Yet this
they say "is treason with a witness," and one of the crimes for which
they condemned me to be hanged, drawn and quartered. I find they do
not believe me to be one of their party at the bottom, by their
charitable wishes to me; and am proud enough to think, I have done
them some little mischief, because they are so desirous to be rid of
me. But if Jack Ketch must needs have the handling of us poets, let
him begin first where he may take the deepest say[41]; let me be
hanged, but in my turn; for I am sure I am neither the fattest
scribbler, nor the worst; I'll be judged by their own party. But, for
all our comforts, the days of hanging are a little out of date; and I
hope there will be no more treason with a witness or witnesses; for
now there is no more to be got by swearing, and the market is
overstocked besides.
But are you in earnest when you say, I have made Henry III. "fearful,
weak, bloody, perfidious, hypocritical, and fawning, in the play?" I
am sure an unbiassed reader will find a more favourable image of him
in the tragedy, whatever he was out of it. You would not have told a
lie so shameless, but that you were resolved to second it with a
worse--that I made a parallel of that prince. And now it comes to my
turn, pray let me ask you,--why you spend three pages and a half in
heaping up all the villainies, true or false, which you can rake
together, to blast his memory? Why is all this pains taken to expose
the person of king Henry III.
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