[911] Gibbon wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (Misc.  Works, ii. 78):—­’To day the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way.  Tommy Townshend moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached before the House on the 30th of January (id est, before the Speaker and four members), should be burnt by the common hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, high-flown doctrines.  The House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till they recollected that they had already thanked the preacher for his excellent discourse, and ordered it to be printed.’

[912]

‘Although it be not shined upon.’
Hudibras, iii. 2, 175.

[913] According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the Morning Post, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was created a baronet in 1815, and died in 1824.  Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 13, 1776 (Letters, vi. 39l):—­’Yesterday I heard drums and trumpets in Piccadilly:  I looked out of the window and saw a procession with streamers flying.  At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction.  I was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is a new ally.  In short, this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord Lyttelton’s chaplain, and author of the old Morning Post, and meant as an appeal to the town against his antagonist, the new one.’  In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment ’for an atrocious libel on the Duke of Richmond.  He was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had appeared both on private persons as well as public.  His life was dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel.  Yet Lord Sandwich had procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be pensioned by the Court.’  Walpole’s Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 464.

[914] See ante, ii. 339, and iii. 265.

[915] Three days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox accused ’a person of great rank in this House’—­Pitt I believe—­’of adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and inconsiderate violence.’ Parl.  Hist. xxiv. 924.  Pitt, in reply, classed Fox among ‘political apostates,’ ib. p. 929.  Burke, the same evening, ’sat down saying, “he little minded the ill-treatment of a parcel of boys."’ When he was called to order, he said:—­’When he used the term “a parcel of boys,” he meant to apply it to the ministry, who, he conceived, were insulting him with their triumph; a triumph which grey hairs ought to be allowed the privilege of expressing displeasure at, when it was founded on the rash exultation of mere boys.’ Ib. p. 939.  Pitt, Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, was called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using ‘language the most false, the most malicious, and the most slanderous.’ Ib. p. 763.