The Augustan Reprint Society

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE

SELECTIONS FROM
THE
OBSERVATOR

(1681-1687)

Introduction by

Violet Jordain

PUBLICATION NUMBER 141

WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

University of California, Los Angeles

1970

GENERAL EDITORS

William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles

ADVISORY EDITORS

Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
James Sutherland, University College, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Roberta Medford, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

[Note: For full text go to [Page 9]]

INTRODUCTION

I fancy, Trimmer, that if You and I could but
get leave to peep out of our Graves again a matter
of a hundred and fifty year hence, we should find
these Papers in Bodlies Library, among the Memorialls
of State; and Celebrated for the Only Warrantable
Remains concerning this Juncture of Affairs.

(Observator No. 259, 16 December 1682)

When the first of 931 single, folio sheets of the Observator appeared on 13 April 1681, the sixty-five-year-old Roger L'Estrange, their sole author, had been a controversial London Royalist for over twenty years. As Crown protégé, he had served intermittently as Surveyor of the Press, Chief Licenser, and Justice of the King's Peace Commission; as a writer, he had produced two newspapers, the Intelligencer and the Newes (1663-1666), dozens of political pamphlets, and seven translations from Spanish, Latin, and French.[1] Rightly nicknamed "bloodhound of the press," L'Estrange was notorious for his ruthless ferreting out of illegal presses and seditious publishers, as well as for his tireless warfare against the powerful Stationers' Company.[2] No less well known were his intransigent reactionary views, for we can estimate that some 64,000 copies of pamphlets bearing his name were circulating in the City during the two years preceding the Observator.[3] Thus the Observator papers represent not only the official propaganda of the restored monarchy, but also the intellectual temper of a powerful, influential man whose London fame was sufficiently demonstrated in the winter of 1680, when he was publicly burned in effigy during that year's Pope-burning festivities.

In the muddy torrent of "Intelligences," "Mercuries," "Courants," "Pacquets," and sundry newssheets, the Observator marks the beginnings of a new sort of journalism, one which was to shape the development of the English periodical. Although Heraclitus Ridens and its opponent Democritus Ridens initiated the dialogue form for the newspaper seventy-two days before the Observator, their relatively short run relegates these pioneers to a shadowy background, as it does the even earlier trade paper in dialogue, the City and Country Mercury (1667).[4] The eighty-two issues of Heraclitus Ridens and thirteen of Democritus Ridens cannot be compared in quantity to the 931 issues of the Observator published three or four times a week from 13 April 1681 to 9 March 1687, nor can their stiff dialogues be compared in importance to L'Estrange's much fuller exploitation of the form. Consequently, even though he did not initiate the newspaper in dialogue form, L'Estrange is unanimously given the honor of having popularized the form, or, in the words of Richmond P. Bond, of having "borrowed the dialogue and fastened it on English journalism for a generation as a factional procedure."[5]

Imitators did not wait long. Nine days after the first Observator, L'Estrange's arch-enemy, Harry Care, changed to dialogue the Popish Courant section of his Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, relinquishing the expository format which he had followed since 1678. Later, after the Glorious Revolution, the popularity of L'Estrange's paper is evident in the spate of imitative "Observators" that ensued: The English Spy: Or, the Critical Observator (1693); The Poetical Observator (1702); Tutchin's Observator (1702—a Whig organ) and Leslie's Observator (1704—a Tory organ); The Comicall Observator (1704); The Observator Reviv'd (1707), and more. As late as 1716 there was created a Weekly Observator. By the turn of the century, the very term "Observator" had come to signify a controversy in dialogue.[6] Interestingly enough, even the typography of L'Estrange's Observator may have left its mark on succeeding journals. A brief comparison of Interregnum newspapers (such as Newes Out of Ireland in 1642, The Scotch Mercury in 1643, The Commonwealth Mercury in 1658) with John Dunton's The Athenian Mercury (1693) and Charles Leslie's Observator (1704) reveals a marked difference in typography. In the earlier papers the typography is generally uniform, with italics used for proper names and quotations, whereas L'Estrange's and Leslie's papers exhibit the whole range of typeface available to the seventeenth-century printer. Dissenter Dunton's Athenian Mercury, on the other hand, shows much less eccentricity in its typography, limiting itself to generous use of italics only, while Defoe's Review goes back to the earlier restraint and presents a neat, uniform page. Whether these typographical differences are attributable to particular political views or merely to "schools" of printing is difficult to say.

In addition to this obvious sort of superficial imitation, there are many indications that L'Estrange's Observator had a more permanent influence on posterity. It has been suggested that the periodical specializing in query and answer between reader and editor, which was initiated by John Dunton's Athenian Mercury and which we still have today, may have been inspired by the Observator's habitual retorts to opponents.[7] James Sutherland isolates in Defoe certain qualities of prose style which he attributes to Defoe's extensive reading of L'Estrange; and he sees L'Estrange's natural colloquial manner as setting a pattern for journalists who followed him.[8] Far-fetched as it may seem at first glance, even Addison's Spectator shows a certain similarity to the Observator. Although the manner, tone, language, and political views of the two are antithetical, the Spectator's peculiar blend of moralizing and diversion is reminiscent of L'Estrange's work. In both papers we notice a serious didactic purpose tempered by literary techniques and imaginative handling of material. Decades before Addison's famous credo—"to make their Instruction Agreeable, and their Diversion useful ... to enliven Morality with Wit, and to temper Wit with Morality"[9]—L'Estrange had formulated a similar theory:

Obs.: Where there has been Any thing of That which you call Raillery, or Farce; It has amounted to no more then a Speaking to the Common People in their Own Way.... He that Talks Dry Reason to them, does as good as treat 'em in an Unknown Tongue; and there's no Other way of Conveying the True Sense, & Notion of Things, either to their Affections, or to their Understandings, then by the Palate....

(II, No. 15)

And as a link between L'Estrange and Addison we have Defoe's analogous promise in "the Introduction" to the Review: "After our Serious Matters are over, we shall at the end of every Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as any thing occurs to make the World Merry."[10] These notions rest, of course, on the ancient dulce et utile, though modified in various ways in each of the three papers to suit the temperaments of their writers, the tastes of their mass-audiences, and different times. It is perhaps not irresponsible, then, to say that the synonymous titles of Addison's and L'Estrange's periodicals symbolize an affinity of purpose and technique. Indeed, the Observator can, in many ways, be considered a rather crude and primitive ancestor of the Spectator.[11]

The purpose of the Observator and its main targets are clearly formulated in Observator No. 1, as well as in the prefatory "To the Reader," which was written in 1683 for the publication of Volume 1 of the collected papers. The "faction" which L'Estrange proposes to reprove consists at first (1681-1682) of Shaftesbury's republican-minded followers and of the perpetrators of the Popish Plot. In his evaluation of the Plot, L'Estrange agrees with some modern historians,[12] for he never doubted that it was a Whig fabrication, an invented cause around which the party members could rally and which neatly veiled the parliamentary power-struggle behind the scenes. Titus Oates is consequently the Observator's bête noire, and Andrew Marvell's pamphlet, The Growth of Popery, is for L'Estrange the odious origin of the Plot:

Obs.: I do not know Any man throughout the whole Tract of the Controversy that has held a Candle to the Devil with a Better Grace then the Author of that Pamphlet ... that Furnishes so Clear a Light toward the Opening of the Roots, Springs, and Causes of our Late Miserable Disorders, and Confusions.... Prethee let Otes'es Popish Plot, Stand, or Fall, to it's Own Master; provided that Marvels may be Allow'd to be the Elder Brother....

(II, No. 16)

Toward the end of 1682, when the Whigs had ceased being an imminent threat to the government and all but one of the Whig newspapers had been silenced, L'Estrange turned his attack against the more moderate Trimmers, as illustrated in Observator III, No. 88. But whether the offensive is against Whigs or Trimmers, Dissenters and advocates of toleration are always in the line of L'Estrange's fire as chief subverters of absolute monarchy and of the Church of England, as is evident in the satire of Observator Nos. 13 and 110. On the eve of the Glorious Revolution, this rigid stand lost him the support of both the Anglican clergy and the universities, support of which he was so proud in his "To the Reader." Finally, Observator No. 1 singles out the Whig press as one of its chief targets. The "Smith" referred to in that first number is Anabaptist Francis "Elephant" Smith, publisher of the outrageous Mirabilis Annus books, the inflammatory pamphlet Vox Populi, and the offensive paper Smith's Protestant Intelligence; "Harris" is Benjamin Harris, publisher of the Whig paper, Domestic Intelligence. These, together with Harry Care (Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome and Popish Courant), Richard Janeway (Impartial Protestant Mercury), Langley Curtis (The Protestant Mercury), and hordes of anti-Royalist authors or publications are habitually quoted or referred to in L'Estrange's counterpropaganda. His untiring countering of Whig publications earned him Nahum Tate's hyperbolic praise in The Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel:

Than Sheva, none more loyal Zeal have shown, Wakefull, as Judah's Lion for the Crown, Who for that Cause still combats in his Age, For which his Youth with danger did engage. In vain our factious Priests the Cant revive, In vain seditious Scribes with Libels strive T'enflame the Crow'd, while He with watchfull Eye Observes, and shoots their Treasons as they fly. Their weekly Frauds his keen Replies detect, He undeceives more fast than they infect. So Moses when the Pest on Legions prey'd, Advanc'd his Signal and the Plague was stay'd.[13]

Parochial as these concerns seem today, the Observator in its totality goes far beyond the Harry Cares and "Elephant" Smiths in its exhortation to greater rationality in areas ancillary to but transcending politics proper. Its assiduous ridicule of Enthusiasm, following in the steps of Meric Casaubon and Henry More,[14] its analyses of political manipulation of the naive populace, its explanations of psychological appeals, its Orwellian warnings against the snares of loaded diction and the dangers of affective political rhetoric—all these efforts evident in the few Observators represented here are an important step in the direction of a less superstitious, less hysterical century. Paradoxically, L'Estrange mobilized progressive ideas in the service of an archaic political and religious administration, thereby familiarizing the man on the street with notions and attitudes commonly known as Enlightened.

