It is a Popish doctrine, that scarce any person quits this world, but he must touch at Purgatory in his way to Heaven; and it is here also represented as the treasury of the Romish church. Nor is it much to be wondered at, that the moon should be Purgatory, when a learned divine hath, in a late treatise, proved the sun to be Hell. * I shall now, before I conclude, desire the reader to compare this key with those upon any other pieces, which are supposed to have been secret satires upon the state, either ancient or modern in particular with the keys to Petronius Arbiter, Lucian's True History, Barclay's Argenis, and Rabelais's Garagantua; and I doubt not he will do me the justice to acknowledge, that the explanations here laid down, are deduced as naturally, and with as little violence, both from the general scope and bent of the work, and from the several particulars: furthermore, that they are every way as consistent and undeniable, every way as candid, as any modern interpretations of either party on the conduct and writings of the other. And I appeal to the most eminent and able state decipherers themselves, if, according to their art, any thing can be more fully proved, or more safely sworn to? To sum up my whole charge against this author 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 *The reverend Dr Swinden.-WARTON. meanwhile I doubt not, if the persons most concerned would but order Mr Bernard Lintott, the printer and publisher of this dangerous piece, to be taken into custody and examined, many further discoveries might be made, both of this poet's and abettors' secret designs, which are doubtless of the utmost importance to the government. |