The Rebellion of ’45 brought two more heads to Temple Bar. On July 30th, 1746, Colonel Towneley and Captain Fletcher were beheaded on Kennington Common, and on the following day their heads were elevated on the Bar. Respecting their heads Walpole wrote on August 15th, 1746, “I have been this morning to the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, where people made a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a look.” The fresh heads were made the theme of poetry and prose. One of the halfpenny loyal sightseers penned the following doggerel:—

“Three heads here I spy,
Which the glass did draw nigh,
The better to have a good sight;
Triangle they are placed,
And bald and barefaced;
Not one of them e’er was upright.”

We reproduce a curious print published in 1746 representing “Temple Bar” with three heads raised on tall poles or iron rods. The devil looks down in triumph and waves the rebel banner, on which are three crowns and a coffin, with the motto, ‘A crown or a grave.’ Underneath was written some wretched verses.

“Observe the banner which would all enslave,
Which ruined traytors did so proudly wave,
The devil seems the project to despise;
A fiend confused from off the trophy flies.
While trembling rebels at the fabrick gaze,
And dread their fate with horror and amaze,
Let Briton’s sons the emblematick view
And plainly see what to rebellion’s due.”

COPY OF A PRINT PUBLISHED IN 1746.

It is recorded in the “Annual Register” that on “January 20th (between two and three a.m.), 1766, a man was taken up for discharging musket bullets from a steel cross-bow at the two remaining heads upon Temple Bar. On being examined he affected a disorder in his senses, and said his reason for doing so was his strong attachment to the present Government, and that he thought it was not sufficient that a traitor should merely suffer death; that this provoked his indignation, and that it had been his constant practice for three nights past to amuse himself in the same manner. And it is much to be feared,” says the recorder of the event, “that he is a near relation to one of the unhappy sufferers.” On being searched, about fifty musket bullets were found on the man, and these were wrapped up in a paper with a motto—“Eripuit ille vitam.”

Dr. Johnson says that once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey, “While we surveyed the Poets’ Corner, I said to him:—