Greeks and Romans, who related of him most instructive stories. To them he was a noble animal so remarkable for his patience and firmness that, however much he might be beaten, whipped, or kicked, he would still trudge on without altering his pace. Rightly considered, the ass thus admirably symbolized the Jacobites, whom no force of argument has ever been able to swerve from their principles. If it be objected that the firmness of the ass and the Jacobite inclines to obstinacy, it should be remembered that every virtue in excess borders upon its corresponding vice; for such is the teaching of all the philosophers, ancient and modern.

Several minor details of the print Fielding left to his readers to work out for themselves. They would see in the French sword and the fleurs-de-lis the Jacobite intrigues with France, and in the "Oceana" hanging at the ass's tail a hit at those Republicans who, though they wished to rid England of her kings, preferred the Stuarts to the House of Hanover. They were the tag end of the Jacobite party. Equally clear to everybody would be the meaning of the Jesuit, for from the Protestant standpoint the Church of Rome was the instigator of all disaffection with the House of Hanover. Similar views Fielding had already expressed in his "Dialogue between a Gentleman of London . . . and an Honest Alderman." In his print he depicted, as he had described in his pamphlet, "that notable and mysterious union of French interest, Popery, Jacobitism, and Republicanism; by a coalition of all which parties this nation is to be redeemed from the deplorable state of slavery, under which it at present labours." The art of man, he remarked by the way, could not carry higher than this, "the glory of Jacobitism."

Like the explanation of his frontispiece, the irony of the leading articles had to be patent in order to be effective. In mock praise of the Jacobites, Fielding divided them into

classes, pointed out the external marks by which they might be detected, and reduced all their political opinions to nonsense. A parallel was drawn between Jews and Jacobites, in which both were shown to possess the same characteristics-superstition, stubbornness, and a headlong temper. Both had lost their anointed kings, and both were still looking for a Messiah who had already come. A parody on Ovid's "Art of Love," which a fictitious correspondent, who had read Fielding's paraphrase of that poem, professed to have translated from a Latin original called "De Arte Jacobitica," instructed the Jacobites in the rules necessary for winning over their country by deceit and misrepresentation, by feigning a love where there is none. A learned treatise on fables being advertised, Fielding made use of the book for an analogous account of the origin of Jacobitism out of ignorance and oral tradition founded upon it. As the Jacobites were all heavy drinkers, Fielding thought that the word designating them was in some way derived from Bacchus, otherwise Iacchus, from which one may easily pass to Iacchites, or, in English pronunciation, Jackites. But Parson Adams questioned this etymology, and challenged him to go a step further and show how Jackites became Jacobites, how the "middle syllable," as it was called, ever got into the place where it now stands. According to the Hebrew scholar, the word Jacobite could come only from Jacob, meaning "a supplanter," which exactly described not only the man in Scripture who bore that name but also a party always intriguing for power under the pretence that the existing Government is damnable.

A fictitious correspondent such as Parson Adams was an editorial device for removing the ironic masque whenever Fielding wished to deal a direct home thrust. As John Trottplaid, he was bound to write in the character of a Jacobite; but as a country parson, a Quaker, or any other

fanciful contributor, he might become an avowed Hanoverian, assailing the Jacobites and repelling their attacks on the Government. More than once Mr. Trottplaid was censured in his own newspaper for stirring up political quarrels at a time when the people should present a united front against their common enemy across the Channel. Let these dissensions continue, declared Fielding through an alarmed correspondent, and there will soon be no British nation for the Jacobites to disrupt; it will become a dependency of France. Despite sober communications in this style, the ironic tone of the newspaper was maintained by the editorial comment which accompanied them. Though he had dedicated his talents, Mr. Trottplaid said, to the Jacobites, a man of his fair temper could not justly refuse to let a poor devil on the other side occasionally address the public through his columns. He had no fear that harm would result from this impartial policy, for no argument had ever yet prevailed against Jacobitism. Of course, it would be better if he could count upon more correspondents within his own party; but for some unknown reason there was a dearth of them. Doubtless many Jacobites had failed to contribute to his journal because they were unable to write; but that could not be true of the whole party, for he had already published several Jacobite effusions and there were more in his desk. To prove his point, Mr. Trottplaid inserted an illiterate letter from a Somerset squire in denunciation of the window-tax. "I put out," wrote the squire, "one haf of my windows last year, and if there comes another [tax], Ile put out t'other haf.-D-n me a man may drink in the dark, and mayhap he may then be the buolder in toasting honest healths." This letter of an old Jacobite who sat in the dark and drank to the King over the water, breathed, Mr. Trottplaid remarked, that honest, hearty, patriotic spirit which distinguishes the country gentlemen of England from all other people in the