"The Hell-fires, you may guess by the appellation, aim at a more transcendant malignity; deriding the forms of Religion as a trifle with them, by a natural progression from the form they turn to the substance; with Lucifer they fly at Divinity. The third person of the Trinity is what they peculiarly attack; by the following specimen you may judge of their good will: _i. e._ their calling for a Holy Ghost-pye at the Tavern, in which, by the bye, you may still observe the propriety and justice of God's judgment on them, that blasts the advantages of their education, so as to make this shocking stupidity to be the poignancy of their wit, and the life they lead, the sublimity of their genius. Such is their disposition; the next things to be remarked are their education and usual place of conference. Their education then, after the care of tender parents, and their initiation into the liberal arts, is proposed to be finished in an academy; (do not mistake me) not a scholastic schismatical one, but a riding one; where obsceneness, curses, blasphemy, exclamations, with revolving regularity, meet each curvet of the more rational animal. Their usual place of conference in full council, is a diminutive Tavern not very far from thence; where the master and cook may perhaps in time hear something from a Magistrate for striking in with the rakes' blasphemous jests, and supplying them with cards and dice on Sundays." As a further illustration of the manners of the times, the following paragraph is of importance: "On Wednesday night last, about twelve, there was such a great riot in Windmill-street, near the Haymarket, that near 100 gentlemen and others were all engaged at one time, some with swords, and others with sticks and canes, wherein abundance were dangerously wounded; the watchmen that came to put an end to the affray were knocked down and barbarously used; at last the patrole of Horse-guards came, and finding them obdurate, rode through them cutting all the way with their swords; yet we hear of none that were killed upon the spot, though many, it is thought, cannot recover of their wounds. When they saw their own time, they gave over; and, upon summing up the matter, the quarrel began at first by two chairmen only[266:A]." On the evening of May 28, Captain Fitzgerald and three young men his companions met a lady in the Strand, returning from St. James's, conveyed in a sedan-chair. They immediately endeavoured to force her out, but were opposed by the chairmen, upon which they drew their swords, and proceeded to demolish the vehicle. The noise brought a watchman to the spot, who instantly received a deadly wound through the back, and as instantly expired. This mighty son of Mars was secured; but the others fled from their foul deed, like true cowards.