the Peace, but it evidently appears to be so
far from truth, that on the contrary we are
certainly informed, that the said Justices (in
pursuance of his Majesties strict charge in
Council the eleventh instant) lately met
together to consult of such expedients as may
be most effectual for the putting in execution
his Majesties late Proclamation, commanding
all Papists to depart from the Cities of London
and Westminster, &c."

We are evidently in confusion on the
subject of the Popish Plot; for, immediately after
the above correction, comes a paragraph to the
effect that some young scholars of a Latin
school in Cannon Street, performed the night
before last, being Wednesday, a play with the
following title: The History of Pope Joan, or
a Discovery of the Debaucheries and Villanies
of the Popish faction. Holofernes, doubtless,
was the author of the play; a teacher
of youth "good at such eruptions," able
to present every boy-actor as Hercules in
minority, whose enter and exit shall be
strangling a snake. Bravely the young
scholars aforesaid did, no doubt, set forth the
abominations of privy conspiracy and rebellion,
and we may feel in our own hands, if we
can, the warmth of applause which we are
told "entertained it" (the play) from the lips
of several hundred spectators. The play we
are to know was entertained, though we are
not told whether it gave entertainment.

The next paragraph is succinct enough.

"The last Gazette tells us nothing from
Edenburgh, so that you will not wonder that
we have nothing from thence."

Certainly we cannot be surprised at getting
nothing out of nothing; and there is no news
for the Mercury where the Gazette is mute.
Yet may there have been in Scotland wars or
rumours of wars, killed and wounded,
movements of troops, new raids against the
disaffected Covenanters, gossip abroad about the
doings of his good-looking and good-tempered,
but scarcely respectable Grace of Monmouth.
No news, seems to us an odd newspaper
saying of a land in which Bothwell Brig was
quite a recent topic, and which was then a
hotbed of rebellious zeal for religion.

One peculiarity about this yesterday's
Mercurius is, that like the sandwich of an economist,
it is composed of two thick hunches of
Popish Plot enclosing one very thin slice of
more diverting information. Indeed the
general tenor of the publication would seem
to refer the three suns seen at Richmond
by several credible people, and the illness
of the Earl of Shaftesbury, to the same all-
corrupting influence. To these interesting facts
two small paragraphs are dedicated, and the
joys of all good Protestants on his lordship's
recovery is most particularly mentioned.

Faithful to his professions as set forth in
the heading, Mercurius next proceeds to
contradict a rumour concerning the death of
the "Duchess of Cleaveland," "she not having
been indisposed of late." Popish Plot fills the
mouth for the fifth time in the shape of some
judicial information about "Mrs. Celier the
Popish Midwife, now a prisoner in Newgate;"
who, having been brought before the Council
would confess nothing; but Justice Warcup
(the same mentioned above as not having
been turned out of the Commission of the
Peace) having exhibited certain depositions
taken against her before him, she confessed
—what, is not told us—except that what she
said greatly confirmed the statements of Mr.
Thomas Dangerfield.

Here again, left in darkness, we reflect
with considerable satisfaction on the reports
in to-day's paper, which although calculated
sometimes to produce a mental state of
indigestion, are very preferable to such starvation
in the matter of intelligence as these
succinct statements imply. The comment of
today's free press upon the statements of Oates,
Dangerfield and Company, would have been
very useful.

The next piece of information is so
extraordinary that we give it entire.

"It is reported that a Quaker fell in love
with a lady of very great quality, and hath
extraordinarily petitioned to obtain her for
his wife."

This affinity of drab for lace must have
been a public story, or Mercurius would not
allude to it so discreetly. Could the lady of
very great quality have been the Duchess of
Portsmouth herself, or the fair Castlemaine,
who charmed poor Mr. Pepys out of his
propriety? And the Quaker, who was he;
and of whom did he beg the lady for his
wife?

The next article introduces us to a man of
today as well as yesterday—a person who is
not yet dead. It appears that upon the
eighteenth instant, in the evening, Mr. John
Dryden was set upon in Rose Street, Covent
Garden, by three persons, who after calling
him a variety of names (set down with great
distinctness in the paper), "knocked him
down and dangerously wounded him; but
upon his crying out, murther! they made
their escape. It is conceived that they had
their pay beforehand, and designed, not to
rob him, but to execute on him some Feminine,
if not Popish vengeance." The reader
as a friend of Dryden pretty well informed
concerning his affairs, may chance to know
that the above assault was perpetrated by the
agents of the Earl of Rochester, and the
amiable Duchess of Portsmouth, both of
whom he had attacked in a manuscript poem,
called the Essay on Satire.

The next piece is a story of more vulgar
crime.

"On Tuesday night last there were four
men came to the house of one William
Charles, at the Crown, in Tatnam Court
near Maribone; and after their drinking
about four hours, they call'd for a bottle of
wine, and swore they would have the master
of the house come in, or else they would not