for once to think and look in, they may see themselves touch'd to the quick, and yet the Readers hardly able to guess at their Crime, and not at all at their Persons; which last they ought to acknowledge is a special Favour to them, whether they deserve it or no.
So kind have I been to their Fame, and so careful to leave Room for their Amendment, which I would hope for in spite of their solemn Vows to the contrary.
Nor shall that eminent Brute of Quality pass untouched here, whose Name or Titles need no other mention than what are to be summ'd up in this short Character:
A Life of Crime, with this peculiar Fame,
Without Sense of Guilt, and past Sense of Shame.
I say, he shall see his most inimitable Way of Sinning stabbed to the Heart, and damn'd with an unanswerable and unexceptionable Reproof; and yet without any Description either of his Person or his Offence, other than as may be Read by himself, and those that know him; though I must allow him to be the weakest and the wickedest Thing alive; vain of being the first in a Crime, and the last that will leave it, that blushes at nothing but the thoughts of Blushing, and thinks a Man of Wit can be ashamed of nothing but Repentance; That Sins for the sake of Crime without the pleasure of it, and is got seven Degrees in Sin beyond the Devil, in that he not only boasts of Sins which he never committed, but tells the World he FIBS, by boasting of Sins, which all the Town knows he cannot commit.
