Page:Lettersconcerni01conggoog.djvu/67

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42
Letters concerning

der foot the pride of Plato. The Scotch Presbyterians are not very unlike that proud, tho' tatter'd reasoner. Diogenes did not use Alexander half so impertinently as these treated king Charles the second; for when they took up arms in his cause, in opposition to Oliver, who had deceiv'd them, they forc'd that poor monarch to undergo the hearing of three or four sermons every day; wou'd not suffer him to play, reduc'd him to a state of penitence and mortification; so that Charles soon grew sick of these pedants, and accordingly elop'd from them with as much joy as a youth does from school.

A Church of England minister appears as another Cato in presence of a juvenile, uprightly French graduate, who bawls for a whole morning together in the divinity schools, and hums a song in chorus with ladies in the evening: But his Cato is a very spark, when before a Scotch Presbyterian. The latter affects a serious gate, puts on a sour look, wears a vastly broad-brimm'd hat, and a long cloak over a very short coat; preaches

thro'