cried and spoken evil of; nay, our very flaves, who are employed in our vileft drudgery, deny our rule and dominion over them. This being the cafe, who can blame us for doing justice to ourselves, blazoning our own honours, and demonftrating what generalservice we are of to an ungrateful world?

KNOW then, that our progenitor is a mighty monarch, to whom many appellations or titles are given, particularly that of Beelzebub: We (Deceit and Lying) are his immediate offspring and as Pallas (to whom we claim relation, which the conftantly refuses to admit) was chopped out of Jupiter's head and came forth armed, so proceeded we from Beelzebub's heart, born with all our teeth full grown, and armed alfo at all points. We are twins, but I have the honour to be the elder: however, we are co-heirs to our father's kingdom.

SOME of you, my auditors, may perhaps object or argue, that although we are undoubtedly of royal iffue, yet our ancestor was a very wicked prince, and that we ourselves have always done, and now are continually doing, much mischief in the world, therefore have no title to honour in our own right or that of our ancestor. But furely this objec tion or argument can be of no force, becaufe it proves too much : for if only fuch princes,

or

or other great perfonages, who are born of good and worthy parents, or who themselves act worthily and virtuously, were to be honoured, what a condition would the generality of kings, princes, and other great people be in? Inftead of thinking fo highly of themselves as they moftly do, and exacting fuch reverence from others, they might humble themselves in duft and afhes, and with great propriety cry out,-Lord, have mercy upon us! as well as upon those over whom we rule and govern.

THIS objection then being, as we think, fufficiently answered and removed, and our claim to royal parentage and the honours thereunto annexed fully fettled and established, we shall proceed to demonftrate our antiquity, and the great advantage we always have been and ftill are of to the generality of mankind from the highest to the lowest.

OUR antiquity will fufficiently appear, when we come to fhew, as we fhall in the progrefs of this difcourfe, the ufe made of us in the earliest ages of the world: it may therefore fuffice at prefent juft to mention, that very foon after the creation, the serpent, who was it seems more subtle than any beaft of the field, beguiled or deceived Eve. Whether the ferpent, as fome have imagined, being of the male kind, then beguiled or

2

deceived

.

deceived your grandmother in the manner many of her daughters have fince been deceived by the fame fex, I will not take upon me to determine; but certain it is, that the great business of multitudes of her offspring has been to beguile and deceive one another, from that time to this, on every fubject and in every way they could contrive or invent.

In this laudable employment, the plea of antiquity has been of no small service to them and to us: for by this means we many times repel the attacks of an enemy, and affault him, as it were, from high ground. Truth, when the endeavours to gain our votaries. from us, (for tho' all men pretend to worship her, yet far the greater number are really devoted to us) and in her small still voice tells them, on one fide, of impofitions, improbabilities, abfurdities, impoffibilities; and on the other, of reafon, proof, and demonftration, all which the offers to fhew them in the cleareft, that is in her own, light; we presently thunder out antiquity and authority,

-not forgetting, in a lower voice, to whisper intereft by means of the firft we darken all about us, and aftonish and intimidate our hearers; by the fecond we gain their hearts, and keep them zealously attached to ourfelves.

How ferviceable we have been to the antient patriarchs, to lawgivers, kings, prophets, and faints, and to many other great perfonages of former and latter times, is well known to all the world.

ABRAHAM and Ifaac, in their travels, thought to preferve themselves from danger, on account of their hand fome wives, by our help. When Abraham" was come near to enter into Egypt, he faid unto Sarab his wife, Behold now, I know thou art a fair "woman to look upon. *** Say, I pray "thee, thou art my fifter." Again," And "Abraham faid of Sarah his wife, She is my "fifter." In the fame manner did Ifaac manage respecting his wife Rebekah. And pray, of what eminent fervice were we to Jacob? His mother and he confederated to deceive poor blind Ifaac, and by that means cheated his brother Efau of the bleffing defigned for him. "And Jacob faid unto his "father, I am Efau thy firft-born." *** "And he (Ifaac) faid, Art thou my very fon Efau? And he faid, I am."

AFTER this Laban deceived Jacob by giving him Leah in the room of Rachel, However, if wives are a bleffing, Jacob had no cause to complain, but on the contrary to rejoice and be thankful: for he got Rachel afterwards, and fo had two wives instead of

one;

one; and as they each gave her chambermaid to him, he furely had reason to be fatisfied, if they were. Nevertheless Jacob in his turn played Laban a notable trick about his cattle, and by that means became exceedingly rich.

HAVING just now mentioned an eminent Hebrew lady to whom we were fo remarkably serviceable, I fhall take this opportunity of reminding you, ladies, of a few among the many obligations your fex is under to us and our family, particularly how much some females have, by our means, been celebrated both in facred and prophane hiftory.

AMONG a multitude of inftances that might be given of this, I fhall, to avoid prolixity, felect only two or three. And first, the example of Jael the wife of Heber, which does equal honour to the perfon of whom it is related, and the book it is related in. The story, as there told, is this: In a battle between the Ifraelites led by Deborah and Barak, and the Canaanites commanded by Sifera, the latter was defeated, and "fled

away on his feet to the tent of Jael the "wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was

r

peace between Jabin" (Sifera's master) " and the house of Heber the Kenite.

And

με Jael went out to meet Sifera, and faid “unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to mè,

" fear