Note ◊ — ANECDOTES OF THE LEARNED PIG *.

The pretence of a miraculous power in the cure of the evil was the moſt extraordinary ſtrain of that King-craft of which James the Firſt ſo loudly boaſted. No manly man, under the circumſtances of the caſe, would have ſet up this pretence, or have expected any effect from it but that of public deriſion and contempt; but weak and credulous men take, perhaps, the beſt meaſure of human weakneſs and credulity, and ſo deep did this fraud ſtrike its roots, that, authenticated as it was by the clergy, and annually certified by the ſurgeons and phyſicians of the royal houſehold, it ſurvived the civil war, was reſtored with Charles the Second, extended beyond the revolution, and was only extinguiſhed by the act of ſettlement, which, taking the principles of the Britiſh government out of the clouds, placed them on the firm baſis of the earth. The pretenſions of Alexander were of a bolder and more rational ſort, and held to be ſo important, that his ſucceſſors, who had no kindred intereſt in the horns of Ammon, yet mingled them in their crowns and tiaras, till at laſt the Roman Titans tumbled from their ſeats one after another theſe fictitious gods. The moſt deceitful glimmer of divine claim ſeems to have had more influence on the mind of the perſon who ſeems to have been deſignated in the text, than the moſt ſolid principles of political right.