The sugar coating in the Observator is, however, as significant as the pill, and distinguishes L'Estrange's journalism from his predecessors'. Apart from the traditional satiric blend of verbal banter and polemic, which has received ample commentary,[15] his use of established literary modes further enhances the colloquies, making them especially diverting for his audience and interesting for us. As dialogues, the papers belong to a genre whose popularity has remained constant from Plato onward. The appeal of the form lies in its pleasurable verisimilitude, immediacy, adaptability to differing points of view, and, especially after the Restoration, in its potentiality for humorous repartee.[16] As satiric dialogues, L'Estrange's sheets satisfy what seems to be a universal love of ridicule, an innate trait of the human mind, although there is no agreement among students of satire as to its exact psychological operations. In addition to adopting this form, which belongs to imaginative literature rather than to journalism, L'Estrange spices his Observator with a number of other devices designed to provide variety, change in speed, and amusement for his reader, who is in turn bullied, joshed, castigated, reasoned, or laughed into accepting L'Estrange's views.

Frequently, for example, the dialogue gives way to a pointed anecdote (old or current, invented or factual), such as the story of Jack of Leyden in Observator No. 1, or the following from a later dialogue, humorously satirizing the dour William Prynne and the Puritans' strange concepts of sin:

Trimmer: A Gentleman that had Cut-off his own hair on the Saturday, came the next day to Church in his first Perriwig. The Parson (that was already Enter'd into his Sermon) turn'd his Discourse presently, from his Text in the Holy Bible, to the Subject of Prynnes Unloveliness of Lovelocks; and Thrash'd for a matter of a Quarter of an hour, upon the Mortal Sin of Wearing False Hair. The Gentleman, finding that he would never give him over, 'till he had Preach'd him into a Flat State of Reprobation, fairly took off his Perriwig, and Clapt it upon One of the Buttons at the Corner of the Pew. The Poor Man had not One word more to say to the Perriwig; and was run so far from his Text, that he could not for his heart find the way home again: So that to make short on't; He gave the People his Blessing, and Dismiss'd the Congregation.

(II, No. 21)

Frequently, also, L'Estrange satirizes by means of parody or ludicrous examples of his enemies' rhetoric or behavior, as in the case of the "Dissenting Academies" in Observator No. 110. But most important of the techniques for entertaining are his creation of carefully delineated speaker-personae and his "Characters," again both borrowed from the literary tradition.

After the first twenty-nine Observators, which are experimental in that "Q" and "A" have shifting personalities (as in Nos. 1 and 13), L'Estrange manipulates "Whig" and "Tory" for 171 papers, changes to "Whig" and "Observator" for 33 papers, briefly (six papers) shifts to "Whig" and "Courantier," and finally settles down to "Trimmer" and "Observator" for the remaining 692 papers. In all these, the Tory satirist (whether he be "Tory" or "Observator") is presented as the conventional "snarling dog" described by Robert C. Elliott,[17] with appropriate outbursts of polemic, invective, bitter irony, and railing humor. Even the traditional crudity is there, although compared to, say, the Popish Courant, L'Estrange manifests a Victorian restraint. "Whig," on the other hand, is presented as a naive, credulous, not-too-bright individual whose main fault is not so much that he is a Whig but that he is a Whig because he has no mental capacity for discrimination. The "A" speaker of No. 13 (apparently a humorous thrust at John Eachard, author of Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy) with his preference for Prynne, Baxter, and Smith over Tacitus, Livy, and Caesar, is typical of the later "Whig" persona. Humorless, misguided, and chronically given to believing even the most outrageous gossip, "Whig" cuts a foolish and therefore amusing figure when pitted against the sophisticated, trenchant-minded "Tory." "Trimmer" is quite different. L'Estrange here creates a much more intelligent opponent, one who is given the liberty of satirizing "Observator" himself and even patronizing him with the nickname "Nobs." Instead of naivete and obvious stupidity, "Trimmer" has the guile and surface morality of the perfect hypocrite, a "pretending friend" as "Observator" notes in Observator III, Nos. 88 and 202. The humor in these later dialogues does not emerge from the "Trimmer" personality but from the frequent self-satire and criticism on the part of L'Estrange. "Trimmer," for example, is allowed to mock the prose style, figures of speech, stubbornness and repetitiveness of "Observator," as "Trimmer's" chiding tone in Observator III, No. 88 suggests. To borrow a term from Robert C. Elliott, the entertainment of these later colloquies resides primarily in the technique of the "satirist satirized."[18] L'Estrange, in short, creates both adversariuses as dramatis personae rather than as simple straw men, a departure from the run-of-the-mill Restoration dialogue evident in the following interruption of his artfully built illusion:

Obs.: For Varieties sake then, we'le to work another way. Do You keep up your Part of Trimmer still: Do Just as you use to do; and be sure to maintain your Character; Leave the Whig and the Tory to Me.
Trimmer: For the Dialogue sake it shall be done.
Obs.: But then you must Consider that there are Severall sort of Trimmers: as your State-Trimmer, Your Law-Trimmer....
Trimmer: And You shall Suppose Mee to be a Statesman.
Obs.: But of what Magnitude? A Lord? A Knight?...
Trimmer: Why truly Nobs, if they be all of a Price, I don't care if I be a Lord.
Obs.: We are over that Point then; And so I am your Lordships most Humble Servant.

But this role playing within role playing is discarded at the end of the paper, the role of Lord being apparently too cumbersome:

Trimmer: No more of your Lordships, as you love me, Nobs; for I am e'en as weary as a Dog of my Dignity.

(No. 242)

The "Character," however, is not only L'Estrange's favorite satiric tool but perhaps the literary form most frequently used in the Observator. L'Estrange himself attests to his partiality in his parting comment at the close of the Observator:

Obs.: For my Fancy lyes more to Character, then to Dialogue; and whoever will be so Kind as to Furnish me with Spitefull Materials, shall get his Own again with Interest, in an Essay upon Humane Nature.

(III, No. 246)

The Character was, of course, still highly popular in the latter half of the century, as Chester Noyes Greenough's listings show,[19] so that in indulging his own taste, L'Estrange was also catering to the tastes of his public. Of whatever other value the Observator may be to the modern student, it is invaluable as a fine example of the state-of-the-Character toward the end of the century. Practically every type of Character analyzed by Benjamin Boyce in his two studies can be found repeatedly in L'Estrange's dialogues:[20] the earlier imitations of Theophrastan Characters, with their parallelisms and antitheses; the Overburian Character, with its extravagant metaphors; the externally dramatized; the subjective; the sprung. There are Characters of ideologies, of political parties, of virtues, of vices, of Whigs and Dissenters (vices), of Tories and Anglicans (virtues). There are several "Credo-Characters" (confessions or manifestoes), and finally there is the habitually dramatized self-exposing Character which becomes indistinguishable from the dramatis persona, as is the Character of the Modern Whig in Nos. 13 and 110. Among the Observators included here, the definition of "Dissenter" in No. 1 is based on Character techniques, as is the conceit of the Protestant as "Adjective Noun-Substantive" in the same number. So is also the lengthy exposure of "Leaders" in III, No. 202, beginning with "They Talk, to the Ears, and to the Passions of their Hearers."

A final comment about L'Estrange's prose, which has been variously labeled "colloquial," "idiomatic," "vulgar," "coarse"—all vaguely descriptive terms suggesting value judgment, and none precise enough to give an intelligible account of what L'Estrange actually does. In addition to the obvious device of choppy syntax and deliberately careless constructions simulating extemporaneous speech, L'Estrange's figures and proverbial material demonstrate his meticulous shaping of an "applied prose"[21] particularly suitable for the audience whose opinions he tried to sway. His metaphors and analogies tend to rely on commonly known objects or experiences, and because of rhetorical necessity they are almost always unpleasantly graphic. A random sampling yielded the following results: about twenty-five percent of the figures in the Observator deal with some specific part of the human body (nails, spleen, mouth, eyes, ears, knees, heels, flesh, guts, belly) or physiological processes (ulcerating, itching, chewing, digesting, spitting, reeking, seeing, crouching, sweating, gobbling). There is no euphemistic delicacy in these figures; L'Estrange carefully selects the most earthy, common vehicles, thus achieving what James Sutherland has termed "racy" and "vigorous" prose.[22] Another twenty-four percent of the figures are based on common occupations, daily activities, or objects familiar to the simpler citizen of London. These figures ordinarily pivot on barter or trade (horse traders, hagglers, fishwives, car men); on activities such as cooking, gambling, or glass-making; and on such objects as clothing, bagpipes, paper-pellets, bonnets, and chamber-pots. The rest derive from the animal kingdom, the Scriptures, street-entertainment (jugglers, puppets, high-rope walkers) and folk medicine (glysters and plasters). It is obvious that these figures—their concreteness, sensuousness, and closeness to the daily experience of the ordinary reader—are a main ingredient in the richly colloquial texture of L'Estrange's prose, as is the proverbial material which he incorporates unsparingly.

