THE ME DA L. A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION. EPISTLE то THE WHIGS. OR to whom can I dedicate this poem, with fo FOR much justice as to you? It is the representation of your own hero: it is the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize fo much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of your Tower, nor the rifing fun; nor the Anno Domini of your new fovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party: especially to those who have not been fo happy as to purchafe the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it all his kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder fo inhanced, that many a poor Polander, who would be glad to worship the image, is not able to go to the cost of him: but must be content to fee him here. I must confefs I am no great artift; but fign-poft painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by; especially when better is not to be had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true : and though he fat not five times to me, as he did to B. yet I have consulted history; as the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula; though they they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one fide of your Medal: the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a fpike of the Tower, a little nearer to the fun; which would then break out to better purpose. You tell us in your preface to the No-proteftant Plot, that you' fhall be forced hereafter to leave off your modefty: I fuppofe you mean that little which is left you; for it was worn to rags when you put out this Medal. Never was there practifed fuch a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established government. I believe, when he is dead, you will wear him in thumb-rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg; as if there were virtue in his bones to preferve you against monarchy. Yet all this while you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but a due veneration for the perfon of the king. But all men who can fee an inch before them, may easily detect thofe groís fallacies. That it is neceffary for men in your circumstances to pretend both, is granted you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question, what right has any man among you, or any affociation of men, to come nearer to you, who, out of parliament, cannot be confidered in a public capacity, to meet as you daily do in factious clubs, to vilify the government in your difcourfes, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Ifrael? Or how is it confiftent with your zeal for the pub public welfare, to promote fedition? Does your definition of loyal, which is to ferve the king according to the laws, allow you the licenfe of traducing the executive power with which you own he is invested? You complain that his majefty has loft the love and confidence of his people; and, by your very urging it, you endeavour what in you lies to make him lose them. All good fubjects abhor the thought of arbitrary power, whether it be in one or many: if you were the patriots you would feem, you would not at this rate incenfe the multitude to affume it; for no fober man can fear it, either from the king's disposition or his practice; or even, where you would odiously lay it, from his minifters. Give us leave to enjoy the government and benefit of laws under which we were born, and which we desire to tranfmit to our pofterity. You are not the trustees of the public liberty: and if you have not right to petition in a crowd, much lefs have you to intermeddle in the management of affairs; or to arraign what you do not like; which in effect is every thing that is done by the king and council. Can you imagine that any reasonable man will believe you refpect the person of his majefty, when it is apparent that your feditious pamphlets are stuffed with particular reflections on him? If you have the confidence to deny this, it is easy to be evinced from a thousand paffages, which I only forbear to quote, because I defire they should die and be forgotten. I have perufed many of your papers; and to shew you that I have, the third part of your No-proteftant Plot is much of it ftolen from your dead author's pamph let, |