It is fair to Lord Wintoun’s Jacobite defender to say that Sir Constantine――the displaced Tory Lord Chancellor of Ireland――did his duty, at Lord Wintoun’s trial, in an able and dignified way. Duhigg, in his ‘History of the King’s Inns,’ states, that after Phipps returned to the English bar, ‘he seemed to consider official station as still encircling him, and violated professional decorum at the bar of the House of Lords, for which that august assembly most justly gave the offender a public reprimand.’ The comment of Mr. O’Flanagan, in his biography of Phipps, in the ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,’ is――‘The historian of the King’s Inns uses such strong language in reference to all whom he dislikes, that I am not disposed to place implicit reliance on all his statements.’ The Tory party naturally honoured Sir Constantine, often escorting him to his mansion in the new, fashionable, and semirural Ormond Street, with marks of enthusiasm. The mug-houses, the coffee-houses, and the taverns, were crowded with people more or less excited by the trial and its results. Friends and acquaintances spoke without reserve, but when a stranger drew near a group, the topic was changed. Some spoke of the new play, ‘The Drummer,’ which they had seen on the previous Saturday, and others talked of friends who had gone to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, to patronise the benefit performance of Bullock, the favourite low comedian of the time. [Illustration: Decorative banner] CHAPTER X. (1716.) [Illustration: Drop-T]wo days after the last trial, the Lord High Steward stood up and declared that there was nothing more to be done by virtue of his present commission. The House of Lords then ordered that a full report of the Earl of Wintoun’s trial should be printed. This was on Wednesday, March 21st. Mr. Cowper, clerk of the Parliaments, accordingly appointed Jacob Tonson to print and publish it; and my Lords ‘forbade any other person to print the same.’ Jacob, forthwith, issued an edition, handsome in the getting up, and rather high in price. Immediately, a spurious edition, in six folio pages, tempted the general public――at two pence! It bore the name of ‘Sarah Popping, at the Black Raven, Paternoster Row.’ The Lords, angry at this contempt, ordered Mrs. Popping to be brought before them. On the 13th of April, the famous antiquary, Sir William Oldys, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, appeared before the House with the statement that he had Sarah Popping under arrest, but, said Oldys, ‘She is so ill that she is not in a condition to be brought to the bar; but a person is attending at the door who can give an account concerning the said Paper.’ Whereupon, one Elizabeth Cape was brought in, and she deposed to such effect, that the Lords ordered the immediate arrest of two Fleet-Street publishers and booksellers,――one, a John Pemberton; the other, the notorious Edmund Curll.