to accuse me; I think myself in a better way to
reformation, than those who excuse their own faults by reckoning up
mine.

'Some that have heard me complain of this hard usage, have told me,
there is something of a retaliation of providence in it, for my being
so very free with the character's of other men in a late satire called
The Reformation of Manners. To this I answer, first, in that satire,
or any other I ever wrote, I have always carefully avoided lashing any
man's private infirmities, as being too sensible of my own, but if
I have singled out any man by character, it has either been such, as
intending to reform others, and execute the laws against vice,
have been the greatest examples, and encouragers of it in their own
practice; or such as have been entrusted with the executive power of
justice, and having been called upon by the laws to reform us, have
been a public reproach to the magistracy of this nation, and ought to
be punished by the laws they have been protected by.

'Secondly, I have never made any man's disasters, or misfortunes, the
subject of my satire. I never reproached any man for having his house
burnt, ships cast away, or his family ruined. I never lampooned a man
because he could not pay his debts, or for his being a cuckold.

'Thirdly, I never reproached any man for his opinion in religion, or
esteemed him the worse for differing in judgment from me.

'If therefore the scandalous treatment I have received is just on
me, for abusing others, I must ask such, who is the man? Where is the
character I have given that is not just? and where is the retaliation
of providence, that these men entitle themselves to in loading me with
falsities and lies, as a just punishment for my speaking truth.

'But p-x on him, said a certain sober gentleman, he is a Whig, and
what need he have meddled with his own party, could not he have left
them out, there were characters enough on the other side?

'Why really I must own, I know no Whig or Tory in vice; the vicious
and the virtuous are the only two parties I have to do with; if a
vicious, lewd, debauched magistrate happened to be a Whig, what then?
let him mend his manners, and he may be a Whig still, and if not, the
rest ought to be ashamed of him.'

We have been induced to make this extract, as it seems to mew the
genius and spirit of the author in a more advantageous light, than we
could have otherwise done. Though he was a resolute asserter of Whig
p