The Tories, on their side, were savagely mauled by the Whig press. The old Jacobite fire of Earbery was thereby inflamed, especially by the attacks on the old Tories in the ‘Craftsman.’ The former Stuart champion, who, in 1717, fled the country to avoid the consequences of publishing his ‘History of the Clemency of our English Monarchs,’ but whose sentence of outlawry was reversed in 1725, gave the ‘Craftsman’ warning, in the following advertisement, which was in the ‘Evening Post,’ of September 26, 1730,――‘Whereas the “Craftsman” has, for some time past, openly declared himself to be a root and branch man, and has made several unjust and scandalous reflections upon the family of the Stuarts, not sparing even King Charles I., this is to give notice, that if he reflects further upon any ONE of that line, I shall shake his rotten Commonwealth principles into atoms. _Matthias Earbery._’ The writer kept his word in his ‘Occasional Historian.’ To decline to take the oath of abjuration was still a very serious matter, involving not merely temporary loss, but life-long professional ruin. Pope had a nephew, Robert Rackett, whose position affords a striking illustration of these Jacobite times. The story is thus told by Pope himself, in a letter to Lord Oxford, Nov. 16, 1730: ‘It happens that a nephew of mine, who, for his parents’ sins and not his own, was born a papist, is just coming, after nine or ten years’ study and hard service under an attorney, to practise in the law. Upon this depends his whole well-being and fortune in the world, and the hopes of his parents in his education, all which must inevitably be frustrated by the severity of a late opinion of the judges, who, for the major part, have agreed to admit no attorney to be sworn the usual oath which qualifies them to practise, unless they also give them the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. ◆[Sidenote: _DIFFICULTIES IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE._]◆ This has been occasioned solely by the care they take to enforce an Act of Parliament, in the last session but one, against fraudulent practices of attornies, and to prevent men not duly qualified as attornies from practising as such. It is very evident that the intent of the Act is in no way levelled at papists, nor in any way demands their being excluded from practising more than they were formerly. Therefore, I hope the favour of a judge may be procured, so far as to admit him to take the usual attorney’s oath, without requiring the religious one.’ Pope hopes one of the judges will be good-natured enough to do this, and he suggests Judge Price for Lord Oxford’s manipulation. ‘In one word the poor lad will be utterly undone in this case, if this contrivance cannot be obtained in his behalf.’ Lord Oxford applied, not to Price, but to ‘Baron C.’ (Carter or Comyns, as Mr. Elwin suggests). This judge, says Pope (Dec. 1730), ‘showed him what possible regard he could, and lamented his inability to admit any