In L'Estrange's language the law of the land cannot be misunderstood, for it calls a spade a spade (No. 106; T-S699).[23] The factions win their objectives by hook or crook (No. 100; T-H588) even though they are as mad as March Hares (No. 15; T-H148) and as Blind as Beetles (No. 15; T-B219). Certain things are as clear as the Day (No. 25; T-D56) or as plain as the nose o'my face (No. 40; T-N215), whereas others are so confused that one can make neither Head nor tayl on't (No. 35; T-H258). When noses are put out of joint (No. 38; T-N219) and Tories are given a bone to pick (No. 55; T-B522), there will obviously be no love lost betwixt Whigs and Tories (No. 97; T-L544).

Thus L'Estrange's Characters, together with the fanciful anecdotes, self-satire, parodies, and personae, provide the satire and humor in the Observator, the whole being couched in familiar, pungent language. As L'Estrange counters the faction, propagandizes, and exhorts to rational behavior, he also amuses and delights, always hoping that the laughter provoked by his satiric treatment will cure what he saw as follies of his age, always appealing to the common reader whose sense of humor, he believed, was probably more developed than his sense.

California State College,

Dominguez Hills

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[1] The translations before 1681 are The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo (1667); A Guide to Eternity (1672); Five Love-letters from a Nun (1677); The Gentleman-Apothecary (1678); Seneca's Morals (1678); Twenty Select Colloquies of Erasmus (1679); and Tully's Offices (1680).

[2] Various perspectives on L'Estrange's life and works can be found in the following: George Kitchin, Sir Roger L'Estrange (London, 1913) for L'Estrange's life and impact on the Restoration press; J. G. Muddiman, The King's Journalist (London, 1923) for L'Estrange's rivalry with Henry Muddiman, editor of the Oxford [London] Gazette; David J. Littlefield, "The Polemic Art of Sir Roger L'Estrange: A Study of His Political Writings, 1659-1688" (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University, 1961) for an overview of L'Estrange as a political pamphleteer.

[3] In 1679 L'Estrange wrote six new pamphlets and reprinted three old ones; in 1680 eleven new and seventeen old; at the start of 1681, ten new and seventeen old. A probable norm of 1000-1500 copies per pamphlet edition has been estimated by Joseph Frank, The Beginnings of the English Newspaper, 1620-1660 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 314; two orders of 1500 pamphlets each were given to the Restoration printer Nathaniel Thompson, as noted by Leona Rostenberg, "Nathaniel Thompson, Catholic Printer and Publisher of the Restoration," The Library, 3rd ser., X (1955), 195.

[4] Heraclitus Ridens was considered by generations of historians as the first newspaper in dialogue; most recently, James Sutherland (English Literature of the Late Seventeenth Century, Oxford, 1969, p. 241) has given precedence to The City and Country Mercury.

[5] Studies in the Early English Periodical (Chapel Hill, 1957), p. 38.

[6] Ibid., pp. 38-39.

[7] Walter Graham, English Literary Periodicals (New York, 1930), pp. 38, 63, 168.

[8] On English Prose (Toronto, 1965), pp. 72-74.

[9] The Spectator, No. 10, ed. Donald F. Bond (Oxford, 1965), I, 44.

[10] The Review, ed. Arthur Wellesley Secord (Facsimile Text Society, New York, 1938), I, 4.

[11] Several of the literary techniques in the Spectator had been introduced into journalism by L'Estrange. Spectator No. 1, for example, presents a persona in the character of "Mr. Spectator"; No. 2 contains a dream-allegory; Nos. 11 and 34 present indirect discourse between dramatis personae; No. 19 sketches a Character of the Envious Man—all literary modes abundant in the Observator.

[12] See especially J. R. Jones, The First Whigs; The Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678-1683 (London, 1961), pp. 20, 24, 50-51, 56, 94, 112, 123-124.

[13] For attribution and identification of Sheva, see G. R. Noyes, ed., The Poetical Works of John Dryden (Boston, 1909), pp. 137, 966.

[14] The works that are echoed in the Observator are Meric Casaubon, A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasme ... (London, 1655) and Henry More, Enthusiasmus Triumphatus ... (London, 1656).

[15] The mixture of tones is discussed in Alvin Kernan, The Cankered Muse (New Haven, 1959), pp. 68, 76; Leonard Feinberg, Introduction to Satire (Ames, Iowa, 1967), pp. 124-125; Gilbert Highet, The Anatomy of Satire (Princeton, 1962), p. 18.

[16] Hugh Macdonald, "Banter in English Controversial Prose After the Restoration," Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, XXXII (1946), 22, 26, 38.

[17] The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art (Princeton, 1960), pp. 133-136, 164-165.

[18] Ibid., pp. 130-222 (passim).

[19] A Bibliography of the Theophrastan Character in English, With Several Portrait Characters (Cambridge, Mass., 1947).

[20] The Theophrastan Character in England to 1642 (Cambridge, Mass., 1947) and The Polemic Character, 1640-1661 (Lincoln, Neb., 1955).

[21] The term is suggested by Ian Gordon (The Movement of English Prose, London, 1966, p. 136) in his discussion of the simple, clear, journalistic style practiced by L'Estrange, Defoe, and Swift in their political writings.

[22] On English Prose, p. 70.

[23] The symbol "T" and accompanying numbers refer to the entries in Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverb in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, 1950).

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The sources for the parts of the Observator in Dialogue reprinted here are Volume I of the first collected edition published in 1684, and Volume III, published and bound together with Volume II in 1687, both in the collection of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The pieces reprinted from Volume I consist of the prefatory "To the Reader," and Observator Nos. 1, 13, and 110; the papers reprinted from Volume III consist of Observator Nos. 88 and 202. In this edition the following editorial changes have been made: black letter type is indicated by underlining; inverted letters have been corrected; obvious compositor's errors have been corrected; and inconsistencies in font due to compositors' carelessness have been normalized. The frontispiece to this facsimile reprint is reproduced from the Clark copy and measures approximately 13-7/16" x 8-5/8" in the original.

THE
OBSERVATOR

To the READER.

Most Prefaces are, (Effectually) Apologies; and neither the Book, nor the Author, one Jot the Better for them. If the Book be Good, it will not Need an Apology; If Bad, it will not Bear One: For where a man thinks, by Calling himself Noddy, in the Epistle, to Atone, for Shewing himself to be one, in the Text; He does (with Respect to the Dignity of an Author) but Bind up Two Fools in One Cover: But there's no more Trusting some People with Pen, Ink, and Paper, then the Maddest Extravagants in Bedlam, with Fire, Sword, or Poyson. He that Writes Ill, and Sees it, why does he Write on? And, with a kind of Malice Prepense, Murder the Ingenious part of Mankind? He that Really Believes he Writes Well; why does he pretend to Think Otherwise? Now take it which way you please, a man runs a Risque of his Reputation, for want, either of Skill, and Judgment, the One way; Or of Good Faith, and Candor the Other. Beside a Mighty Oversight, in Imagining to bring himself off, from an Ill Thing, Done, or Said, by Telling the World that he did it for This or That Reason. When a Book has once past the Press into the Publique; there's no more Recalling of it, then of a Word Spoken, out of the Air again. And a man may as well hope to Reverse the Decree of his Mortality, as the Fate of his Writings. In short: When the Dice are Cast, the Author must stand his Chance.

Now that I may not be thought to Enterfere with my self, by Declaiming against One Preface in Another: I do here previously Renounce to All the Little Arts and Forms of Bespeaking the Good Will of the Reader; As a Practice, not only Mean, Light, and Unprofitable; but wholly Contrary to the Bent of My Inclination; as well as Inconsistent with the very Drift, and Quality of my Design. For These Papers were Written, Indifferently, for the Enformation of the Multitude; and for the Reproof of a Faction: Two Interests that I am not much Sollicitous, or Ambitious, to Oblige: And upon This Consideration it is, that I have Address'd them to the Reader in Generall; as a Calculation that will serve for All Meridians: But if I could have Resolved upon a Dedication, with any Particular Mark, or Epithete of Distinction; it should have been, To the IGNORANT, the SEDITIOUS, or the SCHISMATICAL Reader; for There, properly, lies my Bus'ness.

The Reader will find in the First Number of This Collection, the True Intent, and Design of the Undertaking; And he will likewise find, in the very Date of it, (April 13. 1681.) the Absolute Necessity of some Such Application, to Encounter the Notorious Falshoods; the Malicious Scandals, and the Poysonous Doctrines of That Season.

