncommon artfulness. You never know exactly where to have them. If from their cruel practices on the bodies of Kings (and they have actually cut off the heads of some from their monuments *), you accuse them of antimonarchical principles, they smile, talk of their impartiality, and shew you that they have done the same thing to Freethinkers and Philosophers. In truth, if the subject were not too serious, one would be induced to think they were a species of humourists who indulged in odd fancies for the amusement of mankind. have known one of them exchange the Seven

I

* One Rapin, who is now standing by me, can attest this.

Bishops for a scarce Chimney sweeper, and barter the family of Stuart for a gang of Conspirators. So little taste and gallantry have they, that I have seen Anne Boleyne and Mary Queen of Scots given for Moll Cutpurse; and it is not above a month ago that one of the sect, in a public shop in Westminster, in the presence of several clergymen, offered Bishop Latimer, Sir Thomas More, and five Gresham Professors, for Colly Molly Puff. A gay youth may be of opinion, that the exchange of a superannuated Judge for a wise Virgin is not very injudicious; but it is intolerable to think that an old Sexton should be pitted against a whole Dean and chapter, and Mother Louse take precedence of Queen Elizabeth. Yet such anarchy of taste and estimation is peculiar to the bigots of this sect, who respect none of those qualities which the rest of mankind have agreed to reverence. Principles, political or religious, are nothing in their reckoning. The Reformation, the Restoration, and the Revolution, are with them mere dates, and nothing else. I have known a whole series of Arminian Divines exchanged for a hairy woman playing on the harpsichord,' and the venerable head of Calvin basely bartered for dumb Jack; nay, if Tiddy Doll could be purchased