Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/234

226 him an obstructor of those fine measures he would bring about.

I now appeal to the whigs themselves, whether a great minister of state, in high favour with the queen, and a speaker of the house of commons, were ever publickly treated after so extraordinary a manner, in the most licentious times? For this is not a clandestine libel stolen into the world, but openly printed and sold with the bookseller's name and place of abode at the bottom. And the juncture is admirable, when Mr. Harley is generally believed upon the very point to be made an earl, and promoted to the most important station of the kingdom; nay, the very marks of esteem he has so lately received, from the whole representative body of the people, are called ill-chosen flattery, and a fulsome piece of insincerity, exposing the donors to shame and derision.

Does this intrepid writer think he has sufficiently disguised the matter, by that stale artifice of altering the story, and putting it as a supposed case? Did any man, who ever saw the congratulatory speech, read either of those paragraphs in the Medley, without interpreting them just as I have done? will the author declare upon his great sincerity, that he never had any such meaning? is it enough, that a jury at Westminster-hall would perhaps not find him guilty of defaming the speaker and Mr. Harley in that paper? which, however, I am much in doubt of too; and must think the law very defective, if the reputation of such persons must lie at the mercy of such pens. I do not remember to have seen any libel, supposed to be writ with caution and double