conjures the whole clergy of the church, to recommend his comment upon the laws of the land, in their writings and difcourfes. I would fain know, who made him a commentator upon the laws of the land; after which it will be time enough to ask him, by what authority he directs the clergy to recommend his comments from the pulpit or the press? He tells the clergy, there are two circumstances which place the minds of the people under their direction; the first circumstance, is their education; the second circumftance, is the tenths of our lands. This laft, according to the Latin phrafe, is fpoken ad invidiam; for he knows well enough, they have not a twentieth but if you. take it in his own way, the landlord has nine parts in ten of the people's minds under his direction. Upon this rock the author before us is perpetually splitting, as often as he ventures out beyond the narrow bounds of his literature. He has a confufed remembrance of words fince he left the university, but has loft half their meaning, and puts them together with no regard, except to their cadence; as I remember a fellow nailed up maps in a gentleman's clofet, fome fideling, others upfide down, the better to adjust them to the pan nels. I am fenfible it is of little confequence to their caufe, whether this defender of it understands grammar or not; and if what he would fain fay, difcovered him to be a well wither to reafon or truth, I would be ready to make large allowances. But, But, when with great difficulty I defcry a compofition of rancour and falfhood, intermixed with plaufible nonfenfe, I feel a ftruggle between contempt and indignation, at feeing the character of a Cenfor, a Guardian, an Englishman, a Commen tator on the laws, an instructor of the clergy, af fumed by a child of obscurity, without one fingle qualification to fupport them. This writer, who either affects, or is commanded, of late to copy after the bishop of Sarum, has, out of the pregnancy of his invention, found out an old way of infinuating the groffeft reflexions, under the appearance of admonitions; and is fo judicious a follower of the prelate, that he taxes the clergy for inflaming their people with apprehenfions of danger to them and their conftitution, from men, who are innocent of fuch defigns; when he muft needs confefs, the whole defign of his pamphlet is, to inflame the people with apprehenfions of danger from the prefent ministry, whom we believe to be at leaft as innocent men as the laft. What shall I fay to the pamphlet, where the malice and falfhood of every line, would require an answer; and where the dulnefs and abfurdities, will not deferve one? By his pretending to have always maintained an inviolable respect to the clergy, he would infinuate, that thofe papers among the Tatlers and Spectators, where the whole order is abused, were not his own. I will appeal to all who know the flatness of his ftyle, and the barrennefs of his invention, whether he does not groffly prevaricate? was was he ever able to walk without leading-ftrings, or fwim without bladders, without being difcovered by his hobbling and his finking? has he adhered to his character in his paper called the Englishman, whereof he is allowed to be fole aus thor, without any competition? what does he think of the letter figned by himself, which relates to Molefworth, in whofe defence, he affronts the whole convocation of Ireland? * It is It is a wife maxim, that because the clergy are no civil lawyers, they ought not to preach obedience to governors; and therefore they ought not to preach temperance, because they are no phyficians. Examine all this author's writings, and then point me out a divine who knows lefs of the conftitution of England than he; witness thofe many egregious blunders in his late papers, where be pretended to dabble in the subject. But the clergy have, it feems, imbibed their notions of power and obedience, abhorrent from our laws, from the pompous ideas of imperial greatness, and the fubmiffion to abfolute emperors. This is grofs ignorance, below a fchool-boy in his Lucius Florus. The Roman hiftory, wherein lads are inftructed, reached little above eight hundred years, and the authors do every where inftill re *The right honourable Robert Molefworth, Efq; one of the privy council and member of the Houfe of Commons, created a peer by king George I. The lower houfe of convocation there preferred a complaint against him for difrefpectful words, which being reprefented in England he was removed from the council: to juftify him againft this complaint was the fubject of Steele's Letter. publican publican principles; and from the account of nine in twelve of the firft emperors, we learn to have a detestation against tyranny. The Greeks carry this point yet a great deal higher, which none can be ignorant of, who has read or heard them Hobbes the occafion of advanquoted. This gave cing a position directly contrary; that the youth of England were corrupted in their political principles, by reading the hiftories of Rome and Greece; which, having been written under republics, taught the readers to have ill notions of monarchy. In this affertion there was something specious, but that advanced by the Crifis, could only iffie from the profoundest ignorance. But, would you know his scheme of education for young gentlemen at the university? it is, that they should spend their time in perusing those acts of parliament, whereof his pamphlet is an extra&, which if it had been done, the kingdom would not be in its prefent condition, but every member fent into the world thus inftructed, fince the Revolution, would have been an advocate for our rights and liberties. Here now is a project for getting more money by the Crifis; to have it read by tutors in the univerfities. I thoroughly agree with him, that if our ftudents had been thus employed for twenty years paft, the kingdom had not been in its prefent condition; but we have too many of fuch proficients already among the young nobility and young nobility and gentry, who have gathered up their politicks from chocolatehoufes and and factious clubs; and * who, if they had spent their time in hard study at Oxford or Cambridge, we might indeed have faid, that the factious part of this kingdom had not been in its prefent condition, or have fuffered themselves to be taught, that a few acts of parliament relating to the fucceffion, are preferable to all other civil institutions whatsoever, Neither did I ever before hear, that an act of parliament relating to one particular point, could be called a civil inftitution. He spends almost a quarto page in telling the clergy, that they will be certainly perjured if they bring in the pretender, whom they have abjured; and he wifely reminds them, that they have fworn without equivocation or mental reservation; otherwife the clergy might think, that as foon as they received the pretender, and turned papists, they would be free from their oath. This honeft, civil, ingenious gentleman, knows in his confcience, that there are not ten clergymen in England (except nonjurors) who do not abhor the thoughts of the pretender + reigning over us, much more than himself. But this is the fpittle of the bishop of Sarum ‡, which our author licks up, and swallows, and then coughs out again with an addition of his own phlegm. I would fain * Here the nominative, who, has no verb to which it refers in the reft of the sentence. It should be of the pretender's reigning over us, not pretender reigning &c. As we fhould write of his reigning over us, not of him reigning &c. Dr, Gilbert Barnet. fuppofe |
