don, so that even the bishops heard and marvelled thereat. Moreover, sir Thomas, member of parliament, spake of the same unto other members of parliament, who spake thereof unto the peers of the realm. Lo! thus did our counsels enter into the hearts of our generals and our lawgivers; and from henceforth, even as as we devised, thus did they.

[After this, the book is turned on a sudden from his own life to a history of all the publick transactions of Europe, compiled from the newspapers of those times. I could not comprehend the meaning of this, till I perceived at last, to my no small astonishment, that all the measures of the four last years of the queen, together with the peace at Utrecht, which have been usually attributed to the earl of Oxford, duke of Ormond, lords Harcourt and Bolingbroke, and other great men, do here most plainly appear to have been wholly owing to Robert Jenkins, Amos Turner, George Pilcocks, Thomas White, but above all, P. P.

The reader may be sure I was very inquisitive after this extraordinary writer, whose work I have here abstracted. I took a journey into the country on purpose: but could not find the least trace of him till by accident I met an old clergyman, who said he could not be positive, but thought it might be one Paul Philips, who had been dead about twelve years. And upon inquiry, all we could learn of that person from the neighbourhood, was that he had been taken notice of for swallowing loaches, and remembered by some people by a black and white cur with one ear, that constantly followed him.]

[In the church-yard I read his epitaph, said to be written by himself.]

O reader, if that thou canst read,

Look down upon this stone;

Do all we can, death is a man
That never spareth none.

K 2

LAW IS A BOTTOMLESS PIT:

OR, THE

HISTORY

OF

JOHN BULL *.

PUBLISHED FROM

A MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN THE CABINET OF THE FAMOUS SIR H. POLESWORTH, IN THE YEAR 1712.

* The History of John Bull, when first published in detached parts by J. Morphew in 1712, was said to be by the Author "of the New Atalantis." As it now stands, the whole has been methodised, and some few passages omitted. See particularly chap. xiii.