Whether I had Sufficient Ground, or Reason, for the Warmth I have Exprest in These Papers, upon Several Occasions, (out of an Affectionate Sense of my Duty, and a Zeal for the Peace, Welfare, and Safety of my Country;) I Dare, and I Do Appeal to the King, and his Ministers; to the Consciences of as many of his Majesties Subjects, as are not Stark Blind because they WILL not See; and to the Justice of the Nation. I do Appeal, I say, to his Majesties Proclamations; to his Royal Declaration; Several Orders of Councel; the Examinations, and Confessions of Unquestionable Witnesses; The Solemnity of so many Tryals, Sentences, and Executions; and the Criminals, Every Man of 'em, Either Acknowledging the Crime, or Justifying the Treason: But the FACT, however made as Clear as the Day. There's the Flight of the Conspirators; Their Arms Seiz'd; Their Councels Laid Open; Men Listed; The Methods of the Confederacy Detected, to the very Time, and Place for the Perpetration of the Villany; to the very Circumstance of the Providential Fire at Newmarket, that Disappointed it. I have All These Demonstrative Proofs, and Convincing Evidences, to Warrant me in the most Violent Presumptions of a Rebellion in Agitation: And the Phanatiques Themselves made good the Worst Things that ever I said of the Party: In Vindication of the Importunity of All my Foreboding, if not Prophetical Suspicions: Nay, they were come to the very Point, and Crisis of the Operation, of That Unaccountable, and Amazing Vote. [If his Majesty shall come by Any Violent Death (which God Forbid) it shall be Reveng'd to the Utmost upon the Papists.] The King, and the Duke were to be Murder'd by Republican, and Fanatical Rebells: There's your VIOLENT DEATH. And Then, [Reuenge it upon the Papists:] For [the Thing (says Keeling) was to be laid upon the Papists as a Branch of the Popish Plot. Walcots Tryal. Fol.9.] And the Next Step was, for the Traytors to Unriddle the Mystery, and to Expound, Who were the Papists. [The Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs] were Three of 'em. They, were to be Kill'd; And [as many of the Lieutenancy as they could get; And the Principal Ministers of State; My Lord Halifax, My Lord Rochester, and my Lord Keeper: (They were Three Papists more.) My Lord Keeper was to have been Hang'd upon the same Post that College had hung. Sir John Moor to be Hung-up in Guildhall, as a Betrayer of the Rights and Liberties of the City. And the Judges Lordships to be Flay'd, and Stuff'd, and Hung-up in Westminster Hall: And a great many of the Pensionary Parliament Hang'd-up, as Betrayers of the Rights of the People. Walcots Tryal, p. 15.] You have here, a Practical Explanation of the True-Protestant Way, (in case of the King's Violent Death) of Revenging it to the Utmost upon the Papists. And This Intended Assassination (says Ferguson (in the same Page)) [Is a Glorious Action, and such an Action as I HOPE TO SEE PUBLIQUELY GRATIFY'D BY PARLIAMENT; And Question not but you will be Fam'd for it, and Statues Erected for you, with the Title of LIBERATORES PATRIAE. Ibid.] Now when Matters were come to This Pass once, I think it was High Time to Write Observators.

I might Enlarge my self, upon the Inducements that Mov'd me to Enter upon This Province; The Needfullness of some Popular Medium for the Rectifying of Vulgar Mistakes, and for Instilling of Dutyfull, and Honest Principles into the Common People, upon That Turbulent, and Seditious Juncture: But I am not Willing to Clogg my Preface, with the Repetition of what I have spoken so Expressly to, in the Book.

I am now to Advertise the Reader, in the next Place; That as I have not Strain'd, so much as One Syllable, in the Whole Course of These Papers, beyond the Line of Truth, Nor let fall One Word, Contrary to my Conscience; Nor Layd-on so much as One False Colour, for a Blind, or a Disguise: As I have not done any Thing of All This, I say; Nor Gratify'd so much as One Passion to the Prejudice, of any MAN, or THING; or of Common Justice it Self: So neither, on the Other hand, was I less Cautious, and Considerate, in the Undertaking of This Duty, then I have been Clear, and Impartial, in the Discharge, and Manage of it.

I was no sooner Possess't, of the Reason, and the Expedience of the Thing; but I fell presently to Deliberate upon the Invidious Difficulties; The Scandals, Reproches, and a Thousand Other Mischiefs, and Inconveniencies, that would probably Attend it. I laid them All before me; And upon a Full Computation of the Matter, Pro and Con; I Resolv'd, at last, to Put pen to paper; not without some Vanity perhaps, in Affecting the Honour of being Revil'd, by the Blasphemers of God, and the King. I shall say Nothing of the Traytors; The Papists; The Fidlers; The All-manner-of-Rogues, and Debauchees that they have made me: For their Cause is Founded upon a Sacrilegious Hypocrisy; Maintain'd by Fraud, Scandal, and Imposture. And when they have a mind to Blacken a man, 'tis not a Straw matter, for any Foundation of Fact, or History: But Paint him as like the Devil as they Can; and to make short Work on't, One Fanatique Sits to Another, for the Picture. But These Scurrilities have more of Noise in 'em, then of Weight: And Those People that had the face to Calumniate Charles the First, for a TYRANT, and a PAPIST; And the Confidence, at This very day, to do as much for Charles the Second; They that Preach REBELLION out of the GOSPEL; Give it the Name of GOD'S TRUTH, GOD'S CAUSE; And offer up the Bloud of Kings as an Acceptable Sacrifice to Jesus Christ: What Christian will not Value himself, upon the Reputation of lying under the Scourge of Those Tongues, and Pens, that Offer these Outrages to their Maker, and their Saviour? So that these Clamours, and Maledictions, I look upon, as Matter, rather of Advantage, then Discredit; Where Loyalty to the King, and to the Church, is made the Crime: But yet I must Confess, I had Some Other Mortifications in my Thought, that went a little Nearer me.

As first, the Indecency of a Gentlemans Entring into a Street-Brawl, (and Bare-fac'd too) with the Sink of Mankind, both for Quality, and Wickedness. 21y. The Disproportion, and the Indecorum of the Thing, for an Old Fellow that now Writes Sixty Eight, to run about, a Masquerading, and Dialoguing of it, in Twenty Fantastical Shapes, only to furnish a Popular Entertainment, and Diversion. 31y. The Scandalous Appearance of it, for Me to take up the Profession, and Bus'ness of a Pamphleteer; And (almost) to Lose the Name of my Family, by it, in Exchange for That of the Observator. 41y. I had This Prospect before me too. What Construction would be made upon't; (If I may speak it with Modesty) even to the Lessening of my Character; And Consequently, to my Detriment, Every way, as well in Respect of Fortune, as Esteem: For men are apt, in such Cases as This, to Mistake, the Intent, as well as the Reason of the Office; and to Impute the most Sacred, and Consciencious Zeal of an Upright Heart, in the performance of the most Important, and Necessary Duty, only to a Levity of Mind, perchance; Or in Other Terms; to an Over Officious, and Pragmatical Itch of Medling: It makes a man to be lookt upon, as if a Pamphlet were his Masterpiece; and when he's once Nail'd to That Post, he may reckon upon't, that he's at the Top of his Preferment. Upon These Four Difficulties, I Reason'd with my self, after This Manner. To the First; What do I care, for having so much Dirt Thrown at me, that will Wash off again? And at the worst, the Engaging with such a Rabble of Contaminated Varlets, is no more then Leaping into the Mud to help my Father. Secondly. 'Tis not for a man in years, to do so and so. Well! And here's a Reputative Circumstance, on the One hand, against an Indispensable Duty, on the Other. The Common people are Poyson'd, and will run Stark Mad, if they be not Cur'd: Offer them Reason, without Fooling, and it will never Down with them: And give them Fooling, without Argument, they're never the Better for't. Let 'em Alone, and All's Lost. So that the Mixture is become as Necessary, as the Office; And it has been My Part, only to Season the One with the Other. Thirdly, I must Set the Conscience of the Action, against the Reproch. And Lastly; 'Tis nothing to me what Other People Think, so long as I am Conscious to my Self that I Do what I Ought.

All This I Computed upon, before-hand; And thus far, I have not been Deceiv'd in my Account. I have been Baited with Thousands upon Thousands of Libells. I have Created Enemies that do me the Honour to Hate me, perhaps, next to the King Himself (God Bless him) and the Royal Family. Their Scandals are Blown over: Their Malice, Defeated, And whenever my Hour comes, I am ready to Deliver up my Soul, with the Conscience of an Honest Man, as to what I have done, in This Particular: And I do here Declare, in the Presence of an All-Seeing, and an All-Knowing God, That as I have never yet receiv'd any Answer, more then Cavil, and Shuffling, to the Doctrine, and Reasoning of These Papers: So I never made use of Any Sophism, or Double Meaning, in Defence of the Cause that I have here taken upon me to Assert: But have dealt Plainly, and Above-Bord, without either Fallacy, or Collusion.

After This View of the Worst side of my Case; (And (in truth) a kind of Abstract of it, in Minutes) I should be Extremely wanting, both to God and Man, in not taking This Occasion, of making known to the world, the Many Generous Instances of Affection, and Respect, which I have received, not only from the most Considerable Part of his Majesties Loyal Subjects of All Qualities, and Degrees; But Particularly from the Two Famous Universities Themselves: And, in short, from the most Eminent Persons of the Long Robe, in their Several Professions: In Testimony of their Favourable Acceptance of my Honest Endeavours toward the Service, both of the Church, & the State. And This I am Obliged to leave behind me, upon Record; out of a Double Right, & Regard, as well to my Friends, as to my Self: For I reckon upon it, as an Accumulation of Honour, to Me, to be Rescu'd out of the hands of Publique Enemies, and Apostates, by Men of the Clear Contrary Character; That is to say; by Men of Unquestionable Integrity, and of Unspotted Faith.

