Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/125

Rh in a few words: he has ridiculed both the present ministry and the last; abused great statesmen and great generals; nay, the treaties of whole nations have not escaped him, nor has the royal dignity itself been omitted in the progress of his satire; and all this he has done just at the meeting of a new parliament. I hope a proper authority may be made use of to bring him to condign punishment. In the mean while I doubt not, if the persons most concerned would but order Mr. Bernard Lintot, the printer and publisher of this dangerous piece, to be taken into custody and examined, many farther discoveries might be made both of this poet's and abettor's secret designs, which are doubtless of the utmost importance to the government.