Skelton's mistaking him for the real Mr. Lewis; and it happens that seven persons of quality were by in a room, where Mr. Lewis and Mr. Skelton were half an hour in company, and saw them talk together. It happens likewise, that the real and counterfeit Lewis have no more resemblance to each other in their persons, than they have in their understandings, their truth, their reputation or their principles. Besides, in this narrative, Mr. Levi directly affirms what he directly denied to the Earl of Peterborough, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Lewis himself; to whom he twice or thrice expressly affirmed, that Mr. Skelton had not named either place or person. There is one circumstance in Levi's narrative, which may deceive the reader. He says, "Mr. Skelton was taken into the dining-room;" this dining-room is a ground-room next the street, and Mr. Skelton never went farther than the door of it. His many prevarications in this whole affair, and the many thousand various ways of telling his story, are too tedious to be related. I shall therefore conclude with one remark: By the true account given in this paper, it appears that Mr. Skelton finding his mistake before he spoke a word, begged Mr. Levi's pardon, and by way of apology, told him, "his visit was intended to Mr. Lewis of my Lord Dartmouth's office, to thank him for the service he had done him, in passing the privy-seal." It is probable that Mr. Levi's low intellectuals were deluded by the word service, which he took as compliments from some persons; and then it was easy to find names. Thus what his ignorance and simplicity misled him to begin, his malice taught him to propagate.

I have been the more solicitous to set this matter in a clear light, because Mr. Lewis being employed and trusted in public affairs, if this report had prevailed, persons of the first rank might possibly have been wounded through his sides.

1

A

MODEST INQUIRY

INTO THE

REASONS OF THE JOY

EXPRESSED BY

A CERTAIN SET OF PEOPLE,

UPON THE

SPREADING OF A REPORT

OF

HER MAJESTY'S DEATH.

First Published, Feb. 4, 1713-14.

This tract was written by Mrs. Manley, with the assistance of Dr. Swift.*

* On the 24th of December, 1713, the queen was taken with an ague, of which her majesty had two fits. It was immediately reported "that a dangerous illness had seized the queen at Windsor; and that during the consternation under it, the lord treasurer, who had held no correspondence with Lambeth for above two years, wrote a letter to the archbishop, giving an account of the dubious state of her majesty's health, and promising farther information as occasion should require; and that his grace returned an answer in writing, expressing his affection and duty to the queen, and his prayers for her full and perfect recovery, and his hopes that she might be soon able to return to London, for the better satisfaction of the minds of the people." See "The Wisdom of looking backward, 1715," p. 326. The Examiner, on the 8th of January following, took up the matter in a jocular manner, by way of laughing at the whigs; and heavily incensed that party, as appears by Abel Boyer's account of it in the Political State. N.

MODEST INQUIRY, &c.

THAT this inquiry is made by a private person, and not by her majesty's attorney general; and that such notorious offenders have met only with an expostulation, instead of an indictment; will at once be an everlasting proof of the lenity of the government, and of the unprovoked and groundless barbarity of such a proceeding. Amid the pious intercessions of her majesty's dutiful subjects at the throne of grace, for her health and recovery; that others of them should receive the news of her death with joy, and spread it with industry, will hardly appear probable to any, except to those who have been witnesses of such vile practices, not only in her majesty's capital city, but in several other places of the kingdom; not only near Charing-cross, but at some other market crosses that their passion on such an occasion should prove too unruly even for the caution demanded in the belief of news still uncertain, for the severity of the laws, and for the common decency that is due to the fall even of the greatest enemy: that not only those who were sharers of the common blessings of her mild government, but such as had been warmed by its kinder influences; not only those who owed their honour, their riches, and other superfluities, but even the necessaries of life to her bounty, such as ate her bread, wore her raiment, and were protected under the shelter of her roof; should not be able for a moment to stifle their eager and impatient