My Back Friends are as Merry, now, as a Laugh on One side of the Mouth can Make 'em; at the Conceit of calling the several Presents which have been made me (and they are very Considerable) by the name of a Gathering; and they do not Stick to put it about, That I was my Own Sollicitor for the Begging of it. I have been Told of One, that said as much; for whose sake, I would Advise All Parents to take it for a Warning, not to Stuff their Childrens Heads so Damnably, with Greek and Latin, as to leave no Room for Brains, and Good Manners. But what if it be a Gathering? Are not All Publique Benevolences; Publique Works; Publique Acknowledgments; the same Thing? Neither do I find any more Scandal, in receiving a Reward for a Service in a Common Cause, then in a Lawyers taking a Fee, in a Private One: But be it what it will: I shall Transmit the Acknowledgment of it, with This Paper, as the Glory of my Life: And Value my self Incomparably more upon so Eminent a Mark of a General Esteem; then upon the Advantage of Ten times a Greater Sum, by Any Other way. But Gatherings, with some People, are only Honourable, when they are Apply'd to the Maintaining of Conspirators, and Affidavit-Men: And they Account Money much better Bestow'd upon the Subversion of the Government, then toward the Defending of it: But That Orange is Squeez'd as far as 'twill Drop, already.

Now to the Calumny of My Setting This Bus'ness afoot; First, I thank God, that neither my Mind, nor my Condition were ever Sunk so Low, yet, as to Descend to That way of Application. 21y, As I hope to be Sav'd, the Matter was Proceeded upon, in Several Places, and a Long Time, before ever I had the Least Inkling, or Imagination of it; And when it was so far Advanc'd, without my Privity, I must Certainly have been both a Great Fool, and a Great Clown, either to have Oppos'd, or Refus'd, a Token of so Obliging, and so Generous a Respect. To Conclude; If any man has been so Misled, as to Intend That for a Personal Charity; which I cannot Honourably Own the Receiving of, under That Notion; I am ready to Return him his Proportion, with a Thousand Acknowledgments: But This shall not Hinder me yet, from Cherishing in my Thoughts, the Remembrance of what Honour soever has been done me for the sake of the Publique.

The Reflexions that have been Pass'd upon my Quality, and Conversation, need no Further Answer, then to Appeal to my very Name, and my Acquaintance: But for the Charge of being a Papist, it is as False, as it is Malicious.

I am to say One Word more now, concerning my L. Shaftsbury; whose Name, and Title, I have often Occasion to make mention of, in This Book. The Reader is to take Notice, that it is Intended of the Late Earl of Shaftsbury, who Dy'd at Amsterdam, Jan. 168-2/3. The Surviving Heir of That Honour, and Family, having ever Demean'd himself with a Remarkable Loyalty, and Respect, toward the King, and his Government.

Numb. 1.

THE
OBSERVATOR.

In QUESTION and ANSWER.

WEDNESDAY, April 13. 1681.

Q. WEll! They are so. But do you think now to bring'um to their Wits again with a Pamphlet?

A. Come, Come; 'Tis the Press that has made'um Mad, and the Press must set'um Right again. The Distemper is Epidemical; and there's no way in the world, but by Printing, to convey the Remedy to the Disease.

Q. But what is it that you call a Remedy?

A. The Removing of the Cause. That is to say, the Undeceiving of the People: for they are well enough Disposed, of themselves, to be Orderly, and Obedient; if they were not misled by Ill Principles, and Hair'd and Juggled out of their Senses with so many Frightful Stories and Impostures.

Q. Well! to be Plain and Short; You call your self the Observator: What is it now that you intend for the Subject of your Observations?

A. Take it in few words then. My business is, to encounter the Faction, and to Vindicate the Government; to detect their Forgeries; to lay open the Rankness of their Calumnies, and Malice; to Refute their Seditious Doctrines; to expose their Hypocrisy, and the bloudy Design that is carry'd on, under the Name, and Semblance, of Religion; And, in short, to lift up the Cloke of the True Protestant (as he Christens himself) and to shew the People, the Jesuite that lies skulking under it.

Q. Shall the Observator be a Weekly Paper, or How?

A. No, No; but oftner, or seldomer, as I see Occasion.

Q. Pray favour me a word; When you speak of a True Protestant, don't you mean a Dissenting Protestant?

A. Yes, I do: For your Assenting and Consenting Protestant (you must know) is a Christian.

Q. And is not a Dissenting Protestant a Christian too?

A. Peradventure, he is one; peradventure, not: For a Dissenter has his Name from his Disagreement, not from his Perswasion.

Q. What is a Dissenter then?

A. Tis Impossible to say either what a Dissenter IS, or what he is NOT. For he's a NOTHING; that may yet come to be ANY thing. He may be a Christian; or he may be a Turk; But you'l find the best account of him in his Name. A DISSENTER, is one that thinks OTHERWISE. That is to say, let the Magistrate think what he pleases, the Dissenter will be sure to be of another Opinion. A Dissenter is not of This, or of That, or of Any Religion; but A Member Politique of an Incorporate Faction: or Otherwise; A Protestant-Fault-Finder in a Christian Commonwealth.

Q. Well! but tho' a Dissenter may be any thing; A Dissenting Protestant yet tells ye what he Is.

A. He does so, he tells ye that he is a Negative: an Anti-Protester; One that Protests AGAINST, but not FOR any thing.

Q. Ay; but so long as he opposes the Corruptions of the Church of Rome.

A. Well: And so he does the Rites, and Constitutions of the Church of England too. As a Protestant, he does the former; and the Other as a Dissenter.

Q. But is there no Uniting of These Dissenters?

A. You shall as soon make the Winds blow the same way, from all the Poynts of the Compass.

Q. There are Good and Bad, of all Opinions, there's no doubt on't: But do you think it fayr, to Condemn a whole Party for some Ill men in't?

A. No, by no means: The Party is neither the Worse, for having Ill men in it, nor the Better, for Good. For whatever the Members are, the Party is a Confederacy; as being a Combination, against the Law.

Q. But a man may Mean honestly, and yet perhaps ly under some Mistake. Can any man help his Opinion?

A. A man may Mean well, and Do Ill; he may shed Innocent Bloud, and think he does God good Service. 'Tis True: A man cannot help Thinking; but he may help Doing: He is Excusable for a Private Mistake, for That's an Error only to himself; but when it comes once to an Overt Act, 'tis an Usurpation upon the Magistrate, and there's no Plea for't.

Q. You have no kindnesse, I perceive, for a Dissenting Protestant; but what do you think of a bare Protestant without any Adjunct?

A. I do look upon Such a Protestant to be a kind of an Adjective Noun-Substantive; It requires something to be joyn'd with it, to shew its Signification. By Protestancy in General is commonly understood a Separation of Christians from the Communion of the Church of Rome: But to Oppose Errors, on the One hand, is not Sufficient, without keeping our selves Clear of Corruptions, on the Other. Now it was the Reformation, not the Protestation, that Settled us upon a true Medium betwixt the two Extreams.

Q. So that you look upon the Protestation, and the Reformation, it seems, as two several things.

A. Very right; But in such a manner only, that the Former, by Gods Providence, made way for the Other.

Q. But are not all Protestants Members of the Reformed Religion?

A. Take notice, First, that the Name came Originally from the Protestation in 1529. against the Decree of Spires; and that the Lutheran Protestants and Ours of the Church of England, are not of the Sam Communion. Now Secondly; If you take Protestants in the Latitude with our Dissenters, they are not so much a Religion, as a Party; and whoever takes this Body of Dissenters for Members of the Reformed Religion sets up a Reformation of a hundred and fifty Colours and as may [sic] Heresies. The Anabaptists, Brownists, Antinomians, Familists, &c. do all of them set up for Dissenting Protestants; but God forbid we should ever enter these People upon the Roll of the Reformation.

Q. Well! but what do you think of Protestant Smith and Protestant Harris?

A. Just as I do of Protestant Muncer, and Protestant Phifer; a Brace of Protestants that cost the Empire 150000 Lives: and our own Pretended Protestants too, of Later Date, have cost This Nation little lesse.

Q. Ay: But these are men of quite another Temper: Do not you see how zealous they are for the Preservation of the King's Person, the Government, and the Protestant Religion?

A. I See well enough what they Say, and I know what they do. Consider, First, that they are Profess'd Anabaptists: Smith no less then a pretended Prophet; and the Other, a kind of a Wet Enthusiast. Secondly; 'tis the very Doctrine of the Sect to root out Magistracy, Cancel Humane Laws; Kill, and take Possession; and wash their Feet with the Bloud of the Ungodly; and where ever they have set Footing, they have Practic'd what they Taught. Are not these likely men now, to help out a King, and a Religion, at a dead lift? If you would be further satisfy'd in the Truth of things, reade Sleidan, Spanhemius, Gastius, Hortensius, Bullinger, Pontanus, The Dipper dipp'd, Bayly's Disswasive, Pagets Heresiography, &c. Hortensius tells ye, how Jack of Leydens Successor murthered his Wife, to make way to his Daughter, P. 74. and after that, cut a girls throat, for fear she should tell Tales. Gastius tells us of a Fellow that cut off his brothers Head, as by Impulse, and then cry'd, The Will of God is fulfilled, lib. I. Pa. 12. Jack of Leyden started up from Supper, to do some business (he said) which the Father had commanded him, and cut off a Soldiers Head; and afterwards cut off his Wives head in the Market-place. Sleydans Comment. Lib. 10.

