ABSTRACT
Guy Faux is made into the figure of a scare-crow, a fifth of November bug-bear, in our history. Now that Mr Hogg’s Jacobite Relics’1 have dissipated the remains of an undue horror at Popery, it may seem the time to undertake the defence of so illustrious a character, who has hitherto been the victim of party-prejudice and national spite. Guy Faux was a Popish Priest2 in the reign of James I, and for his unsuccessful attempt to set fire to the House of Lords, and blow up the English Monarchy, the Protestant Religion, and himself, at one stroke, has had the honour to be annually paraded through the streets, and burnt in effigy in every town and village in England from that time to this – that is, for the space of two hundred yean and upwards. It is sometimes doubtful, indeed, from the coincidence of dates and other circumstances, whether this annual ceremony, accompanied as it is with the ringing of bells, the firing of guns, and the preaching of sermons, is intended more to revive the formidable memory of ‘poor Guy,’ or in celebration of the glorious landing of William III, who came to deliver us from Popery and Slavery a hundred years afterwards – two things which Mr Hogg treats as mere bagatelles in his Jacobite Relics, though they do not appear so in the history of England; and to which the same writer assures us, as an agreeable piece of court-news, that the present Family are by no means averse in their hearts!
