which his portrait was voted to be placed among the other upright expounders of the law, in Guildhall *. The following inscription underneath: Hanc Iconem CAROLI PRATT, Eq. In Honorem Tanti Viri S. P. Q. L. In Curia Municipali Poni Jusserunt Nono Kal. Mar. A. D. M DCC LXIV. according to the sentence, was committed to the superintendence of Mr. Alderman Harley, sheriff of London, and one of the city members. The officers who assembled at the Royal Exchange to perform this duty, were assailed by a furious mob, pelted, and grossly insulted; and the glass of sheriff Harley's chariot was broken by a billet of wood. The pieces of libel which remained, were carried off in triumph to Temple Bar, where a large bonfire was prepared to receive and consume a large Jack-Boot, typically signifying John Earl of Bute. Mr. Wilkes also made a formal complaint to the house of commons, concerning a breach of their privilege, by the imprisonment of his person, &c. Not being satisfied with this, he commenced an action against Robert Wood, esquire, under secretary of state, for seizing his papers. The cause was tried before lord chief justice Pratt, and a special jury, when they gave a verdict for the plaintiff with one thousand pounds damages and full costs of suit. The judgment of lord chief justice Pratt was delivered in the following remarkable words: "If a general warrant be good, a secretary of state can delegate and depute any of his messengers, or any even from the lowest of the people, to take examinations, to commit or release, and, in fine, to do every act which the highest judicial officers of the law knows, can do, or order. There is no authority in our law books that mentions these kinds of warrants, but in express terms condemns them. Upon the maturest consideration, I am bold to say this warrant is illegal; but I am far from wishing a matter of this consequence should rest solely on my opinion. It may be referred to the twelve judges, and there is a still higher court, before which it may be canvassed, and whose determination is final. If these superior jurisdictions should declare my opi nion erroneous, I submit as will become me, and kiss the rod; but I must say, I shall always consider it as a rod of iron for the chastisement of the people of Great Britain." That That friend of his country, that luminary of patriotism Mr. Pitt, had lately resigned his station as premier; this was deemed necessary by those who were promoters of the peace, which was equally obnoxious to him and to the country. The citizens in particular had not been in good humour ever since his resignation, and the peace was far from reconciling them to the measures of his successors in power. When, therefore, it was proposed to address his majesty on that occasion, the court of common council could not be prevailed on to comply with the usual formality. An address, indeed, was obtained in the name of the lord mayor and court of aldermen, and presented on the 12th of May; but never was there a city cavalcade more insignificant or treated with more general contempt. The lord mayor, Mr. Beckford, pleaded indisposition; but Sir Charles Afgill supplied his place as locum tenens, and was attended by only six aldermen, the sheriffs, town clerk, and recorder. The populace saluted the procession with hisses and other marks of contempt: as they passed Fleet Street, the great bell of Saint Bride's church tolled as if for a funeral, and then a dumb peal was rung for a considerable time. The bells at Bow Church also paid them the same compliment on their reand the populace testified their resentment by other distinguished indignities. turn; On the sixteenth of August, her majesty was delivered of a second son, who was baptized Frederick, and is now Duke of York and Albany. The effects of party had no weight upon the city with respect to the due loyalty they owed their sovereign. The pedestrian statue of his majesty, which had formerly been voted to be placed in the Royal Exchange, was completed by Joseph Wilton, esquire, and fixed in its proper station, on the 24th of February, 1764 *. It Many ludicrous strictures were passed upon the merits of the above statue; but the most entertaining was published in a diurnal journal of this period, which for its witticism, is subjoined: "The scaffold which has been erected for fixing the king's statue in the Royal Exchange, being struck, I had the curiosity to go and view it ; VOL. I. No. 22. ? 3 X and It was at this time become an object of great consideration, to rebuild the gaol of Newgate. The confined situation and unhealthy state of the building, which then was situated and a great number of people I found assembled there on the same occasion, whose opinions concerning it were as various as their physiognomies; and to express them so naturally as they were delivered, would be an arduous task, if not an impossibility; however, some of them were so peculiar, that I cannot forbear mentioning them. Some condemned it totally, others partially. The first would assign no reason, or give a why or wherefore, other than that they did not like it: some be→ gan their criticism at the head, foot, or other part, and proceeded to every member. "The king," quoth one, " is an upright man, and should not have round shoulders, or stoop like the statue." "Poh! you fool,'* says another," don't you see the architect's intent by that attitude? He looks towards the north, with open arms, bestowing favours on the gentry in the Scotch walk." Says a third, "would you have him turn his posteriors on his ancestors, and pay his respects to his neigbour log on his left hand?" "I think he should have been gilt," says a fat fishwoman, who stood not far from me; "God forbid," says an old gentle man of seventy, near to her. "He has a lady's arm," says a country farmer, "with a wooden trundle in his left hand, such as we stir hasty pudding with in the country."" How comes it," says his companion, "that he is dressed in the Scotch taste, without breeches, short stockings, and plaid hanging loose over his shoulders, with a broad-sword hanging loose at his side? it is plain