tive power in such imaginary junctures: than which however nothing can be more idle; for I dare undertake in any system of government, either speculative or practick, that was ever yet in the world, from Plato's Republick, to Harrington's Oceana, to put such difficulties as cannot be answered.
All the other calumnies raised by the whigs may be as easily wiped off; and I have the charity to wish they could as fully answer the just accusations we have against them. Dodwell, Hickes, and Lesley, are gravely quoted to prove, that the tories design to bring in the pretender; and if I should quote them to prove that the same thing is intended by the whigs, it would be full as reasonable; since I am sure they have at least as much to do with nonjurors as we. But our objections against the whigs are built upon their constant practice for many years, whereof I have produced a hundred instances, against any single one of which no answer has yet been attempted, although I have been curious enough to look into all the papers I could meet with, that are written against the Examiner; such a task us, I hope, no man thinks I would undergo, for any other end but that of finding an opportunity to own and rectify my mistakes: as I would be ready to do upon the call of the meanest adversary. Upon which occasion I shall take leave to add a few words.
I flattered myself last Thursday from the nature of my subject, and the inoffensive manner I handled it[1], that I should have one week's respite from those merciless pens, whose severity will some time break
- ↑ 'And the inoffensive manner I handled it' is a mode of speech ungrammatical, it ought to be 'in which I handled it.'
