whiggism, and Daniel Burgess's meeting house[1]! The generous compassion your lordship has shown upon this tragical occasion makes me believe your lordship will not be unaffected with an accident that had like to have befallen a poor whore of my acquaintance about that time, who, being big with whig, was so alarmed at the rising of the mob, that she had like to have miscarried upon it; for the logical jade presently concluded (and the inference was natural enough) that, if they began with pulling down meeting houses, it might end in demolishing those houses of pleasure where she constantly paid her devotion; and, indeed, there seems a close connexion between extempore prayer and extempore love. I doubt not, if this disaster had reached your lordship before, you would have found some room in that moving parenthesis, to have expressed your concern for it.
I come now to that last stroke of your lordship's almighty pen; I mean that expressive dash . . . . . . . which you give when you come to the new ministry, where you break off with an artful aposiopesis, and, by refusing to say any thing of them yourself, leave your readers to think the worst they possibly can. Here your lordship shows yourself a most consum-
- ↑ The mob that attended Dr. Sacheverell to his trial attacked Mr. Burgess's meeting house, Feb. 28, 1709-10; and, having pulled down the pulpit, pews, &c. made a bonfire of them in Lincoln's Inn Fields; and would have thrown the preacher in, if they had found him. A proclamation was issued, March 2, offering a reward of a hundred pounds, for apprehending any of the rioters. It appears that the only two who were discovered (whose names were Damaree and Purchase) were unhappy ignorant whigs, who did not even know which party their conduct was assisting: they both received the queen's pardon.
