Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 13.djvu/436

424 several persons have been lashed by name, a Bettesworth, and in this poem, Chartres and Whitshed; and for my part, I do not think, or ever shall think, that it is an imputation on a satirist to lash an infamous fellow by name. The lines which begin,

are plainly a mistake, and were omitted for that reason only: for Wolston never had a pension: on the contrary he was prosecuted for his blasphemous writings; his book was burnt by the hands of the common hangman; he himself was imprisoned, and died in prison. Woolaston, the author of a book called, "The Religion of Nature delineated," was indeed much admired at court, his book universally read, his busto set up by the late queen in her grotto at Richmond with Clarke's and Locke's; but this Woolaston was not a clergyman.

The two last lines,

That kingdom he hath left his debtor, I wish it soon may have a better —

I omitted, because I did not well understand them; a better what? There seems to be what the grammarians call an antecedent wanting for that word; for neither kingdom or debtor will do, so as to make it sense, and there is no other antecedent. The dean is, I think, without exception, the best and most correct writer of English that has ever yet appeared as an author; I was therefore unwilling any thing should be cavilled at as ungrammatical: he is besides the most patient of criticism of all I ever Rh