DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 20 ) scandalous libel, tending to excite the people to traitorous insurrection against His Majesty; and that the aforesaid paper should be publicly burned by the common hangman.’ But when this order was about being carried out the mob forcibly prevented the hangman from ex- ecuting it, and in place of the paper, burned a jack-boot and a petticoat symbolical of the unpop- ular mother of the King, and his former Minister, Lord Bute. One of the printers of the North Briton, who had been sentenced to the pillory, went there in a coach marked ‘Number 45.’ Instead of being pelted with mud, as was the custom on such occasions, he was cheered, and a collection was made for him on the spot, which produced 2004. Wilkes then injudiciously and contrary to the advice of his friends, set up a private printing-press in his house, with the intention of publishing a com- plete set of the North Briton, and printing other papers, but for private circulation only. Amongst these was a poem called, ‘An Essay on Woman.’ This was an indecent and profane parody of Pope’s famous poem, ‘An Essay on Man,’ and has since then been proved to be the composition of Potter, the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Only thirteen copies of this poem were printed for distribution amongst his personal friends, with