to one richly embroidered, was made up for a noble lord on the last birth-day, and conveyed hither the very next morning after it had appeared at court. That jemmy waistcoat with the gold worked buttonholes, on the next peg, was the property of a smart templar, who, having spent a night out of his chambers, sent his waistcoat hither in the morning as a penitential offering, by his landlady. As to that heap of camblet gowns, checked aprons, and coloured handkerchiefs, which you see strung together a little further off, they are oblations made here by a sect of maudlin votaries, who resort to this temple to pay their devotions to a goddess, whom they have christened madam Gin, but whom they sometimes honour with the more proper appellation of Strip me Naked.

While my conductor was thus relating the history of the various offerings, and persons who had made them, he was suddenly called aside to a dark closet; several of which were erected near the entrance, and appeared not unlike the confessionals of the Romish priests. These little boxes, I found, were appointed to receive the votaries, who came to pay their devotions, and make their offerings: but the necessary rites and ceremonies were commonly solemnized with as much caution and privacy, as the mysteries of the Bona Dea among the Romans. At present, however, there was a greater noise and hubbub than usual. A person of the first rank in the kingdom, who had made some very considerable oblations of gold and silver plate, was now about to celebrate a feast in honour of Bacchus, in which these rich utensils would be requisite, on which occasion he prayed to have the use of them. The chief priest, after having received the customary fee, granted a dispensation for this purpose, and loaded the messengers with a number of wrought ewers, vases, and chargers; at the same time commissioning two or three of the inferior officials of

the temple to attend the celebration of the feast, and to take care that the plate was duly returned, and safely lodged again in the temple.

These matters were scarcely adjusted before an unexpected incident filled the whole temple with confusion and disturbance. A rude tribe of officers broke in upon us, put a stop to the rites, and seized the chief priest himself, charging him with having profaned the place by a crime almost as infamous as sacrilege. He was accused of having encouraged robbers to strip the citizens of their most valuable effects, and for a small reward to deposit them as offerings. The clamour on this occasion was very great; and at last one of the officers, methought, seized me as a party concerned; when endeavouring to clear myself, and struggling to get out of his clutches, I awoke.

W.

N° 111. THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1756.

Hæc stultitia parit civitates, hâc constant imperia, magistratus, religio, consilia, judicia, nec aliud omninò est vita humana, quam stultitiæ lusus quidum.

Nonsense o'er empires and o'er states presides,
Our judgment, counsels, laws, religion, guides;
All arts and sciences despotic rules;

And life itself's a drama, play'd by fools.

ERASM.

THERE is no race of people, that has been more conspicuous, in almost every relation of life, than the illustrious family of Nonsense. In every age of the world they have shone forth with uncommon lustre,

and have made a wonderful progress in all the arts and sciences. They have at different seasons delivered speeches from the throne, harangued at the bar, debated in parliament, and gone amazing lengths in philosophical inquiries and metaphysical disquisitions. In a word, the whole history of the world moral and political, is but a Cyclopædia of Nonsense. For which reason, considering the dignity and importance of the family, and the infinite service it has been of to me and many of my contemporaries, I have resolved to oblige the public with a kind of abstract of the history of Nonsense.

Nonsense was the daughter of Ignorance, begot on Falsehood, many ages ago, in a dark cavern in Boeotia. As she grew up, she inherited all the qualities of her parents: she discovered too warm a genius to require being sent to school; but while other dull brats were poring over a horn-book, she amused herself with spreading fantastical lies, taught her by her mamma, and which have in later ages been familiarly known to us under the names of Sham, Banter, and Humbug. When she grew up, she received the addresses, and soon became the wife, of Impudence. Who he was, or of what profession, is uncertain: some say he was the son of Ignorance by another venter, and was suffered to become the husband of Nonsense in those dark ages of the world, as the Ptolemies in Egypt married their own sisters. Some record, that he was in the army; others, that he was an interpreter of the laws; and others, a divine. However this was, Nonsense and Impudence were soon inseparably united to each other, and became the founders of a more noble and numerous family, than any yet preserved on any tree of descent whatsoever; of which ingenious device they were said to have been the first inventors.

It is my chief intent at present to record the great

exploits of that branch of the family, who have made themselves remarkable in England; though they began to signalize themselves very early, and are still very flourishing in most parts of the world. Many of them were Egyptian priests four thousand years ago, and told the people, that it was religion to worship dogs, monkies, and green leeks: and their descendants prevailed on the Greeks and Romans to build temples in honour of supposed deities, who were in their own estimation of them, whores and whoremongers, pickpockets and drunkards. Others rose up some ages after in Turkey, and persuaded the people to embrace the doctrine of bloodshed and of the sword, in the name of the most merciful God: and others have manifested their lineal descent from Nonsense and Impudence, by affirming that there is no God at all. There were also among them many shrewd philosophers; some of whom, though they were raked with a fit of the stone, or laid up with a gouty toe, declared that they felt not the least degree of pain; and others would not trust their own eyes, but when they saw a horse or a dog, could not tell whether it was not a chair or a table, and even made a doubt of their own existence.

We have no certain account of the progress of Nonsense here in England, till after the Reformation. All we hear of her and her progeny before that period of time is, that they led a lazy life among the monks in cloisters and convents, dreaming over old legends of saints, drawing up breviaries and mass-books, and stringing together some barbarous Latin verses in rhyme. In the days of queen Elizabeth, so little encouragement was given to her family, that it seemed to have been almost extinct: but in the succeeding reign it flourished again, and filled the most consider able offices in the nation. Nonsense became a great favourite at court, where she was highly caressed on account of her wit, which consisted in puns and

quibbles; and the bonny monarch himself was thought to take a more than ordinary delight in her conversation. At this time, many of her progeny took orders, and got themselves preferred to the best livings, by turning the Evangelists into punsters, and making St. Paul quibble from the pulpit. Among the rest, there was a bishop, a favourite son of Nonsense, of whom it is particularly recorded, that he used to tickle his courtly audience, by telling them that matrimony was become a matter of money, with many other right reverend jests recorded in Joe Miller. Several brothers of this family were likewise bred to the bar, and very gravely harangued against old women sucked by devils in the shape of ram-cats, &c. As an instance of their profound wisdom and sagacity, I need only mention that just and truly pious act of parliament made against the crying sin of witchcraft. 1 Jac. I. chap. 12. "Such as shall use invocation or conjuration of any evil spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, fee or reward any evil spirit to any intent, or take up any dead person, or part thereof, to be used in witchcraft, or have used any of the said arts, whereby any person shall be killed, consumed, or lamed in his or her body, they, together with their accessories before the fact, shall suffer as felons with out benefit of clergy."

In the troublesome times of king Charles the first, Nonsense and her family sided with the Parliament. These set up new sects in religion: some of them cropt their hair short, and called themselves the enlightened; some fell into trances, and pretended to see holy visions; while others got into tubs, and held forth, with many whinings, and groans, and snuffling through the nose. In the merry days of king Charles the second, Nonsense assumed a more gay and libertine air; and her progeny, from fanatics, became downright infidels, Several courtiers, of the family wrote lewd plays, as