Q. You will not make the Protestant-Mercury to be an Anabaptist too, will ye?

A. If you do make him any thing, I'le make him That. But in one word, they are Factious and Necessitous; and consequently, the fittest Instruments in the world, for the Promoting of a Sedition. First, as they are Principled for't; and then, in respect of their Condition; for they are every man of them under the Lash of the Law, and Retainers to Prisons; So that in their Fortunes they can hardly be worse. Insomuch, that it is a common thing for them to lend a Name to the countenancing of a Libel which no body else dares own.

Q. Well! but let them be as poor, and malicious as Devils, so long as they have neither Brains, nor Interest, what hurt can their Papers do?

A. The Intelligences, you must know, that bear their Names, are not of their Composing, but the Dictates of a Faction, and the Venom of a Club of Common-wealths-men instill'd into those Papers.

Q. These are Words, all this while, without Proofs; Can you shew us particularly where the Venom lies?

A. It is the business of every Sheet they Publish, to Affront the Government, the Kings Authority, and Administration; the Privy-Council; the Church, Bench, Juries, Witnesses; All Officers, Ecclesiastical, Military, and Civil: and no matter for Truth or Honesty, when a Forg'd Relation will serve their turn. 'Tis a common thing with them, to get half a dozen Schismaticall Hands to a Petition, or Address in a corner, and then call it, the sense of the Nation: and when all's done, they are not above twenty Persons, that make all this Clutter in the Kingdom.

Q. But to what End do they all this?

A. To make the Government Odious, and Contemptible; to magnifie their own Party; and fright the People out of their Allegeance, by Counterfeit Letters, Reports, and false Musters, as if the sober and considerable part of the Nation were all on their side.

Q. We are in Common Charity to allow, for Errors, and Mis-reports, and not presently to make an Act of Malice, and Design, out of every Mistake. Can you shew me any of these Counterfeits, and Impostures that you speak of? These Cheats upon the People, and Affronts upon the Government?

A. Yes, yes; Abundantly. And Il'e give you Instances immediately upon every poynt you'l ask me: Only This note, by the way; That let them be mistakes, or Contrivances, or what you will, they all run Unanimously against the Government, without so much as one Syllable in favour of it: Which makes the matter desperately suspitious.

Q. Let me see then, in the First place, where any Affront is put upon the Government.

A. Some Persons (Says Smiths Prot. Int. N. 7.) in Norwich, &c. who have a greater stock of Confidence, and Malice, then Wisdom, and Honesty, are so far transported with Zeal to serve the Devil, or his Emissaryes the Papists, that they are now Prosecuting several Dissenting Protestants upon Stat. 35. Eliz. &c. (And so the Protestant-Mercury, N. 15.) Some People at Norwich, are playing the Devil for Godsake: several honest, peaceable, Protestant Dissenters, having been troubled for not coming to Church, or having been Present at Religious Meetings &c. Now what greater Affront can there be to Government, then This language, First, from an Anabaptist that is a Professed Enemy to all Government; and Secondly, from a Private Person, Bare-fac'd, to arraign a Solemn Law: A Law of this Antiquity; a Law of Queen Elizabeth's, (a Princesse so much Celebrated by our Dissenters themselves for her Piety, Good Government, and Moderation;) a Law which, upon Experience, has been found so Necessary, that the bare Relaxing of it, cost the Life of a Prince, the Bloud of two or three hundred thousand of his Subjects, and a Twenty-years-Rebellion? To say nothing of the dangerous Consequence of making it Unsafe for Magistrates to discharge their Dutyes, for fear of Outrages, and Libells.

Q. Well! but what have you to say now to the Kings Authority, his Administration, and his Privy Council.

A. Smith (in his Vox Populi, P. 13.) saith, that the King is oblig'd to pass or Confirm those Laws his People shall Chuse, at which rate, if they shall tender him a Bill for the Deposing of himself, he is bound to agree to't. Secondly, in the same Page, he Denies the Kings Power of Proroguing, or Dissolving Parliaments; which is an Essential of Government it self, under what Form soever, and he's no longer a King, without it. And then for his Administration, P. 1. the Anabaptist charges upon his Majesty [those many surprizing and astonishing Prorogations, and Dissolutions (as he has worded his Meaning) to be procur'd by the Papists.] And then, P. 15. he wounds both the King, and his Council, at a Blow; in falling upon those that make the King break his Coronation-Oath; arraigning his Council in the First place, and the King himself in the Second; and that for no less then the breach of Oath, and Faith.——Wee'l talk out the Rest at our next Meeting.

London, Printed for H. Brome, at the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard.

Numb. 13.

THE
OBSERVATOR.

In QUESTION and ANSWER.

SATURDAY, May 14. 1681.

Q. But which way lies your Humour then?

A. My way (you must know) lies more to History, and Books, and Politicks, and Religion, and such as That, But take this along with you too; that I am for turning over of Men, as well as Books; for that's the Profitable Study when all's done.

Q. Pre' thee commend me to the Common Hangman then, If He that turns over the most men be the Greatest Philosopher. But how turning over of Men?

A. That is to say, I Read Them; I Study them; I speak of turning over their Actions, not their Bodys. And Pray observe my Simile. Every Action of a mans Life resembles a Page in a Book. D'ye Mark me?

Q. I were to Blame else, But what are the Authors that you would recommend to a bodys Reading?

A. Why thereafter as the Subject is, As for History; ye have Clarks Lives, and Examples; Lloyd's Memoirs; the Popes Warehouse, &c. For Politicks; There's Mr. Baxters Holy Commonwealth, the Assemblys Catechism, The Letter about the Black Box, &c. For Law, ye have Mr. Prinn's Soveraign Power of Parliaments; Smiths Vox Populi, &c. For Morals, There's Youth's Behaviour; And then For Deep Knowledge, ye have Brightman's Revelations Reveal'd; Lilly's Hieroglyphicks; the Northern Star, Jones of the Heart: All Excellent Pieces in their kinds, and not Inferior (perhaps) to any of the Ancients.

Q. I was never so happy as to meet with any of these Authors. But what d'ye think of Cornelius Tacitus?

A. A Talking, Tedious, Empty Fellow.

Q. Well but is not Titus Livius a pretty Good Historian?

A. Ha Ha Ha. That Same Titus is an Errant Puppy, A Damn'd, Insipid, Lying Coxcomb. Titus Livius a good Historian sayst thou? Why if I had a Schoolboy that writ such Latin I'de tickle his Toby for him.

Q. But what's your Opinion of Caesars Commentaries then? I mean, for a Narrative?

A. A Narrative d'ye say? Deliver me from such Narratives! Why 'tis no more to be compar'd to the Narratives that are written now adays, then an Apple is to an Oyster.

Q. But however He was a very Brave Fellow, was he not?

A. He was an Arbitrary, Oppressing, Tyrannical Fellow. And then for his Bravery, he did pretty well at the Battel of Leipsick, and after that, at Lepanto; and when you have said that, you have said all.

Q. You have read all these Authors, have you not?

A. Why verily I have, and I have not. They are a company of Lying, Ridiculing Rascals; They do not AFFECT me at all: they are below me, they are not worth my notice.

Q. What would I give to be as well vers'd in History, as you are?

A. And that's Impossible, let me tell ye; Utterly Impossible: For I reade just six times as much as any other Man. I have Read more Folio's then ever Tostatus read Pages. In one Word; I reade as much in one hour, as any other man reads in six.

Q. Why how can that be?

A. Why you must know I have a notable Faculty that way. I read ye two Pages at a view: the Right-hand Page with one eye, and the Left with t'other, and then I carry three Lines before me at a time with each eye.

Q. But can ye Keep what ye Reade, at this rate?

A. I remember six times more then I reade; for I supply all that was left out, and yet 'tis a wonderfull thing, I cannot for my heart's blood remember Faces. I dare swear I have taken one man for another twenty times; but I am altogether for Things, and Notions, d'ye see, and such like; Countenances, let me tell ye, don't AFFECT me; And yet I have a strange aversion for the two Faces I saw with you t'other day.

Q. What D'ye mean, Kings-man and Church-man?

A. Devil's-man and Damms-man: A couple of Canary-Birds, I'le warrant 'em: But Kings-man is better yet then Duke's-man.

Q. Why do ye talk thus of men of Quality, and Considerable Families?

A. Well! but I may live to see their Honours laid in the dust tho' for all that. Prethee why is not Circingle-man, Lawn-sleeve-man, Mitre-man, as good a name as Church-man? Pray what Family is this same Church-man of, for I know a world of the Name? He's of the Prelatical House, I suppose, Is he not?

Q. Well, and is he ever the worse for that?

A. Only Antichrist is the Head of the Family. Come let me talk a little roundly to ye. How many sound Protestant Divines may there be of that House now, d'ye think, in England, and Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed? not above Six, if I be a Christian, and all the rest are Tantivy's, and worshippers of the Beast: But I may live yet to have the scowring of some of their Frocks for 'em.

