Events now thickened so fast, that to avoid confusion, I will here say a little more on this head. The plot so hopefully laid to blow up Wilkes, and ruin him in the estimation of all the decent and grave, had, at least in the latter respect, scarce any effect at all. The treachery was so gross and scandalous, so revengeful, and so totally unconnected with the political conduct of Wilkes, and the instruments so despicable, odious, or in whom any pretensions to decency, sanctimony, or faith, were so preposterous, that losing all sight of the scandal contained in the poem, the whole world almost united in crying out against the informers. Sandwich, in opening the discovery, had canted till his own friends could not keep their countenances. Sir Francis Dashwood was not more notorious for singing profane and lewd catches; and what aggravated the hypocrisy, scarce a fortnight had passed since this holy Secretary of State himself had been present with Wilkes at a weekly club to which both belonged, held at the top of Covent Garden Theatre, and composed of players and the loosest revellers of the age. Warburton’s part was only ridiculous, and was heightened by its being known that Potter, his wife’s gallant, had had the chief hand in the composition of the verses. However, an intimacy commenced between the Bishop and Sandwich, and some jovial dinners and libations of champagne cemented their friendship. Kidgell, the jackall, published so precise, affected, and hypocritic an account of the transaction, that he, who might have escaped in the gloom of the treachery, completely blasted his own reputation; and falling into debt, was, according to the fate of inferior tools, abandoned by his masters, and forced to fly his country. Though the rank and fortune of Sandwich saved him from disgrace of that kind, he had little reason to exult in his machination. He brought a stigma on himself that counterworked many of his own views and arts; and Churchill the poet has branded his name on this account with lasting colours. The public indignation went so far, that the Beggar’s Opera being performed at Covent Garden Theatre soon after this event, the whole audience, when Macheath says, “_That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprises me_,” burst out into an applause of application; and the nick-name of _Jemmy Twitcher_ stuck by the Earl so as almost to occasion the disuse of his title.