ht fit to revive an old ceremony among
the rabble, of burning the Pope in effigy; for the performance of which,
with more solemnity, they had made extraordinary preparations.[76] From
the several circumstances of the expense of this intended pageantry, and
of the persons who promoted it, the court, apprehensive of a design to
inflame the common people, thought fit to order, that the several
figures should be seized as popish trinkets; and guards were ordered to
patrol, for preventing any tumultuous assemblies. Whether this frolic
were only intended for an affront to the court, or whether it had a
deeper meaning, I must leave undetermined. The Duke, in his own nature,
is not much turned to be popular; and in his flourishing times, whenever
he came back to England upon the close of a campaign, he rather affected
to avoid any concourse of the _mobile_, if they had been disposed to
attend him; therefore, so very contrary a proceeding at this juncture,
made it suspected as if he had a design to have placed himself at their
head. "France," "Popery," "The Pretender," "Peace without Spain," were
the words to be given about at this mock parade; and if what was
confidently asserted be true, that a report was to have been spread at
the same time of the Queen's death, no man can tell what might have been
the event.

[Footnote 76: See Swift's "Journal to Stella," Letter xxxv. (vol. ii.,
pp. 283-84), and "A True Relation of the Intended Riot," printed in
Scott's edition, vol. v., pp. 399-413. [W.S.J.]

"The burning of a Pope in effigy," notes Scott--in his reprint of what
Swift called "the Grub Street account of the tumult"--"upon the 17th
November, the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, was a
favourite pastime with the mob of London, and often employed by their
superiors as a means of working upon their passions and prejudices." A
full account of this ceremony is given in his edition of Dryden's Works,
1808, vol. vi., p. 222. An account of the attempt "to revive an old
ceremony," referred to by Swift, was published also in "The Post Boy"
for November 20th, 1711. [T.S.]]

But this attempt, to whatever purposes intended, proving wholly abortive
by the vigilance of those in power, the Duke's arrival was without any
noise or consequence; and upon consulting with his friends, he soon fell
in with their new scheme for preventing the peace. It was believed by
many persons, that the ministers might, with little difficulty, have