Q. Prethee when didst thou see Mr. Sancroft?

A. Not a good while; but Harry and I had a Crash t'other day yonder at Greenwich.

Q. What's become of L'Estrange I wonder?

A. Who! Towzer? that Impudent Dog; That Tory-Rascal; That Fidling Curr. He's in the Plot with Celiers, and young Tong, as sure as thou'rt alive, and as Rank a Papist (let him swear what he will) as ever Piss't.

Q. But has he not taken the Sacrament to the contrary?

A. A Popish Proselyte is no more to be believ'd, upon his Oath, than the Devil himself if he were to Expound upon the Gospel. Why they have Dispensations to swear any thing.

Q. What and continue Papists still?

A. Yes: And go on still with the Hellish Popish Plot, as heartily as ever they did before. Why don't you see how the Toad Brazens it out still that he was not at Somerset-House? tho' Prance and Mowbray swear they saw him there?

Q. Well, But who knows best? He Himself, or the Witnesses?

A. Not a fart matter; For whether 'twas so or not; It were better Forty such Rogues were Hang'd then one Kings-Evidence Disparag'd.

Q. But did they not swear a little short, think ye?

A. Nay, they might have sworn homer, I must confess.

Q. But now you mind me of Somerset-House; Do'nt you remember a young Fellow of Cambridge that Refus'd to receive the Sacrament, because (as he told his Master) he was reconcil'd to the Church, of Rome, and Converted, and Baptiz'd at Somerset-House? This is an old story ye must know. Why might not this be Towzer?

A. Nay as like as not, for the Universitys are the very Seminarys of Popery, and it will never be well with England till those Calves be turn'd a grazing.

Q. But is there no believing of a Converted Papist upon his Oath? Why does the Law receive 'em then (upon such and such Certain Tests) for statutable Protestants?

A. The Law never was among 'em as I have been. There's no such thing (I tell ye) as a Converted Papist, and he shall sooner change his shape, then his Nature: Kiss a Book, Kiss mine Arse.

Q. Why d'ye talk thus at random?

A. Come, come, the Outlandish Doctor for my mony: that told one of the Macks t'other day in the face of the Bench, that he would let down his Breeches and shite upon him. Plain-dealing's a Jewell.

Q. Thou'rt e'en as busy with a Backside as a Glyster-Pipe. But (sluttery a part) Pray have a care what ye say; for if a Proselyted Papist be not to be trusted upon his Oath, what becomes of the Kings Evidence that swear under the same Circumstances? But here's enough of this; and Pre'thee tell us now, how go squares in the State all this while?

A. Oh very bad, very bad, nothing but Tory-Rorys, from top to bottom. Tory-Judges; Tory-Jurys; Tory-Justices; Tory-Officers; Tory-Crackfarts; Tory-Pamphlets. All, Certiorari-men, and Yorkists. But I rattled up some of 'em there at the——What d'ye call't-House——Oh they'r grown strangely Insolent since these Bawling Addresses.

Q. Why what do they do?

A. Why they set every Rascally Squire and Doctor above me: Nay, they'l scarce put off their hats to me unless I begin; and then they stand grinning at Me and my Train. Would you think now that a fellow should have the Impudence to call Me to an account, for nothing in the world, but saying, that he had a Bitch to his Wife, and she a Rogue to her Husband. And then to be call'd Sirrah for my pains, only for telling a Court-Kinsman of his that I should Lace the Rogue, his Cozens Coat for him. Well If I had not sent a Fool o'my errant I had had the Rascal in Lob's Pound before this time.

Q. And how came ye to miss?

A. Why the Agent that I employ'd was so set upon his Guts, that he never minded the discourse at the Table. We had had him else. Or if he could but have got him to ha' met me, we'd ha' done his business.

Q. But d'ye take this to be fair dealing now; to set any man at work to betray his Host; or to give such language to people of Condition?

A. What not when the Protestant Religion lies at stake? Why Pre'thee I tell the Proudest of 'em all to their Teeth, that they are Villains and Scoundrells. What do I care for their Graces and Reverences, they Pimp for Preferment, and some of 'em shall hear on't too next Parliament. But Hark ye I have a great deal of work upon my hands, and I want an Ammanuensis out of all Cry.

Q. Why ye had a Pretty Fellow to'ther day, what's become of him?

A. I'l tell ye then. A Taylor had made him a Garment: and afterwards coming to him for the mony, he deny'd the Receit on't and being prest upon it, he offer'd to purge himself upon Oath, that he never had any such Garment. Upon this, the matter rested for a while; but at length, it was prov'd where he had Sold it, and so the Taylor had satisfaction. In short, I turn'd him away apon't, for he is no servant for me that's taken in a false Oath.

Q. How is it possible for you to go thorough with all your Writing-work?

A. Nay that's true; considering what a deal of other business I have; for really there would be no Justice done, if I did not look after Witnesses, Jurys, Choice of City-Officers, Election of Members to serve in Parliament, both for Town, and Country; the disposing of Ecclesiastical Dignitys; the Jurisdiction of Courts; the Government of Prisons; the Regulation of Messengers Fees: In one word, the stress of the whole Government lyes in a manner upon my shoulders; And I am so Harrass'd with it, that I profess I was e'en thinking, a little before the Meeting of the last Parliament, to lay out a matter of Twenty or Thirty Thousand Pound upon some Pretty Seat in the Country, and Retire.

Q. Why truly for a man that has seen the world as you have done, what can he do better?

A. Yes, I have seen the world to my Cost. 'Twas a sad thing for me, you must think, that never went to bed in my Mothers House without four or five Servants to wait upon me, (and if I had a mind to a Tart, a Custard, or a Cheescake at any time, I had 'em all at command:) to be Hackny'd, and Jolted up and down in a Forreign Country like a Common Body.

Q. But what was it that put you upon Travel?

A. The Desire I had to see Religions, and Fashions: And now it comes in my head. Did you ever see my Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy?

Q. Was That Yours then?

A. Mum; betwixt friends. But I shall have a touch ere long at the Creed-making Rascal there.

Q. Who's that? Athanasius?

A. The very same. What a Declaration is there?

Q. But how d'ye like the Kings Declaration?

A. Not at all. Not at all. It runs so much upon the Arbitrary, and the Prelatick? Yes, and upon something else too.

Q. Come, 'Faith we should not part with dry lips, What d'ye think of one Roomer now to the Health of? (Hark, and I'le tell ye.)

A. I'le drink no Traitors Health.

Q. Why prethee what is Civilly-Drinking his Health, more then Dutifully Praying for't?

A. No: I am of the mans mind that said, I hope the Devil will have him; and if there be any punishment in Hell greater then another, I hope the Devil will tear his soul to pieces. So Farewell.

Q. What a Blessed sort of Subjects and Christians are these, that value themselves in the One Capacity, for their Contempt of Authority: And in the other, for the Zeal of Flying out into Blasphemys, and Execrations, instead of Prayers? But what shall I call this at last? A Romantique, or an Historical Observator?

London, Printed for Johanna Brome, at the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard.

Numb. 110

THE
OBSERVATOR.

In DIALOGUE.

SATURDAY, March 11. 1681.

WHIG. Come; I'le shew ye my study, Tory.

TORY. Why you have got a Brave Library here.

Wh. For a Choice Collection, let me tell ye, as any is in Christendom.

To. You have all the Greek and Latin Fathers, I suppose; the Councells, the Schoolmen, and those People.

Wh. I had'em all; but there's a great deal of Trash; and so I e'en rid my hands of'em; though some of'em did pretty well too; considering those Dark Times. Now here can I sit as Snug as a Hare in her Form, and Chat away a Winters Evening with a Good Fire, a Pipe, and a Friend, and never feel how the time spends.

To. Well! And why should not You and I keep our Conferences here too?

Wh. Best of all: There's no body within hearing; and then we have our Books and Papers about us, and all in such Order, that I'le lay my Finger, Blindfold, upon any book you'le call for.

To. But what Subject are they mostly of?

Wh. Matters of State, History, Travells, The Rights and Power of the People, Reformation, Religion, Discipline, Admonitions, Remonstrances, Petitions, Appeals; as ye see'em mark'd upon the Shelves. But all this is nothing, you'l say, when y'ave seen my Gallery. Open that same Door before ye.

To. Bless me! What a Treasure's here?

Wh. Look ye now. That side is all News-Books, and Political Divinity.

To. You mean Polemical Divinity I suppose.

Wh. Ay Ay; 'Tis all one for that. Now all to'ther side is Dissenting Protestants; as Cartwright, Brown, Barrow, Robinson, Hetherington, Trask, Naylor, Best, Biddle, Muggleton. And here are your Muncerians, Apostoliques, Separatists, Catharists, Enthusiasts, Adamits, Huttites, Augustinians, Libertines, Georgites, Familists, Ranters Seekers, Sweet-Singers, Antinomians, Arrians, Socinians, Millenaryes, Quakers: And in Two words; all the Godly Party. They make Fourteen Folio's of Catalogue.

To. But ha'ye no Manuscripts?

Wh. Yes I have Three cases there beyond the Chimny, that I wou'd not change for Bodlies Library three times over.

To. What do they treat of?

Wh. Two of 'em are altogether upon the Art of Government, and the Third is Cramm'd with Lampoon and Satyr. You sha'not name me any one Copy that has scap'd me; nor any Exigent of State; but I'le furnish ye out of these Papers with an Expedient for't.

To. And wherein does this Art of Government Consist?

