while gratifying his own. The
persecution of Wilkes was eagerly pressed. He had written a parody on
Pope's Essay on Man, entitled the Essay on Woman, and had appended to it
notes, in ridicule of Warburton's famous Commentary. This composition
was exceedingly profligate, but not more so, we think, than some of
Pope's own works, the imitation of the second satire of the first book
of Horace, for example; and, to do Wilkes justice, he had not, like
Pope, given his ribaldry to the world. He had merely printed at a
private press a very small number of copies, which he meant to present
to some of his boon companions, whose morals were in no more danger of
being corrupted by a loose book than a negro of being tanned by a warm
sun. A tool of the government, by giving a bribe to the printer,
procured a copy of this trash, and placed it in the hands of the
ministers. The ministers resolved to visit Wilkes's offence against
decorum with the utmost rigor of the law. What share piety and respect
for morals had in dictating this resolution, our readers may judge from
the fact that no person was more eager for bringing the libertine poet
to punishment than Lord March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry. On the
first day of the session of Parliament, the book, thus disgracefully
obtained, was laid on the table of the Lords by the Earl of Sandwich,
whom the Duke of Bedford's interest had made Secretary of State. The
unfortunate author had not the slightest suspicion that his licentious
poem had ever been seen, except by his printer and by a few of his
dissipated companions, till it was produced in full Parliament. Though
he was a man of easy temper, averse from danger, and not very
susceptible of shame, the surprise, the disgrace, the prospect of utter
ruin, put him beside himself. He picked a quarrel with one of Lord
Bute's dependents, fought a duel, was seriously wounded, and, when half
recovered, fled to France. His enemies had now their own way both in the
Parliament and in the King's Bench. He was censured, expelled from the
House of Commons, outlawed. His works were ordered to be burned by the
common hangman. Yet was the multitude still true to him. In the minds
even of many moral and religious men, his crime seemed light when
compared with the crime of his accusers. The conduct of Sandwich, in
particular, excited universal disgust. His own vices were notorious;
and, only a fortnight before he laid the Essay on Woman before the House