So high did the tide of profaneness run at this time, that a Bill was brought into the House of Lords for its suppression. It was in a debate on this Bill that the Earl of Peterborough declared, that though he was for a Parliamentary King, he was against a Parliamentary religion; and that the Duke of Wharton pulled an old family Bible out of his pocket, in order to controvert certain arguments delivered from the episcopal bench. MUG-HOUSE CLUBS. Among the political Clubs of the metropolis in the early part of the eighteenth century, one of the most popular was the Mug-house Club, which met in a great Hall in Long Acre every Wednesday and Saturday, during the winter. The house received its name from the simple circumstance, that each member drank his ale (the only liquor used) out of a separate mug. The Club is described as a mixture of gentlemen, lawyers, and statesmen, who met seldom under a hundred. In _A Journey through England_, 1722, we read of this Club: "But the most diverting and amusing of all is the Mug-house Club in Long Acre. "They have a grave old Gentleman, in his own gray Hairs, now within a few months of Ninety years old, who is their President, and sits in an arm'd chair some steps higher than the rest of the company to keep the whole Room in order. A Harp plays all the time at the lower end of the Room; and every now and then one or other of the Company rises and entertains the rest with a song, and (by the by) some are good Masters. Here is nothing drunk but Ale, and every Gentleman hath his separate Mug, which he chalks on the Table where he sits as it is brought in; and every one retires when he pleases, as from a Coffee-house. "The Room is always so diverted with Songs, and drinking from one Table to another to one another's Healths, that there is no room for Politicks, or anything that can sow'r conversation. "One must be there by seven to get Room, and after ten the Company are for the most part gone. "This is a Winter's Amusement, that is agreeable enough to a Stranger for once or twice, and he is well diverted with the different Humours, when the Mugs overflow."