If the public enter into my sentiments upon the
subject, they will consider it as effectually superseding Machiavel's
celebrated treatise of The Prince, and exhibiting a more deep-laid and
desperate system of tyranny. For my part, I esteem these great and
destructive vices of so odious a nature, that they need only be exposed
to the general view in order to the being scouted by all. And if, which
indeed I cannot possibly believe, there has been any noble lord in this
kingdom mean enough to have studied under such a preceptor, I would
willingly shame him out of his principles, and hold up to him a glass,
which shall convince him how worthy he is of universal contempt and
abhorrence.
The true reason, my lord, for which I have presumed to prefix your name
to these sheets is, that the contrast between the precepts they contain,
and the ingenuous and manly character that is universally attributed to
your lordship, may place them more strongly in the light they deserve.
And yet I doubt not there will be some readers perverse enough to
imagine that you are the true object of the composition. They will find
out some of those ingenious coincidences, by which The Rape of the Lock,
was converted into a political poem, and the _Telemaque_ of the amiable
Fenelon into a satire against the government under which he lived.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55