POPE.
"Ho! Cardinals and Bishops, haste with speed,
Bell, Book, and Candle fetch, let me be free'd:
Ah! 'tis too late, by Fear Intranc'd I lye."
BISHOP.
"Heard you that Groan? with speed from hence let's flye."
CARDINAL.
"The Fiend has got Him, doubtless, lets away,
And in this Ghastly place no longer stay."
"Dread Horrors seize me, Fly, for Mercy call,
Least Divine Vengeance over-whelm Vs all."
It was in this crude and lucid way that the forerunners of Gillray, Nast, Tenniel, and Leech satirized the murderous follies of their age. A volume larger than this would not contain the verse and prose that covered the broadsheets in the same style which appeared in London during the reign of Charles II. This specimen, however, suffices for any reader who is not making a special study of the period. To students and historians the collection of these prints in the British Museum is beyond price; for they show "the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." Perhaps no other single source of information respecting that period is more valuable.