" I have, since this pamphlet,
met accidentally with two of them; and I am sure, they are so far from
being my accusers, that they have severally owned to me, that all men,
who espouse a party, must expect to be blackened by the contrary side;
that themselves knew nothing of it, nor of the authors of the
"Reflections." It remains, therefore, to be considered, whether, if I
were as much a knave as they would make me, I am fool enough to be
guilty of this charge; and whether they, who raised it, would have
made it public, if they had thought I was theirs inwardly. For it is
plain, they are glad of worse scribblers than I am, and maintain them
too, as I could prove, if I envied them their miserable subsistence. I
say no more, but let my actions speak for me: _Spectemur
agendo,_--that is the trial.
Much less am I concerned at the noble name of Bayes; that is a brat so
like his own father, that he cannot be mistaken for any other
body[27]. They might as reasonably have called Tom Sternhold, Virgil,
and the resemblance would have held as well.
As for knave, and sycophant, and rascal, and impudent, and devil, and
old serpent, and a thousand such good morrows, I take them to be only
names of parties; and could return murderer, and cheat, and
whig-napper, and sodomite; and, in short, the goodly number of the
seven deadly sins, with all their kindred and relations, which are
names of parties too; but saints will be saints, in spite of villainy.
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