t are wolves, goats, sheep, or swine.

XXVIII.

Then farewel, sacred Majesty,
Let's pull all brutish tyrants down;
Where men are born, and still live free,
There ev'ry head doth wear a crown:
Mankind, like miserable frogs,
Prove wretched, king'd by storks and dogs.

Much about this time the duke of Buckingham was under disgrace, for
things of another nature, and being disengaged from any particular
attachment in town, he and lord Rochester resolved, like Don Quixote
of old, to set out in quest of adventures; and they met with some that
will appear entertaining to our readers, which we shall give upon the
authority of the author of Rochester's Life, prefixed to his works.
Among many other adventures the following was one:

There happened to be an inn on New-market road to be lett, they
disguised themselves in proper habits for the persons they were to
assume, and jointly took this inn, in which each in his turn
officiated as master; but they soon made this subservient to purposes
of another nature.

Having carefully observed the pretty girls in the country with whom
they were most captivated, (they considered not whether maids, wives,
or widows) and to gain opportunities of seducing them, they invited
the neighbours, who had either wives or daughters, to frequent feasts,
where the men were plied hard with good liquor, and the women
sufficiently warmed to make but as little resistance as would be
agreeable to their inclinations, dealing out their poison to both
sexes, inspiring the men with wine, and other strong liquors, and the
women with love; thus they were able to deflower many a virgin, and
alienate the affections of many a wife by this odd stratagem; and it
is difficult to say, whether it is possible for two men to live to a
worse purpose.

It is natural to imagine that this kind of life could not be of long
duration. Feasts so frequently given, and that without any thing to
pay, must give a strong suspicion that the inn-keepers must soon
break, or that they were of such fortune and circumstances, as did not
well suit the post they were in.--This their lordships were sensible
of, but not much concerned about it, since they were seldom found long
to continue in the same sort of adventures, variety being the life of
their enjoyments. It was besides, near the time of his Majesty's going
to Newmarket, when they designed, that the discovery of their real
plots, sh