endeavour to sow the seeds of sedition, and are impatient to see the
fruits? "But," saith he[20], "the deaf adder stops her ear let the
charmer charm never so wisely." True, my Lord, there are indeed too many
adders in this nation's bosom, adders in all shapes, and in all habits,
whom neither the Queen nor parliament can charm to loyalty, truth,
religion, or honour.

[Footnote 20: Page 28.] Among other instances produced by him of the
dismal condition we are in, he offers one which could not easily be
guessed. It is this: That the little factious pamphlets written about
the end of King Charles II's reign, "lie dead in shops, are looked on as
waste paper, and turned to pasteboard." How many are there of his
Lordship's writings which could otherwise never have been of any real
service to the public? Has he indeed so mean an opinion of our taste, to
send us at this time of day into all the corners of Holborn, Duck Lane,
and Moorfields, in quest after the factious trash published in those
days by Julian Johnson, Hickeringil, Dr. Oates, and himself[21]?

[Footnote 21: The Rev. Samuel Johnson, degraded from his clerical
rank, scourged, and imprisoned, for a work called "Julian's Arts to
undermine Christianity," in which he drew a parallel between that
apostate and James, then Duke of York. [S.]

Edmund Hickeringil, a fanatic preacher at Colchester. He appears, from
the various pamphlets which he wrote during the reigns of Charles II.
and his brother, to have been a meddling crazy fool. He was born in
Essex, 1630, and was educated at Cambridge. He entered the army, and
went to Jamaica, of which place he wrote a very curious account.
Afterwards he entered holy orders, and became rector of All Saints,
Colchester. He was a most eccentric individual. [T. S.]]