ar no news my lord, only, God's Papists can
get no preferment, because the King's Papists swarm so thick. This was a
sententious, and witty observation, and it will always hold true, that
the religion of the King will become the religion of people of fashion,
and the lower stations ape their superiors.

Upon the coronation of King James II. the two Parts of the Character of
a Popish Successor, were, with the Exclusion Bill, on the 23d of April,
1685, burnt by the sub-wardens, and fellows of Merton College, Oxon, in
a public bonfire, made in the middle of their great quadrangle. During
these contentions, Mr. Settle also published a piece called The Medal
Revers'd, published 1681; this was an answer to a poem of Dryden's
called The Medal, occasioned by the bill against the earl of Shaftsbury
being found ignoramus at the Old Baily, upon which the Whig party made
bonfires, and ordered a medal to be struck in commemoration of that
event. Shaftsbury, who was by his principles a Whig, and who could
not but foresee the miseries which afterwards happened under a Popish
Prince, opposed the succession with all his power; he was a man of very
great endowments, and being of a bustling tumultuous disposition, was
admirably fitted to be the head of a party. He was the leading man
against the succession of the Duke of York, and argued in the House
of Lords with great force against him, and what was more remarkable,
sometimes in the Duke's presence. It is related, that at the
Council-table, when his Majesty, and his Royal Brother were both
present, something concerning the succession was canvassed, when
Shaftsbury, not in the least intimidated, spoke his opinion with great
vehemence against the Duke, and was answered with equal heat, but with
less force, by the then lord chamberlain. During this debate, the Duke
took occasion to whisper the King, that his Majesty had a villain of a
chancellor, to which the King merrily replied, oddsfish, York, what a
fool you have of a chamberlain: by which it appears, his Majesty was
convinced that Shaftsbury's arguments were the strongest.

In consequence of Shaftsbury's violent opposition to the Duke, and the
court party, there was a Bill of Indictment of High Treason, read before
his Majesty's Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer in the Sessions-House
at the Old Bailey, but the Jury found it Ignoramus; upon which, all the
party rejoiced at the deliverance of their head. These disturbances gave
Mr. Se