Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/367

Rh all sense of shame, and even glory in wickedness. And all this, for what? You will suppose at least that he had fallen desperately in love with her, and having no hopes of marriage, is determined to gratify his passion at any rate, and with this view, tries to erase from her mind all principles of virtue and modesty, which might stand in his way. Quite the contrary. It appears from the remarker's own account, that when he had accomplished his point, and brought her to as high a degree of depravity as he could wish, in order to gratify his desires, he changed his whole system, rejected her proffered love, talked of friendship, reason, gratitude, respect, esteem, and preached upon virtue and chastity. And to account for this inconsistence in his behaviour, he has recourse to defects of nature, and impotence in the dean. Now to suppose that a reverend divine, advanced in life, should lay such a plan to corrupt the mind of his young pupil, without a possibility of any view to self-gratification, and merely to prepare her for prostitution to others, is to charge him with a crime so truly diabolical, as would stamp a blacker stain of infamy even on the character of a Chartres. And yet this is a charge brought by lord Orrery against his friend Swift.

To expatiate farther on the inconsistencies, absurdities, and impurities, rising almost to obscenity, in the passage above quoted, and all that refers to the same subject, would be utterly unnecessary, as they must be obvious to every reader of the least discernment. But I cannot quit this article without endeavouring to wipe away some of the most cruel and groundless aspersions, that have been thrown on the memory of the