and the Society have
been further informed that the backwardness or fewness of the men in
that town has driven the poor ladies to unusual extremities, such as
running out into the fields to meet the men, and sending their maids to
ask them; and at last running away with their fathers' coachmen,
prentices, and the like, to the particular scandal of the town.

The Society concluded that the ladies should leave the village "famous
for having more coaches than Christians in it," as a learned man once
took the freedom to tell them "from the pulpit" and go to market,
_i.e._, to London.

The "Advice of the Scandalous Club" was discontinued from May, 1703.

Although we cannot say that Defoe carried his sword in a myrtle wreath,
he certainly owed much of his celebrity to his insinuating under
ambiguous language the boldest political opinions. He was fond of
literary whimsicalities, and wrote a humorous "History," referring
mostly to the events of the times. Towards the end of his career, he
happily turned his talent for disguises and fictions into a quieter and
more profitable direction. How many thousands remember him as the author
of "Robinson Crusoe" who never heard a word about his jousts and
conflicts, his animosities and misfortunes!

The last century, although adorned by several celebrated wits, was less
rich in humour than the present. Literature had a grave and pedantic
character, for where there was any mental activity, instruction was
sought almost to the exclusion of gaiety. It required a greater spread
of education and experience to create a source of superior humour, or to
awaken any considerable demand for it. Hence, although the taste was so
increased that several periodicals of a professedly humorous nature were
started, they disappeared soon after their commencement. To record their
brief existence is like writing the epitaphs of the departed. Towards
the termination of the previous century, comic literature was
represented by an occasional fly-sheet, shot off to satirize some
absurdity of the day. The first humorous periodical which has come to
our knowledge, partakes, as might have been expected, of an
ecclesiastical character and betokens the severity of the times. It
appeared in 1670, under the title of "Jesuita Vapulans, or a Whip for
the Fool's Back, and a Gad for his Foul Mouth." The next seems to have
been a small weekly paper called "Heraclitus Ridens," published in 1681.
It was mostly directed ag