him a multitude of readers who were sure that they were "on the side of the angels" and that he was not—a multitude of readers who were far from clear what he was about, yet were entirely certain that he was very unconventional, very indecorous, very shocking, and very dangerous. And so Mandeville, who had no Boswell, has come down to us on the tongue of rumor, in an odor of unsanctity, and in a dust of controversy which delays recognition of the originality and penetrating vigor of his mind. The flavor of such a man, however, one gets the better if one comes to him through a little of the dust that he stirred up.
After he had offended the clergy and the masters of schools, as he did grievously—by telling more truth than either class thinks expedient or proper, and in sundry other ways—a number of terrible things were circulated about him. It was said, for example, that he had referred to that mirror of Queen Anne virtue, Joseph Addison, a man who had called his stepson to his deathbed "to see a man die like a Christian"—he had referred to Joseph Addison as "a parson in a tye-wig," which was certainly no proper way to speak of Addison. It was said, and it was openly avowed by Mandeville, that his system of ideas was diametrically opposed to that of the late Lord Shaftesbury; and every one knew that Shaftesbury had devoted his life to proving that man is inclined naturally towards the Good and the Beautiful. It was said that Mandeville was a foreigner, and this was true: by birth and education he was Dutch—out of Rotterdam, the Erasmus school and the University of Leyden.
Mandeville himself had offered to burn his book if anything could be found in it contrary to public morals, and it was said—it was published in the papers