Wh. In Foresight, Experience, Presence of Thought, Prudence of Direction, and Vigour of Execution. To be short; Every Motion of the Head, the Eye, the Hand, the Foot, the Body. Contributes a part to this Great Work.

To. Is it a Science that may be Convey'd by Instruction?

Wh. With as much Ease as Fencing, or Dancing. There are Three or Four Dissenting Academies here about the Town, where People are taught to Nod, Wink, Gape, Cough, Spit; Nay the very Tuning of their Hum's and Haw's, by Rule and Method; when to Smite the Breast, and when to Dust the Cushion; when to Leap in the Pulpit, and when to Swim; when to be Serene, and when to Thunder: Nay the Faces they are to make at every Period; and the very Measure of their pauses; that the Parenthesis may be large enough for the Groans, & Ejaculations of the Secret ones to Play in; they are taught to Pray for the King with One Tone and Countenance, and for the Parliament with another.

To. I have Observ'd them indeed to Cry with a Loud Voice, Lord! strengthen the Hands of the One, & then to drop the Note into a kinde of a Piping whisper, with a Lord! Turn the Heart of the Other; which is as much as to say, Alas! the Poor Gentleman is out of his way, and we must set all hands at work to bring him to comply with his Parliament, though that Handy work, at last, bring his Royall Head to the Scaffold.

Wh. If you wou'd not be a Rogue now and tell tales, I could let ye in to the whole Popular Mystery; and shew ye the Folly, and the Vanity of any other Claim to Sovereign Power. And then I have all the Prints brought me as soon as ever they come out.

To. Pre'thee let's fall to work then.

Wh. Come, I'le give you a sight of one of my Boxes first; but I must be gone in a quarter of an hour upon absolute Necessity.

To. Well! And whether in such hast?

Wh. There's One at Newington has promis'd me an Answer to the Dissenters Sayings; and then I am told of a Godly Divine at Clapham, that has a Reply ready to the Notes upon College.

To. Let's make the best of our time then. Stay a little; what have we here?

Wh. Every thing is Titled, ye see, ready to your hand; so that you may Pick and Chuse.

To. Let me see then. Pious Frauds; Mentall Reservations; Infallibility of the Assembly; Baxters Saints; Cases of Conscience; Dispensations, Contributions, Maxims, Intelligence, Orders, Committees, Juryes, Caballs, Religion, Property, Demands, Proposals, Grievances, Pretences, Salvo's, Distinctions, Explanations, Projects, Directions, Advices, Resolutions, Invectives, Fictions, Forms of Reproaches, suited to All Persons, Orders, and Qualities; True-Protestant Privileges; The Doctrine of Probabilityes, and Implicit Obedience.

Wh. Now upon all these Heads, ye have Authoritys, Precedents; and all the Colours, Arguments, and Elucidations that the matter will bear.

To. But your Pious Frauds, Mentall Reservations, Infallibility, Dispensations, Salvo's, Distinctions, Probabilityes, Implicit Faith; These are all Popish Points.

Wh. They are so, when they are apply'd to the service of the Church of Rome: but the True Protestant-Cause Sanctifies the Principle. As there's a great difference betwixt the Popes Excommunicating of an Hereticall Prince; and the Generall Assemblys Excommunicating of an Antichristian, Episcopall Prince; betwixt a Popish Gunpowder-Treason, in the Cellers, under the Parliament-House; and a Gunpowder Commission to Kill and Slay within the walls of the Same House, above ground; though to Carnal Eyes they may both appear to Center in the same Point: And so in like manner, betwixt a Conspiracy of Papists to cut off the King, and Subvert the Government; and a True-Protestant-Association, to the very same Effect: Nay with this Advantage too; that the Latter Propounds the Accomplishing of that, in a matter of a month or six weeks, which the Zeal of their Fore-fathers was at least Ten, or a dozen years a doing.

To. 'Tis a Great Ease for a man to have all these Subjects Common-Plac'd to his hand.

Wh. Right. And where you may turn to any thing you have a mind to see, with a wet Finger.

To. But Pray'e How do you approve (in many of our Seisures) of the Application of Popish Trinkets to Prophane Uses, which were by them Dedicated to the service of a Superstitious Religion?

Wh. You cannot Imagine, though an Embroder'd Cope may be an Abomination, what a Cordial the Pearl of it is to a True-Protestant Professor. Lambs-Wool drinks no way better then out of a Chalice. Or in other Cases; 'Tis but Destroying the Popish Form of an Idolatrous Vessell, and the Intrinsick Value is never the less Current according to the Standard of the Reformation. The Picture of the Blessed Virgin, with our Saviour in her Arms, is never a jot the worse for sale to a Painter, for being an object of Idolatry about the Altar.

To. And yet I have seen it Committed to the Flames, but it has been an Oversight, betwixt the Zeal and the Ignorance of the Magistrate. How many Curious Crucifixes, and Reliques, with Delicate Inlayings, and Carvings have I seen Expos'd at Gill the Constables in Westminster; truly, at very Reasonable Rates?

Wh. Not unlikely; but then ye must know, they were Seiz'd in One Capacity, and sold in Another; for they were vended in the Contemplation of the Workmanship, though they were taken as the Fooleries of a False Religion. We have in our days seen the Representation of the Trinity, Demolish'd in a Church-Window, with Extraordinary Zeal and Approbation.

To. Why truly I am as much against the making of any Image or Figure of God the Father under the Form of a Man, as any body; for Twenty Mistakes and Inconveniencies that may arise upon the Consideration of such an Object; but I know no hurt in the world in the Representing of our Saviour under a Human shape; or of the Holy Ghost under the shadow of a Dove: beside that the thing is presum'd to have been done by Authority; for otherwise, the same Zeal that Destroys but the Window of the Church, would not stick at the Destroying perhaps of every thing else that belongs to't. But prethee tell me One thing, suppose the Blessed Trinity, so Represented, should be the Seal of an Ancient Community, or Society of men, what's the difference betwixt that Figure, in Graving, or in Nealing; in Silver, or in Glass? Would not you as much scruple the putting of that Seal to a Lease, as the seeing of that Figure in a Church-Window?

Wh. No; by no means; for the One is Purely a Civil Act; and the Other has a Regard to Religious Worship.

To. And yet this Image, or Pretended Resemblance, is the same thing in the One, as it is in the Other. Well! I am Extremly pleas'd with this Private Corner for Liberty of Discourse.

Wh. Here you may have all the Papers as they come out, Fresh and Fresh: All the Arguments, and Politiques of the Dissenting Party; Chuse your own Theme, Take your own Time, and Treat upon your own Conditions.

To. That's as fair as any Mortall can wish; So that when the day does not afford other matter to work upon, we may Look a little more narrowly into the Merits of the Cause. And so much for that. But here let me ask ye a Question: Do you know a Little Cause-Jobber yonder somewhere about Kings-street, in Covent Garden?

Wh. Does he not use the Christian Coffee-House?

To. The very same. He was saying t'other day that L'Estrange was a Pensioner of Cromwels; a Papist; and that he durst not bring his Action against any man for Calling him so: That he was a Rogue; a Fidler; Liv'd in Covent-Garden a good while, and got his Living by his Trade; And that a Magistrate, not far from that place, would Justify it. The Two first Points, I suppose, will be Disputed in another place: And for the Fidler: 'Tis well known that L'Estrange liv'd Eight or Nine years in one of the Piazza-Houses there; and kept Servants that would have Scorn'd to have Sorted themselves with any thing so mean as this Paltry Varlet. But to the Business. How far will the Privilege of a True-Protestant-Whig Justify a Villain in so many Scandalous Lyes?

Wh. So far as the Common Good of the Cause is more Valuable then the single Credit of a Private Person. But what say ye now to Curtis's Advertisement (in his Last Mercury) of Tong's Narrative, and Case; concerning L'Estrange, Printed for C W?

To. I say, 'tis first, a Cheat; for 'tis none of Tong's Writing; 2ly, 'Tis Another Cheat; for 'twas Printed for Langley Curtis, with his Name to Tongs Appointment for the Printing of it: Only he has Fobb'd a New, and a False Title-Page to't. But what says Mr. Oates, all this while, to L'Estranges Enformation against Tonge, in the Shammer Shamm'd? where that young Fellow has the Impudence to declare under his hand, the very Foundation of Oates's Plot to be a Cheat: And I appeal to all Good Protestants for Justice upon that Scandalous Wretch.

Wh. Nay, 'tis a horrible Abuse, and really the man stands in's own light: What was't? 500 or a 1000 Pound that he recover'd of One that did not say the Hundredth part of what this comes to? The Lord Deliver me! I knew the Time when 'twas half a Hanging-matter to have made the least doubt of any Branch of the Hellish Plot: But for this Audacious Fool to say in Expresse Terms, that [the Four Jesuites Letters, wherein Oates pretended was the whole Discovery, were Counterfeits] is utterly Intolerable. I'le e'en go my ways immediately, and talk with the Doctor about it.

London, Printed for Joanna Brome, at the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard.

Vol. 3. Numb. 88

THE
OBSERVATOR,

A Schism a Greater Judgment then a Pestilence. The Natural Rhetorique of the Non-Cons. The Danger of them. Several Sorts and Degrees of Danger. Of Coming About, or Coming Over. The Cause Transferr'd from Government to Religion.

Munday, September 28. 1685.