Page:Manners and customs of ye Englyshe.djvu/49



ENT this Morning to Exeter Hall, where one of the May Meetings that do regularly take Place at this Time of the Seaſon, and ſerve in lieu of Concerts and Shows to a Sort of People that call themſelves ſerious. This, one of the Meetings of a Proteſtant Aſſociation, which I had heard much of and did long to go to, expecting to hear ſome good Argument againſt the Roman Catholiques. But inſtead of Argument, I did hear Nothing but Abuſe, which do always go in at one Ear and out at the other. No new Point brought forward to confute Popery; but only an Iteration of the Old Charges of Superſtition and ſo forth, urged with no greater Power than mere Strength of Lungs. The Commotions on the Continent laſt Year laid much Streſs on, and the Turmoils in Catholique and Quiet in Proteſtant States contraſted, as though there had been no Diſturbance or Trouble in Pruſſia or Denmark, or any Tumult or Revolution in Belgium or Portugal. I did note two chief Speakers, whom, on their riſing, the Aſſembly did applaud as if they had been Actors, and to be ſure, they ranted more frantically than I did ever ſee. Yet at times they ſtooped to Drollery in the Height of their Paſſion, and one of them did make ſuch Sport of the Roman Catholique Religion as would not have been ſuffered in the Adelphi Theatre. But I do find that ſome who would not be ſeen in