There needs no more
to expound the meaning of these people, than to compare them with
themselves: when it will evidently appear, that their lives and
conversations, their writings and their practices, do all take the
same bias; and when they dare not any longer revile His Majesty or his
government point blank, they have an intention to play the libellers
in masquerade, and do the same thing in a way of mystery and parable.
This is truly the case of the pretended parallel. They lay their heads
together, and compose the lewdest character of a prince that can be
imagined, and then exhibit that monster to the people, as the picture
of the king in the "Duke of Guise." So that the libel passes for
current in the multitude, whoever was the author of it; and it will be
but common justice to give the devil his due. But the truth is, their
contrivances are now so manifest, that their party moulders both in
town and country; for I will not suspect that there are any of them
left in court. Deluded well-meaners come over out of honesty, and
small offenders out of common discretion or fear. None will shortly
remain with them, but men of desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those
who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and
those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom
forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must
hang without it, or starve with it.
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