carrefour, at
Chancery-Lane end, a centre of business and company, most proper
for such anglers of fools. The house was double-balconied in front,
as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco,
with hats and no peruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and
diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at
bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all
strangers that were confidingly introduced; for, it was a main end
of their institution to make proselytes, especially of the raw
estated youths newly come to town. This copious society were, to
the faction in and about London, a sort of executive power, and by
correspondence all over England. The resolves of the more retired
councils and ministry of the faction, were brought in here, and
orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lies,
defamations, commendations, projects, &c. and so, like water
diffused, spread over all the town; whereby that which was digested
at the club over night, was, like nourishment, at every assembly,
male and female, the next day. And thus the younglings tasted of
political administration, and took themselves for notable
counsellors." _Examen_, p. 572. The place of meeting is altered by
Dryden, from the King's-Head, to the Devil-Tavern, either because
he thought the name more appropriate, or wished slightly to
disguise what he plainly insinuated.

18. Our author never omits an opportunity of twitting Hunt with his
expected preferment of lord chief baron of exchequer in Ireland;
L'Estrange, whose ready pen was often drawn for the court, answered
Hunt's defence of the charter by a pamphlet entitled "The Lawyer
Outlawed," in which he fails not to twit his antagonist with the
same disappointment.

19. The foul practice of taking away lives by false witness, casts an
indelible disgrace on this period. Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville,
were the perjured evidences of the Popish plot. To meet them with
equal arms, counter-plots were sworn against Shaftesbury and
others, by Haines, Macnamara, and other Irishmen. But the true
Protestant juries would only swallow the perjuries which made for
their own opinions; nay, although they believed Dugdale, when he
zealously forswore himself for the cause of the Protestant faith,
they refused him credit when he bore false witness for the crown.
"Thus