public, cause such a clutter
to be made about their reputations, is to prevent inquisitions, that
might tend towards making them refund: like those women they call
shoplifters, who when they are challenged for their thefts, appear to be
mighty angry and affronted, for fear of being searched.

I will dismiss you, Sir, when I have taken notice of one particular.
Perhaps you may have observed in the tolerated factious papers of the
week, that the E[arl] of R[ochester][13] is frequently reflected on for
having been ecclesiastical commissioner and lord treasurer, in the reign
of the late King James. The fact is true; and it will not be denied to
his immortal honour, that because he could not comply with the measures
then taking, he resigned both those employments; of which the latter was
immediately supplied by a commission, composed of two popish lords and
the present E[ar]l of G[o]d[o]l[phi]n.[14]

[Footnote 1: No. 28 in the reprint. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: Horace, "Epodes," xvii. 56.

"Safely shalt thou Cotytto's rites
Divulge?"--J. DUNCOMBE.

[T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: "A Letter to the Examiner. Printed in the year, 1710,"
appeared shortly after the issue of the second number of "The Examiner."
It was attributed to St. John. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: The writer of the "Letter" invited the "Examiner" to "paint
... the present state of the war abroad, and expose to public view those
principles upon which, of late, it has been carried on ... Collect some
few of the indignities which have been this year offered to her
Majesty.... When this is done, D----n shall blush in his grave among the
dead, W----le among the living, and even Vol----e shall feel some
remorse." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5: "The Medley" treated "The Examiner" with scant courtesy, and
never failed to cast ridicule on its work. In No. 21 (February 19th,
1711) the writer says: "No man of common sense ever thought any body
wrote the paper but Abel Roper, or some of his allies, there being not
one quality in 'The Examiner' which Abel has not eminently distinguished
himself by since he set up for a political writer. 'Tis true, Abel is the
more modest of the two, and it never entered into his head to say, as my
friend does of his paper, 'Tis writ with plain sense and in a tolerable
style.'" In No. 23 (March 5th) he says: "There is indeed a great
resemblance between his brother Abel and himself; and I find a great
dispute among the party, to which of them to gi