Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/193

Rh what is tedious and dull. To which I can only return, that, as burning a book by the common hangman, is a known expedient to make it sell; so, to write a book that deserves such treatment, is another: And a third, perhaps as effectual as either, is to ply an insipid, worthless tract, with grave and learned answers, as Dr. Hickes, Dr. Potter, and Mr. Wotton have done. Such performances, however commendable, have glanced a reputation upon the piece; which owes its life to the strength of those hands and weapons that were raised to destroy it; like flinging a mountain upon a worm, which instead of being bruised, by the advantage of its littleness, lodges under it unhurt.

But neither is this all. For the subject, as unpromising as it seems at first view, is no less than that of Lucretius, to free men's minds from the bondage of religion; and this, not by little hints and by piecemeal, after the manner of those little atheistical tracts that steal into the world, but in a thorough wholesale manner; by making religion, church, Christianity, with all their concomitants, a perfect contrivance of the civil power. It is an imputation often charged on this sort of men, that, by their invectives against religion, they can possibly propose no other end than that of fortifying themselves and others against the reproaches of a vitious life; it being necessary for men of libertine practices, to embrace libertine principles, or else they cannot act in consistence with any reason, or preserve any peace of mind. Whether such authors have this design (whereof I think they have never gone about to acquit themselves) thus much is certain; that no other use is made of such writings: Neither did I ever hear this author's book justified