When the truth leaked out, as it soon did, the Dissenters were hardly better pleased than while they feared that the proposal was serious.

With the natural timidity of precariously situated minorities, they could not enter into the humour of it.

The very title was enough to make them shrink and tremble.

The only people who were really in a position to enjoy the jest were the Whigs.

The High-Churchmen, some of whom, it is said, were at first so far taken in as to express their warm approval, were furious when they discovered the trick that had been played upon them.