Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/396

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388
A PREFACE TO THE BISHOP

not easily be guessed. It is this, that the little factious pamphlets written about the end of king Charles II's reign lie dead in shops, are looked on as waste paper, and turned to pasteboard. How many are there of his lordship's writings, which could otherwise never have been of any real service to the publick? has he indeed so mean an opinion of our taste, to send us at this time of day into all the corners of Holbourn, Duck-lane, and Moorfields, in quest after the factious trash published in those days by Julian Johnson, Hickeringil, Dr. Oates, and himself?

His lordship taking it for a postulatum, that the queen and ministry, both houses of parliament, and a vast majority of the landed gentlemen throughout England, are running headlong into popery, lays hold on the occasion to describe the cruelties in queen Mary's reign: an inquisition setting up faggots in Smithfield, and executions all over the kingdom. Here is that, says he, which those that look toward a popish successor, must look for. And he insinuates through his whole pamphlet, that all who are not of his party look toward a popish successor. These he divides into two parts, the tory laity, and the tory clergy. He tells the former: although they have no religion at all, but resolve to change with every wind and tide: yet they ought to have compassion on their countrymen and kindred. Then he applies himself to the tory clergy, assures them, that the fires revived in Smithfield, and all over the nation, will have no amiable view, but least of all to them; who, if they have any principles at all, must be turned out of their livings, leave their families, be hunted from place to place into parts beyond the seas, and meet with that

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contempt