had paid to Lewis and by the impertinence with which he had
spoken of William.

The Gloucestershire election became a national affair.
Portmanteaus full of pamphlets and broadsides were sent down from
London. Every freeholder in the county had several tracts left at
his door. In every market place, on the market day, papers about
the brazen forehead, the viperous tongue, and the white liver of
Jack Howe, the French King's buffoon, flew about like flakes in a
snow storm. Clowns from the Cotswold Hills and the forest of
Dean, who had votes, but who did not know their letters, were
invited to hear these satires read, and were asked whether they
were prepared to endure the two great evils which were then
considered by the common people of England as the inseparable
concomitants of despotism, to wear wooden shoes, and to live on
frogs. The dissenting preachers and the clothiers were peculiarly
zealous. For Howe was considered as the enemy both of
conventicles and of factories. Outvoters were brought up to
Gloucester in extraordinary numbers. In the city of London the
traders who frequented Blackwell Hall, then the great emporium
for woollen goods, canvassed actively on the Whig side.


[Here the revised part ends.--EDITOR.]


Meanwhile reports about the state of the King's health were
constantly becoming more and more alarming. His medical
advisers, both English and Dutch, were at the end of their
resources. He had consulted by letter all the most eminent