Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/430

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422
A LETTER CONCERNING

house furniture, and some time or other may happen to be read by customers of all ranks, for curiosity and amusement, because they lie always in the way. One of those authors (the fellow that was pilloried, I have forgot his name[1]) is indeed so grave, sententious, dogmatical a rogue, that there is no enduring him; the observator[2] is much the brisker of the two, and I think farther gone of late in lies and impudence, than his presbyterian brother. The reason why I mention him, is, to have an occasion of letting you know, that you have not dealt so gallantly with is, as we did with you in a parallel case: last year a paper was brought here from England, called A Dialogue between the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mr. Higgins, which we ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, as it well deserved, though we have no more to do with his grace of Canterbury[3], than you have with the archbishop of Dublin; nor can you love and reverence your prelate, more than we do ours, whom you tamely suffer to be abused openly, and by name, by that paltry rascal of an observator; and lately upon an affair wherein he had no concern; I mean the business of the missionary of Drogheda, wherein our excellent primate was engaged, and did nothing but according to law and discretion. But because the lord archbishop of Dublin[4] has been upon several occasions, of late years, misrepresented in England, I would willingly set you right in his character. For his great sufferings and eminent services, he was by the late

king