If there was a single member of the House whose delicacy was not likely to be shocked, and whose morals could not be injured by such a composition, it was certainly Lord Sandwich himself; but his zeal as a minister to support his chief kindled in him a sudden enthusiasm for the support of virtue and decency also; and, having obtained a copy by some surreptitious means, he now made a formal complaint of it to the House, contending that the use of the name of the Bishop of Gloucester as author of the notes constituted a breach of the privileges of the House.
And he was seconded by the bishop himself, whose temper and judgment were, unhappily, very inferior to his learning and piety.

It is recorded that he actually compared Wilkes to the devil, and then apologized to Satan for the comparison.

But the Lords were in a humor to regard no violence against Wilkes as excessive; and, submitting to the guidance of the minister and the prelate, resolved that the "Essay on Woman,"[10] as also another poem by the same writer, a paraphrase of the "Veni Creator," was "a most scandalous, obscene, and impious libel," and presented an address to the King, requesting his Majesty "to give the most effectual orders for the immediate prosecution of the author." And, in the course of the next few weeks, the House of Commons outran the peers themselves in violence and manifest unfairness.

They concurred with the Lords in ordering No.

45 of _The North Briton_ to be burnt by the common hangman, an order which was not carried out without great opposition on the part of the London populace, who made it the occasion of a very formidable riot, in which the sheriffs themselves incurred no little danger; and, by another resolution, they ordered Wilkes to attend in his place to answer the charge of having published the two works.