“Lady Anne Paulett’s daughter is eloped with a country clergyman. The Duchess of Argyle harangues against the Marriage Bill not taking place immediately, and is persuaded that all the girls will go off before next Lady-day.”
[11] In a letter to George Montagu, Esq. from Horace Walpole, is the following notice of Keith:—
“Strawberry Hill, 11th June 1753.
“I shall only tell you a bon mot of Keith’s, the marriage-broker, and conclude:
“ ‘G—d d—n the Bishops!’ said he, (I beg Miss Montagu’s pardon.) ‘so they will hinder my marrying. Well, let ’em, but I’ll be revenged: I’ll buy two or three acres of ground, and by G—d I’ll under-bury them all.’ ”
[12] The “Essay on Woman” was a parody on Pope’s sublime work, called “An Essay on Man.”
A learned divine, the Rev. Mr. Kidgell, thus writes on the works of Wilkes:—
“On the title-page is an obscene print, with a Greek inscription, signifying ‘The Saviour of the world.’ We shall, the poison of the publication being long eradicated, merely quote a commentator on the subject:
“In this work (‘An Essay on Woman’) the lewdest thoughts are expressed in terms of the greatest obscenity; the most horrid impurity is minutely represented; the sex is vilified and insulted; and the whole is scurrilous, impudent, and impious, to an incredible degree. In the variations and notes the inspired writings are perverted into the gross ideas of a libidinous blasphemer, with an invention new, wonderful, and horrid. The most solemn and important passages of the Gospel are tortured into the oblique obscenity of double meanings, worthy only of him who is at once the enemy of God and man.”
[13] The paper entitled “The North Briton” was ordered to be burnt by the common executioner at the Royal Exchange. Mr. Alderman Harley, one of the sheriffs of London, attending in his official capacity to see this carried into execution, was assaulted and wounded by the mob. A man of the name of John Franklin was seized as one of the offenders, and committed to Newgate. On the day of the conviction of Wilkes he was tried for this outrage at the Old Bailey, and found guilty.