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 throne.

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. It 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 non-resisting 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 following 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 black-eyed 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 ten-penny 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 brushwood, 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 pro

pagating 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 other fan that is fashionable, I doubt not but in a very little time there will be scarce a woman of quality in Great Britain, who would not be an over-match 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 tyrannical 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 cobbler 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 galley slaves, 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 foretell, that the figures in their fans will lessen the Tory interest, much more than those in the Oxford Almanacs will advance it.

No. 16. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13.

Itaque quod plerumque in atroci negotio solet, Senatus decrevit, daren operam consules ne quid Respublica detrimenti caperet. Ea potestas pet Senatum more Romano magistratui maxuma permittitur, exercitum par rare, bellum gerere, coercere omnibus modis socios atque cives, dommilitiæque imperium atque judicium summum habere. Aliter, sinei populi jussu nulli earum rerum Consuli jus est.

SALL.

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 everything 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 weight with them, and are accommodated to the notions of all my readers. Every one knows, who has considered the nature 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 suspend any particular law, when they

think it expedient for the public. Without such a power all government would be defective, and not armed with a sufficient force for its own security. As self-preservation by all honest methods is the first duty of every community as well as of every private person, so the public safety is the general view of all laws. When, therefore, any law does not conduce to this great end, but on the contrary, in some extraordinary and unnatural junctures, the very observation of it would endanger the community, that law ought to be laid asleep for such a time, by the proper authority. Thus the very intention of our Habeas Corpus act, namely, the preservation of the liberties of the subject, absolutely requires that act to be now suspended, since the confinement of dangerous and suspected persons, who might strengthen this rebellion, and spread a civil war through all parts of this kingdom, secures to us our civil rights, and everything that can be valuable to a free people.

As every government must in its nature be armed with such an authority, we may observe that those governments which have been the most famous for public spirit, and the most jealous of their liberty, have never failed to exert it upon proper occasions. There cannot be a greater instance of this, than in the old commonwealth of Rome, who flattered themselves with an opinion, that their government had in it a due temper of the regal, noble, and popular power represented by the consuls, the senators, and the tribunes. The regal part was, however, in several points, notoriously defective, and particularly because the consuls had not a negative in the passing of a law, as the other two branches had. Nevertheless, in this government, when the republic was threatened with any great and imminent danger, they thought it for the common safety to appoint a temporary dictator, invested with the whole power of the three branches; who, when the danger was over, retired again into the community, and left the government in its natural situation. But what is more to our case, the consular power itself, though infinitely short of the regal power in Great Britain, was intrusted with the whole authority which the legislature has put into the hands of his Majesty. We have an eminent instance of this in the motto of my paper, which I shall translate for the benefit of the English reader, after having