Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/195

Rh was new and handsome, was worshipped for a saint; and when it came to be old and broken, was still good enough to make a tolerable devil. And therefore, every reader will observe, that the arguments for popery are much the strongest of any in his book, as I shall farther remark when I find them in my way.

There is one circumstance in his titlepage, which I take to be not amiss, where he calls his book 'Part the First.' This is a project to fright away answerers, and make the poor advocates for religion believe, he still keeps farther vengeance in petto. It must be allowed, he has not wholly lost time while he was of the Romish communion. This very trick he learned from his old father, the pope; whose custom it is to lift up his hand, and threaten to fulminate, when he never meant to shoot his bolts; because the princes of Christendom had learned the secret to avoid or despise them. Dr. Hickes knew this very well, and therefore, in his answer to this Book of Rights, where a second part is threatened like a rash person he desperately cries, Let it come. But I, who have too much phlegm to provoke angry wits of his standard, must tell the author, that the doctor plays the wag, as if he were sure it were all grimace. For my part, I declare, if he writes a second part, I will not write another answer; or if I do, it shall be published before the other part comes out.

There may have been another motive, althoucrh it be hardly credible, both for publishing this work, and threatening a second part: it is soon conceived how far the sense of a man's vanity will transport him. This man must have somewhere heard, that gerous