N° 41. TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1713.

Even churches are no sanctuaries now.

Epilogue to CATO.

THE following letter has so much truth and reason in it, that I believe every man of sense and honour in England, will have a just indignation against the person who could commit so great a violence, as that of which my correspondent complains.

'TO THE AUTHOR OF THE GUARDIAN.

C SIR,

I CLAIM a place in your paper for what I now write to you, from the declaration which you made at your first appearance, and the very title you assume to yourself.

If the circumstance, which I am going to mention, is over-looked by one who calls himself Guardian, I am sure honour and integrity, innocence and virtue, are not the objects of his care,→ The Examiner ends his discourse of Friday the twenty-fourth instant with these words:

"No sooner was D* among the whigs, and confirmed past retrieving, but lady Char-te † is taken knotting in saint James's chapel during

* Earl of Nottingham.

+ His daughter lady Charlotte Finch, afterwards duchess of Somerset.

divine service, in the immediate presence both of God and her majesty, who were affronted together, that the family might appear to be entirely come over. I spare the beauty for the sake of her birth; but certainly there was no occasion for so public a proof, that her fingers are more dextrous in tying a knot, than her father's brains in perplexing the government."

It is apparent that the person here intended is by her birth a lady, and daughter of an earl of Great Britain; and the treatment this author is pleased to give her, he makes no scruple to own she is exposed to, by being his daughter. Since he has assumed a licence to talk of this nobleman in print to his disadvantage, I hope his lordship will pardon me, that out of the interest which I, and all true Englishmen, have in his character, I take the liberty to defend him.

I am willing on this occasion, to allow the claim and pretension to merit to be such, as the same author describes in his preceding paper.

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By active merit (says the Examiner of the twenty-first) I understand, not only the power and ability to serve, but the actual exercise of any one or more virtues, for promoting the good of one's country, and a long and steady course of real endeavours to appear useful in a government; or where a person, eminently qualified for public affairs, distinguishes himself in some critical juncture, and at the expence of his ease and fortune, or with the hazard of his person, exposes himself to the malice of a designing faction, by thwarting their wicked purposes, and contributing to the safety, repose and welfare of a people."

6 Let us examine the conduct of this noble earl by this description. Upon the late glorious re

volution when it was in debate in what manner the people of England should express their gratitude to their deliverer, this lord, from the utmost tenderness and loyalty to his unhappy prince, and apprehensive of the danger of so great a change, voted against king William's accession to the throne, However his following services sufficiently testified the truth of that his memorable expression, "Though he could not make a king he could obey him." The whole course and tenour of his life ever since has been visibly animated, by a steady and constant zeal for the monarchy and episcopacy of these realms. of these realms. He has been ever reviled by all who are cold to the interests of our established religion, or dissenters from it, as a favourer of persecution, and a bigot to the church, against the civil rights of his fellow-subjects. Thus it stood with him at the trial of doctor Sacheverell, when this noble earl had a very great share in obtaining the gentle sentence which the house of lords pronounced on that occasion, But, indeed, I have not heard that any of his lordship's dependents joined saint Harry * in the pilgrimage which "that meek man" took afterwards round England, followed by drum, trumpet and acclamations to "visit the churches."-Civil prudence made it, perhaps, necessary to throw the public affairs into such hands as had no pretensions to popularity in either party, but from the distribution of the queen's favours.

During such, and other later transactions (which are too fresh to need being recounted) the earl of Nottingham has had the misfortune to differ with the lords who have the honour to be employed

Dr. Henry Sacheverell,

in the administration; but even among these inci dents he has highly distinguished himself in procuring an act of parliament, to prevent that those who dissent from the church should serve in the state.

I hope these are great and critical junctures, wherein this gentleman has shewn himself a patriot and lover of the church in as eminent manner as any other of his fellow-subjects. "He has at all times, and in all seasons, shown the same steady abhorrence to all innovations." But it is from this behaviour, that he has deserved so ill of the Examiner, as to be termed a "late convert" to those whom he calls factious, and introduced in his profane dialogue of April the 6th, with a servant, and a mad-woman. I think I have, according to the Examiner's own description of merit, shewn how little this nobleman deserves such treatment. I shall now appeal to all the world, to consider whether the outrage committed against the young lady had not been cruel, and insufferable, towards the daughter of the highest offender.

The utmost malice and invention could go no farther than to forge a story of her having inadvertently done an indifferent action in a sacred place. Of what temper can this man be made, that could have no sense of the pangs he must give a young lady to be barely mentioned in a public paper, much more to be named in a libellous manner, as having offended God and man.

'But the wretch, as dull as he is wicked, felt it strike on his imagination, that knotting and perplexing would make a quaint sting at the end of his paper, and had no compunction, though he introduced his witticism at the expence of a young lady's quiet, and (as far as in him lies) her honour.

Does he thus finish his discourse of religion? This is indeed" to lay at us, and make every blow fell to the ground."

There is no party concerned in this circumstance; but every man that hopes for a virtuous woman to his wife, that would defend his child, or protect his mistress, ought to receive this insolence as done to himself. "In the immediate presence

of God and her majesty, that the family might appear to be intirely come over," says the fawning miscreant. It is very visible which of those powers (that he has put together) he is the more fearful of offending. But he mistakes his way in making his court to a pious sovereign, by naming her with the Deity, in order to find protection for insulting a virtuous woman, who comes to call upon him in the royal chapel.

If life be (as it ought to be with people of their character, whom the Examiner attacks) less valuable and dear than honour and reputation, in that proportion is the Examiner worse than an assassin. We have stood by and tamely heard him aggravate the disgraces of the brave and unfortunate. We have seen him double the anguish of the unhappy man, we have seen him trample on the ashes of the dead; but all this has concerned greater life, and could touch only public characters, they did but remotely affect our private and domestic interests; but when due regard is not had to the honour of women, all human society is assaulted. The highest person in the world is of that sex, and has the utmost sensibility of an outrage committed against it. She, who was the best wife that ever prince was blessed with, will, though she sits on a throne, jealously regard the honour of a young lady who has not entered into that condition.