We reproduce a curious print published in 1746 representing "Temple Bar"
with three heads raised on tall poles or iron rods. The devil looks
down in triumph and waves the rebel banner, on which are three crowns and
a coffin, with the motto, 'A crown or a grave.' Underneath was written
some wretched verses.
[Illustration:
"Observe the banner which would all enslave,
Which ruined traytors did so proudly wave,
The devil seems the project to despise;
A fiend confused from off the trophy flies.
While trembling rebels at the fabrick gaze,
And dread their fate with horror and amaze,
Let Briton's sons the emblematick view
And plainly see what to rebellion's due."
COPY OF A PRINT PUBLISHED IN 1746.]
It is recorded in the "Annual Register" that on "January 20th (between two
and three a.m.), 1766, a man was taken up for discharging musket bullets
from a steel cross-bow at the two remaining heads upon Temple Bar. On
being examined he affected a disorder in his senses, and said his reason
for doing so was his strong attachment to the present Government, and that
he thought it was not sufficient that a traitor should merely suffer
death; that this provoked his indignation, and that it had been his
constant practice for three nights past to amuse himself in the same
manner. And it is much to be feared," says the recorder of the event,
"that he is a near relation to one of the unhappy sufferers." On being
searched, about fifty musket bullets were found on the man, and these were
wrapped up in a paper with a motto--"Eripuit ille vitam."
Dr. Johnson says that once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey,
"While we surveyed the Poets' Corner, I said to him:--
'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur illis.'
(Perhaps some day our names may mix with theirs). When we got to Temple
Bar he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slyly whispered:--
'Forsitan et nostrum ... miscebitur _Istis_.'"
One of the heads was blown down on April 1st, 1772, and the other did not
remain much longer. The head of Colonel Towneley is preserved in the
chapel at Townely Hall, near Burnley. It is perforated, showing that it
had been thrust upon a spike. During a visit on May 21st, 1892, to
Towneley Hall by the members of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian
Society, the skull was seen, and a note on the subject appears in the
Transactions of the Society.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR IN DR. JOHNSON'S TIME.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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