I was obliged by my duty to call them to account for their negligence and ill practices: they have published and dispersed several libellous prints against me, in one of which I marked forty-three downright falsehoods in matters of fact. In another, it is true, there was only one such; the whole and every part of it, from beginning to end, being pure invention and falsehood. But, to my comfort, they are despised by all good men; and I like myself nothing less for being the object of their hate. You will excuse this long letter, and I hope I may, by next, apprise you with something of consequence.
In the mean time,
I heartily recommend you, &c.
I held my visitation on the 9th instant, where you were excused, as absent on the publick business of the church.
TO THE EARL OF PETERBOROW.
I HAVE had the honour of your lordship's letter, and by the first lines of it, have made a discovery that your lordship is come into the world about eighteen hundred years too late, and was born about half a dozen degrees too far to the North, to employ that publick virtue I always heard you did possess: which is now wholly useless, and which those very