to me, he will become a rank Jacobite in time, Lord have mercy upon us, poor Protestants!" "These idle and groundless observations and remarks proceeded from some in a very natural manner: from others, through prejudice, party, or passion, and I introduce them by way of specimen only; and, considering the liberty which the subjects of this country are contending for, it is but in a small degree or latitude of licentiousness: but what appeared most astonishing was, the construction of the initial letters of the inscription, or rather superscription underneath the statue, viz. S. P. Q. L. not one out of three hundred present, could decypher it, (if I may be allowed the expression,) at length a person in black attempted it thus: Populus Scotorum Queritur Londino: that is, says he, The Scotch shall Reign in London. This ridiculous and unwarrantable construction irritated me not a little upon which I drew him by the sleeve, and pointed to the same superscription under several other statues in the Change, to convince him that he was wrong in his application, and his construction was a partial one, and that those letters were an imitation of the Roman S. P. Q. R. or Senatus Populusque Romanus, and S. P. Q. L. intimated, that the situated across Newgate Street, rendered a removal highly necessary. At a common council, therefore, held on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of the same month, a committee was appointed to consider of a proper place whereon to build a new goal; who reported, "that the most convenient place would be near that whereon Newgate stood; and the court agreeing with the committee, directed them to draw up a petition to parliament for that purpose." The committee recommended that the new gaol should be erected from the corner of the Old Bailey to the Sessions House; and that a third part of the expence should be paid by the city, the rest by the county of Middlesex. Among the statutes which passed during the session of parliament this year, were two for the more peculiar benefit of the city. The first was paving, cleansing, &c.: the other, from its import, deserves particular notice. The the statue was erected by the legislature and citizens of London, which no body attempted to deny. "This ecclarissement, in a very little time, was the occasion of my be ing surrounded by a number of people, demanding my opinion in general of the statue of his present majesty. "I told them, that I thought it would have been better, if it had been done similar to the rest, in free-stone, and gilt in a ginger-bread like manner; and if the expression had been in the Harlequin or Quixote taste, of James or George the First, it would have been more suitable to the place and intent: that the present statue was more fit for a monument in Westminster Abbey, being aptly and highly finished: that his being in a Roman military habit, and having a truncheon in his hand, was not intended to denote its original as a warrior, or the po sition of the right hand to express any partiality. Both, on the contrary, indicate, that he as the fountain or source of peace or war, is ready to scourge his enemies by his soldiers and sailors, whenever there is occasion, but that his greatest bliss is the happiness of his people, which is well adapted and expressed by the fatherly and lowly attitude and expression of a reclined head, and a circling arm to all his subjects in general, instead of standing on tip-toe with a stiff neck, insolent and haughty air of a tyrant. This is my confirmed opinion of the statuary's intent; if I am mistaken, the good natured and sensible, I hope will excuse me." frequent dreadful fires which had happened in the course of the two preceding years, having excited the serious attention of the legislature; this induced them to pass the act" for the better regulating of buildings, and to prevent mischiefs that may happen by fire within the weekly bills of mortality," &c. by which so much of the act of 2 George I. for regulating buildings, &c. as relates to party-walls, shall extend to all cases whatsoever within the city and liberty of Westminster, and within the parishes of St. Mary-le-Bone and Paddington, and Chelsea and St. Pancras, where it shall be necessary to pull down and rebuild any party-wall, whether either of the adjoining houses shall or shall not be, or require to be rebuilt, or new built; except the city of London and liberties thereof, and party-walls of houses on the river Thames below bridge. It then directs a survey of the said walls, and that upon a disagreement of the surveyors it shall be lawful for two neighbouring justices of the peace to add another to them: and that the said wall viewed by them may be pulled down and rebuilt, if the majority signs a certificate of such wall being defective. On the 6th * One instance of this kind, was dreadfully calamitous. of May, 1763, a dreadful fire broke out at the house of lady Molesworth, in Upper Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, which in a short time entirely consumed the building, with all its furniture. Lady Molesworth, her brother captain Usher, her second and third daughters, and four or five servants, perished in the flames. The eldest daughter threw herself out of the window, and broke her leg. The fourth and fifth daughters also jumped out of a garret window, when the former broke her thigh, and the latter was greatly bruised. Dr. Coote Molesworth with his lady, who were on a visit, narrowly escaped with their lives. The doctor's lady threw herself from a two pair of stairs window into the garden, and the Doctor hung by his hand at the window till a ladder was brought to his assistance. An elderly woman, governess of the children, threw herself out of the window, and was killed on the spot. One of the footmen, in jumping from a window, fell upon the iron spikes, where he hung till a chairman, at the hazard of his life, disengaged him; but he afterwards died of his wound.——It is remarkable that notwithstanding the fire in this house was so fatal to the inhabitants, there was not any other building in the least affected by it. The |