XV.

That an act of parliament, to impower the king to secure suspected persons in times of rebellion, is the means to establish the sovereign on the throne, and consequently a great infringement of the liberties of the subject.

No. 15. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10.

- Auxilium, quoniam sic cogitis ipsi, Dixit, ab hoste petam: vultus avertite vestros, Si quis amicus adest: et Gorgonis extulit ora."

OVID.

Ir is with great pleasure that I see a race of female patriots springing up in this island. The fairest among the daughters of Great Britain no longer confine their cares to a domestic life, but are grown anxious for the welfare of their country, and show themselves good stateswomen as well as good housewives.

Our she confederates keep pace with us in quashing that rebellion which had begun to spread itself among part of the fair sex. If the men who are true to their king and country have taken Preston and Perth, the ladies have possessed themselves of the opera and the playhouse with as little opposition or bloodshed. The nonresisting women, like their brothers in the Highlands, think no post tenable against an army that makes so fine an appearance; and dare not look them in the face, when they are drawn up in battle-array.

As an instance of this cheerfulness in our fair fellow subjects to oppose the designs of the pretender, I did but suggest in one of my former papers, "That the fan might be made use of with good success against popery, by exhibiting the corruptions of the church of Rome in various figures; when immediately they took the hint, and have since had frequent consultations upon several ways and methods to make the fan useful. They have unanimously agreed upon the fol

lowing resolutions, which are indeed very suitable to ladies who are at the same time the most beautiful and the most loyal of their sex. To hide their faces behind the fan, when they observe a Tory gazing upon them. Never to peep through it, but in order to pick out men, whose principles make them worth the conquest. To return no other answer to a Tory's addresses, than by counting the sticks of it all the while he is talking to them. To avoid dropping it in the neighbourhood of a malecontent, that he may not have an opportunity of taking it up. To show their disbelief of any Jacobite story by a flirt of it. To fall a fanning themselves, when a Tory comes into one of their assemblies, as being disordered at the sight of him.

These are the uses by which every fan may, in the hands of a fine woman, become serviceable to the public. But they have at present under consideration, certain fans of a Protestant make, that they may have a more extensive influence, and raise an abhorrence of popery in a whole crowd of beholders: for they intend to let the world see what party they are of, by figures and designs upon these fans; as the knights-errant used to distinguish themselves by devices on their shields.

There are several sketches of pictures which have been already presented to the ladies for their approbation, and out of which several have made their choice. A pretty young lady will very soon appear with a fan, which has on it a nunnery of lively blackeyed vestals, who are endeavouring to creep out at the grates. Another has a fan mounted with a fine paper, on which is represented a group of people upon their knees, very devoutly worshipping an old tenpenny nail. A certain lady, of great learning, has chosen for her device the council of Trent; and another, who has a good satirical turn, has filled her fan with the figure of a huge, tawdry woman, representing the whore of Babylon; which she is resolved to spread full in the face of any sister-disputant, whose arguments have a

tendency to popery. The following designs are already executed on several mountings. The ceremony of the holy pontiff opening the mouth of a cardinal in a full consistory. An old gentleman with a triple crown upon his head, and big with child, being the portrait' of Pope Joan. Bishop Bonner purchasing great quantities of faggots and brush-wood, for the conversion of heretics. A figure reaching at a sceptre with one hand, and holding a chaplet of beads in the other: with a distant view of Smithfield.

When our ladies make their zeal thus visible upon their fans, and, every time they open them, display an error of the church of Rome, it cannot but have a good effect, by showing the enemies of our present establishment the folly of what they are contending for. At least, every one must allow that fans are much more innocent engines for propagating the Protestant religion, than racks, wheels, gibbets, and the like machines, which are made use of for the advancement of the Roman Catholic. Besides, as every lady will of course study her fan, she will be a perfect mistress of the controversy, at least in one point of popery; and as her curiosity will put her upon the perusal of every fan that is fashionable, I doubt not but in a very little time there will scarce be a woman of quality in Great Britain, who would not be an overmatch for an Irish priest.

The beautiful part of this island, whom I am proud to number amongst the most candid of my readers, will likewise do well to reflect, that our dispute at present concerns our civil as well as religious rights. I shall therefore only offer it to their thoughts as a point that highly deserves their consideration, whether the fan may not also be made use of with regard to our political constitution. As a freeholder, I would not have them confine their cares for us as we are Protestants, but at the same time have an eye to our happiness as we are Britons. In this case they would give a new turn to the minds of their countrymen, if

they would exhibit on their fans the several grievances of a tyranical government. Why might not an audience of Muley Ishmael, or a Turk dropping his handkerchief in his seraglio, be proper subjects to express their abhorrence both of despotic power and of male tyranny? Or, if they have a fancy for burlesque, what would they think of a French cobler cutting shoes for several of his fellow-subjects out of an old apple tree? On the contrary, a fine woman, who would maintain the dignity of her sex, might bear a string of galleyslaves, dragging their chains the whole breadth of her fan; and, at the same time, to celebrate her own triumphs, might order every slave to be drawn with the face of one of her admirers.

I only propose these as hints to my gentle readers, ⚫ which they may alter or improve as they shall think fit; but cannot conclude without congratulating our country upon this disposition among the most amiable of its inhabitants, to consider in their ornaments the advantage of the public as well as of their persons. It was with the same spirit, though not with the same politeness, that the ancient British women had the figures of monsters painted on their naked bodies, in order (as our historians tell us) to make themselves beautiful in the eyes of their countrymen, and terrible to their enemies. If this project goes on, we may boast, that our sister Whigs have the finest fans, as well as the most beautiful faces, of any ladies in the world. At least, we may venture to foretel, that the figures in their fans will lessen the Tory interest much more than those in the Oxford Almanacs will advance it.

1.

Itaque quod plerumque in atroci negotio solet, Senatus decrevit, darent operam Consules nè quid Respublica detrimenti caperet. Eu potestas per Senatum more Romano magistratui maxuma permittitur, exercitum parare, bellum gerere, coercere omnibus modis socios atque cives, domi militiæque imperium atque judicium summum habere. Aliter, sine populi jussu nulli earum rerum Consuli jus est.

SALLUST.

Ir being the design of these papers to reconcile men to their own happiness, by removing those wrong notions and prejudices which hinder them from seeing the advantage of themselves and their posterity in the present establishment, I cannot but take notice of every thing that by the artifice of our enemies is made a matter of complaint.

Of this nature is the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, by which his majesty has been enabled, in these times of danger, to seize and detain the persons of such, who he had reason to believe were conspiring against his person and government. The expediency and reasonableness of such a temporary suspension in the present juncture, may appear to every considerate man, who will turn his thoughts impartially on this subject.

I have chosen, in points of this nature, to draw my arguments from the first principles of government, which, as they are of no party, but assented to by every reasonable man, carry the greater with them, and are accommodated to the notions of all my readers. Every one knows, who has considered the na ture of government, that there must be in each particular form of it an absolute and unlimited power; and that this power is lodged in the hands of those who have the making of its laws, whether by the nature of the constitution it be in one or more persons, in a single order of men, or in a mixt body of different ranks and degrees. It is an absurdity to imagine that those, who have the authority of making laws, cannot