palliatives are of no service: nothing but an amputation of the member which struck the blow can be beneficial: even that will fail, unless the k- pursues a conduct quite opposite to that he is now erring in, and makes choice of ministers the reverse of the present creatures of administration. The whole fabric of British liberty is built on the Right of Election: how daring then must that minister be, who can, in defiance of conscience, law, and justice, violate this right, and support that despicable creature Col. Luttrell in his pretensions to a seat in the House of Commons! What a gross affront to the freeholders of Middlesex, to suppose him their representative! I am sorrow to say, there are many such representatives in the house; and, when we complain that Mr. Wilkes is not admitted, we have also sufficient reason to make an article of complaint, that many who were admitted are not expelled. It is not so much a matter of wonder, that we find many whose birth and fortune enable them to live independent, and in absolute freedom, selling those invaluable blessings for an empty title, or the greater meanness of mercenary views, as to find a man, whose elevated rank is temptation, preserve himself untainted with the too general disease. Your lordship has proved the goodness of your heart, the soundness of your principles, and the merit of the cause in which you are engaged, by the rectitude of your conduct. Scandal maddens at your name, because she finds nothing to reproach you with; and the venal hirelings of the ministry despair of meriting their pay by blackening your character. Illiberal abuse, and gross inconsistencies and absurdities, recoil upon the author: and only bear testimony of the weakness of his head, or the badness of his heart. That man, whose enemies can find nothing to lay to his charge, may well dispense with the incoherent Billinsgate of a ministerial writer.

A man in a public character is in a very tender situation;

his virtues are magnified, and his vices exaggerated. Your Lordship has maintained your reputation gloriously, though we are never at a loss to give your merit a proper share of applause the opposite party must have recourse to falsehood, when they accuse you of vices. The city of London has, in an extraordinary manner, testified the opinion of your abilities; and at a time when Liberty, and all an Englishman holds sacred, was at stake, reposed a trust in you, which, were you to betray, would inevitably ruin the constitution of this country.-I would ask a troop of gartered vassals, could the most misguided favour of a King, the greatest reward of a minister, bestow such an honour as has been bestowed upon you? Birth and fortune were not the bribes which purchased it: an unshaken fidelity, a tried integrity, and the spirit of a Briton, actuating a man whose private life is irreproachable; that and that only, deserved and received it. The important trusts thus reposed in you, could be no where in greater safety. Those accomplishments which made you worthy to receive it, continue to make you worthy of keeping it. Every step you have taken speaks the patriot; and your undaunted perseverance, in insisting on redress, does honour to the choice of the city. Without such a check on their actions, whither might not the villainy of our ministers have carried them? Is there any privilege, ever so sacred, which they hesitate to violate? Your conduct, and the steady opposition of your friends, restrain the torrent of their arbitrary proceedings. Though they have too much power to be quelled in an instant, you have confined their illegal ravages within bounds; and may it be in your power to open the eyes of an unfortunate monarch, and restore liberty and tranquillity to an unfortunate people. As you only were thought capable of preserving the rights of the subject, from the imminent danger which threatened us, exert your active spirit, and tell the

tools of oppression, that the power of the chief magistrate of the city is capable of counteracting that of the servants of the Earl of Bute: and, with the same spirited resolution which has dignified your conduct hitherto, support the glorious cause in which you preside. If we must lose the birthright of Englishmen, let us not tamely lose it. However the misrepresentations of the enemies of this country may mislead his Majesty's judgment, he may be yet open to conviction; he may redeem the errors of his past conduct, by discarding his pernicious counsellors, dissolving an infamous parliament, and reposing confidence in his people: but it behoves us not to live idly in hope of this reformation: let us, as much as possible, put it forward ourselves. Let us with one united voice demand redress, if again refused let us take the sword of justice in our hands and punish the wretches whose evil councils have estranged his Majesty from the good of the subject, and robbed him of his surest safeguard, the love of his people.

PROBUS.

SIR,

THE POLITE ADVERTISER.

[To the Printer of the Town and Country Magazine.]

July 11, 1770.

As I look upon your Magazine to be the most polite of any published, I should be obliged to you if you would spare half a page once a month to the Polite Advertiser. By Sir BUTTERFLY FEATHER.

Whereas a young fellow, whom I have great reason to imagine is either a linen-draper or haberdasher, has had the assurance to tie himself to an unaccountable long sword, thought by Horatio Otranto, the great antiquary, to be

three inches longer than the ever-memorable one of the famous Earl of Salisbury; this is to inform him, that unless he can wear it, without fisting it in the clumsy manner he does, it shall be taken from him.

The young lady who dropt her garter in the Mall, last Sunday, is desired not to make herself uneasy; for the person who picked it up is threescore and fifteen.

Lost, in the parish of St. James's, a parcel of love-letters, most of them beginning with My dere letele angel, or My dear friend: whoever will bring them to a certain attorney, or destroy them before publication, shall receive a princely reward.

A certain academician, who values himself upon his propriety, having painted William the Conqueror with a bagwig and leather breeches, is desired not to exhibit it; as his brethren, though fools enough in all conscience, are not quite so foolish as to think it equal to his transparent paintings.

Wants meaning, every political essay in the The Public Ledger.

Wants admiration, Sir Butterfly Feather.

ANTIQUITY OF CHRISTMAS GAMES.*

In the days of our ancestors, Christmas was a period sacred to mirth and hospitality. Though not wholly neglected now, it cannot boast of the honours it once had; the veneration for religious seasons fled with popery, and old English hospitality is long since deceased. Our modern playthings of fortune, who make the whole year a revolution of dissipation and joyless festivity, cannot distinguish this

From a MS. preserved in the British Museum. Add. MSS. 5766. C.

season; unless by resting from their laborious pleasures, and (if they can think) find a happy serenity in solitude and reflection, unknown in the tumult of hurricanes. - The ancient Christmas gambols were, in my opinion, superior to our modern spectacles and amusements; wrestling, hurling the ball, and dancing in the woodlands, were pleasures for men; it is true, the conversation of the hearthside was the tales of superstition: the faires, Robin Goodfellow, and hobgoblins, never failed to make the trembling audience mutter an Ave Maria, and cross their chins; but the laughable exercises of blindman's-buff, riddling, and question and command, sufficiently compensated for the few sudden starts of terror. Add to these amusements, the wretched voices of the chanters and sub-chanters; howling carols in Latin; the chiming of consecrated bells; the burning consecrated wax-candles; curiously repesenting the Virgin Mary; praying the saint whose monastery stood nearest; the munching consecrated cross-loaves, sold by the monks; all which effectually eradicated the spectres of their terrific stories. Nor were these the only charms against the foul fiends, and night-mare; sleeping cross-legged, like the effigies of Knights Templars, and warriors, and the holy bush and church-yard yew, were certain antidotes against those invisible beings. After this representation, I may be thought partial to my own hobby-horse, as an antiquary, in giving the preference to the amusements of the days of old; but let the sentimental reader consider that the tales of superstition, when believed, affect the soul with a sensation pleasurably horrid; we may paint in more lively colours to the eye, they spoke to the heart.

The great barons and knights usually kept open house during this season, when their villains, or vassals, were entertained with bread, beef, and beer, and a pudding, wastol cake, or Christmas kitchel, and a groat in silver at