Game, than from the real desires of his party to exalt him to a Throne. But 'tis neither to be imagined, that a Prince of his Spirit, after the gaining of a Crown, would be managed by those who helped him to it, let his ingagements and promises be never so strong before, neither that he would be confin'd in the narrow compass of a Curtail'd Mungril Monarchy, half Common-wealth. Conquerors are not easily to be curbed. And it is yet harder to conceive, that his pretended Friends, even design him so much as that. At present, 'tis true, their mutual necessities keep them fast together; and all the several Fanatick Books fall in, to enlarge the common stream: But suppose the business compassed, as they design'd it, how many, and how contradicting Interests are there to be satisfied! Every Sect of High Shooes would then be uppermost; and not one of them endure the toleration of another. And amongst them all, what will become of those fine Speculative Wits, who drew the Plan of this new Government, and who overthrew the old? For their comfort, the Saints will then account them Atheists, and discard them. Or they will plead each of them their particular Merits, till they quarrel about the Dividend. And, the Protestant Successor himself, if he be not wholly governed by the prevailing party, will first be declared no Protestant; and next, no Successor. This is dealing sincerely with him, which Plato Redivivus does not: for all the bustle he makes concerning the Duke of M. proceeds from a Commonwealth Principle: he is afraid at the bottom to have him at the Head of the party, lest he should turn the absolute Republick, now designing, into an arbitrary Monarchy.

The next thing he exposes, is the project communicated at Oxford, by a worthy Gentleman since deceased. But since he avowed himself, that it was but a rough draught, our Author might have paid more respect to his memory, than to endeavour to render it ridiculous. But let us see how he mends the matter in his own which follows.

If the Duke were only banished, during life, and the Administration put into the hands of Protestants, that would establish an unnatural War of Expediency, against an avowed Right and Title. But on the other hand exclude the Duke, and all other Popish Successors, and put down all those Guards are now so illegally kept up, and banish the Papists, where can be the danger of a War, in a Nation unanimous?

I will not be unreasonable with him; I will expect English no where from the barrenness of his Country: but if he can make sense of his Unnatural War of Expediency, I will forgive him two false Grammars, and three Barbarisms, in every Period of his Pamphlet; and yet leave him enow of each to expose his ignorance, whensoever I design it. But his Expedient it self is very solid, if you mark it. Exclude the Duke, take away the Guards, and consequently, all manner of defence from the Kings Person; Banish every Mothers Son of the Papists, whether guilty or not guilty in particular of the Plot. And when Papists are to be banished, I warrant you all Protestants in Masquerade must go for company; and when none but a pack of Sectaries and Commonwealths-men are left in England, where indeed will be the danger of a War, in a Nation unanimous? After this, why does not some resenting Friend of Marvel's, put up a Petition to the Soveraigns of his party, that his Pension of four hundred pounds per annum, may be transferred to some one amongst them, who will not so notoriously betray their cause by dullness and insufficiency? As for the illegal Guards, let the Law help them; or let them be disbanded; for I do not think they have need of any Champion.

The next twenty Lines are only an illustration upon his Expedient: for he is so fond of his darling Notion, that he huggs it to death, as the Ape did her young one. He gives us his Bill of Tautology once more; for he threatens, that they would not rest at the Exclusion; but the Papists must again be banish'd, and the Dukes Creatures put out of Office both Civil and Military. Now the Dukes Creatures, I hope, are Papists, or little better; so that this is all the same: as if he had been conning over this ingenious Epigram;

    There was a man who with great labour, and much pain;
    Did break his neck, and break his neck, and break his neck again.

At the last, to shew his hand is not out in the whole Paragraph, when the Duke is excluded, his Creatures put out of Office, the Papists banished twice over; and the Church of England-men delivered to Satan, yet still he says the Duke is the great Minister of State; and the Kings Excellent Qualities give his Brother still opportunities to ruine us and our Religion. Even excluded, and without Friends and Faction he can do all this; and the King is endued with most excellent Qualities to suffer it.

Having found my man, methinks I can scarce afford to be serious with him any longer; but to treat him as he deserves, like an ill Bouffoon.

He defends the sharpess of the Addresses of which his Majesty complains: but I suppose it would be better for him, and me, to let our Principals engage, and to stand by ourselves. I confess, I have heard some members of that House, wish, that all Proceedings had been carried with less vehemence. But my Author goes further on the other hand; He affirms, that many wise and good men thought they had gone too far, in assuring, nay, in mentioning of money before our safety was fully provided for. So you see he is still for laying his hand upon the penny. In the mean time I have him in a Praemunire for arraigning the House of Commons; for he has tacitely confessed, that the wise and good men were the fewer; because the House carryed it for mentioning money in their Address. But it seems they went too far, in speaking of a Supply, before they had consulted this Gentleman, how far the safety of the Nation would admit it. I find plainly by his temper, that if matters had come to an accommodation, and a bargain had been a bargain, the Knights of the Shire must have been the Protestant Knights no longer.

As for Arbitrary Power of taking men into custody, for matters that had no relation to Privileges of Parliament, he says they have erred with their Fathers. If he confess that they have erred, let it be with all their Generation, still they have erred: and an error of the first digestion, is seldom mended in the second. But I find him modest in this point; and knowing too well they are not a Court of Judicature, he does not defend them from Arbitrary Proceedings, but only excuses, and palliates the matter, by saying, that it concern'd the Rights of the People, in suppressing their Petitions to the Fountain of Justice. So, when it makes for him, he can allow the King to be the Fountain of Justice, but at other times he is only a Cistern of the People. But he knows sufficiently, however he dissembles it, that there were some taken into custody, to whom that crime was not objected. Yet since in a manner he yields up the Cause, I will not press him too far, where he is so manifestly weak. Tho I must tell him by the way, that he is as justly to be proceeded against for calling the Kings Proclamation illegal, which concerned the matter of Petitioning, as some of those, who had pronounced against them by the House of Commons, that terrible sentence, of Take him, Topham.

The strange illegal Votes declaring several eminent persons to be Enemies to the King and Kingdom, are not so strange, he says, but very justifiable. I hope he does not mean, that illegal Votes are now not strange in the House of Commons: But observe the reason which he gives: for the House of Commons had before address'd for their removal from about the King. It was his business to have prov'd, that an Address of the House of Commons, without Process, order of Law,