ly discoveries of new conspiracies, which appeared in a
pretended correspondence written from Spain, France, Italy, or
Denmark: they had their amusing literature, mixed with their grave
politics; and a dialogue between "a Dutch mariner and an English
ostler," could alarm the nation as much as the last letter from
their "private correspondent." That the wildest rumours were
acceptable appears from their contemporary Fuller. Armies were
talked of, concealed under ground by the king, to cut the throats of
all the Protestants in a night. He assures us that one of the most
prevailing dangers among the Londoners was "a design laid for a mine
of powder under the Thames, to cause the river to drown the city."
This desperate expedient, it seems, was discovered just in time to
prevent its execution; and the people were devout enough to have a
public thanksgiving, and watched with a little more care that the
Thames might not be blown up. However, the plot was really not so
much at the bottom of the Thames as at the bottom of their purses.
Whenever they wanted 100,000_l._ they raised a plot, they terrified
the people, they appointed a thanksgiving-day, and while their
ministers addressed to God himself all the news of the week, and
even reproached him for the rumours against their cause, all ended,
as is usual at such times, with the gulled multitude contributing
more heavily to the adventurers who ruled them than the legal
authorities had exacted in their greatest wants. "The Diurnals" had
propagated thirty-nine of these "Treasons, or new Taxes," according
to one of the members of the House of Commons, who had watched their
patriotic designs.

These "Diurnals" sometimes used such language as the following, from
_The Weekly Accompt_, January, 1643:--

"This day afforded no newes at all, but onely what was _heavenly_ and
_spiritual_;" and he gives an account of the public fast, and of the
grave divine Master Henderson's sermon, with his texts in the morning;
and in the afternoon, another of Master Strickland, with his
texts--and of their spiritual effect over the whole parliament![337]

Such news as the following was sometimes very agreeable:--

"From Oxford it is informed, that on Sunday last was fortnight in the
evening, Prince Rupert, accompanied with some lords, and other
cavaliers, _danced through the streets openly, with music before
them_, to one of the colleges; where, after they had stayed about half
an houre, they ret