much concerned in what I am to bring forward; and therefore, without farther preface, I hope you will give this letter a place in your

next paper.

"Your readers have, doubtless, heard of the miseries created in Europe by a sect called the Illuminés, or Illuminati, whose object was to throw every kingdom and state into confusion, and to take off the heads of all persons of worth and distinction. I need not say how well they succeeded. But you may be justly alarmed when I inform you, that a party has been gradually forming in this country, whose designs are no less aimed at the heads of the better part of the community than those of the Illuminati, and who imitate them in many particulars. They assume, for instance, the name of Illustrantes, or Illustrators, which, I think, will be allowed to signify much the same with Illuminati; and so eager are they to take off the heads of persons eminent for rank, talents, wisdom, and piety, that they care not what risks they run, nor what depredations they commit, to attain the desired object. Having been a considerable sufferer by them, although my own head be too insignificant for their notice, I trust I am qualified to explain their

history, and I shall not be scrupulous in my

narrative.

"At what time this conspiracy was formed I have not been able to learn; but the more early conspirators betrayed their designs as far back as the 17th century. I have been able to recover the names of Evelyn, Ashmole, and Pepys, who left large collections of heads severed from the bodies of the most distinguished characters of their day. The Earl of Oxford, in the beginning of the last century, was another of the same school. One Ames, in later times, wrote a book expressly in favour of their doctrines, which he called a Catalogue; as the French Illuminati chose to disperse their principles in a Dictionary, or Encyclopædia, It is not difficult to see through such tricks. The late Earl of Orford, better known by the name of Horace Walpole, was a distinguished partizan of this sect, and contributed more to beheadings than any man in our times. It is incredible how many persons of note he brought to the block; and so hardened was he in this wickedness, that, when he published what he had done, he called the work Anecdotes. I could also mention a Mr. Cracherode, lately deceased, of whom it was said, that no money could stand between him and any man's head

he took a fancy to.' And I might point out some of the sect who are living, and, what is very extraordinary, hold valuable and lucrative offices under Government, and yet are notoriously addicted to the principles of the Illus

trantes.

may

"But I wave the mention of individuals, some of whom, we must in charity believe, have been artfully seduced into the notion that detruncation is necessary to human happiness, and that an English gentleman is valued, like an Indian warrior, for the number of scalps he can produce. I say, I wave this, and pass to one GRANGER, whom I take to be the Robespierre of the faction, the hydraheaded monster, whom nothing could satisfy, who devoured innumerable rauks and classes, and fixed their heads in his repositories, as the Turks are said to decorate their palaces with the heads of their prisoners. To this man, who, strange to say! was a clergyman of the Church of England, we are to look, if not for the rise, certainly for the extensive spread of the sect of Illustrators; and it is wonderful to me that he should have been so long unnoticed, and permitted to die quietly in his bed, although, I.make no doubt, he must in his last days have been haunted by the headless corpora, opera omnia, systemata, &c.

which he had so cruelly mutilated. Be that as it may, he wrote four volumes explaining the doctrines of the sect, offering rules and maxims, and pointing out where heads may be got let them be ever so private. Of this work I am sorry to record the success; but my library furnishes me with so many melancholy proofs, that I cannot be silent and lest this should be thought a matter which personally concerns myself only, I appeal to those standing evidences, the book-stalls of London and Westminster, where the trunks of all the eminent men of the last three centuries lie exposed without a head among them, and are sold as mere trash and rubbish; for, alas! in the opinion of most men, what is a body without a head?

"I have stated some degrees of comparison between the Illuminati and the Illustrators; but I must now explain wherein they differ, and wherein, in my opinion, the former are the more consistent characters. The Illuminati had for their object the destruction of monarchy and religion. Thus far we know; they scarcely affected to disguise it, for the object pervades all their undertakings. But the Illustrators cannot be accused of aiming their weapons at the heads of kings and clergy so much as at confounding all ranks, orders, and degrees, jumbling together peers, gentry,

clergy, lawyers, soldiers, authors, artists, and women, without any distinction arising from professional merit, wisdom, valour, wit, or beauty; often indeed preferring deformity to syminetry, a Hunchback to an Adonis, a Fool to a Newton, and setting a value on some heads for no reason that I can discover but because the parties they belonged to happened to be hanged. The object of the sect, therefore, you may perceive, Mr. PROJECTOR, is sheer anarchy, as may be farther elucidated by mentioning some of their well-known practices.

"And here, I must say, they discover an uncommon artfulness. You never know exactly where to have them. If from their cruel practices on the bodies of Kings (and they have actually cut off the heads of some from their monuments *), you accuse them of antimonarchical principles, they smile, talk of their impartiality, and shew you that they have done the same thing to Freethinkers and Philosophers. In truth, if the subject were not too serious, one would be induced to think they were a species of humourists who indulged in odd fancies for the amusement of mankind. have known one of them exchange the Seven

I

* One Rapin, who is now standing by me, can attest this.