[Footnote 2:  Hawkesworth (1762 edit.) has “over nice and expecting for sense”; but both the 4to and the 8vo of 1764 agree with Scott as above. [T.S.]]

Lastly: The scorners of preaching would do well to consider, that this talent of ridicule, they value so much, is a perfection very easily acquired, and applied to all things whatsoever; neither is anything at all the worse, because it is capable of being perverted to burlesque:  Perhaps it may be the more perfect upon that score; since we know, the most celebrated pieces have been thus treated with greatest success.  It is in any man’s power to suppose a fool’s cap on the wisest head, and then laugh at his own supposition.  I think there are not many things cheaper than supposing and laughing; and if the uniting these two talents can bring a thing into contempt, it is hard to know where it may end.

To conclude: These considerations may, perhaps, have some effect while men are awake; but what arguments shall we use to the sleeper?  What methods shall we take to hold open his eyes?  Will he be moved by considerations of common civility?  We know it is reckoned a point of very bad manners to sleep in private company, when, perhaps, the tedious impertinence of many talkers would render it at least as excusable as at the dullest sermon.  Do they think it a small thing to watch four hours at a play, where all virtue and religion are openly reviled; and can they not watch one half hour to hear them defended?  Is this to deal like a judge, (I mean like a good judge) to listen on one side of the cause, and sleep on the other?  I shall add but one word more:  That this indecent sloth is very much owing to that luxury and excess men usually practise upon this day, by which half the service thereof is turned to sin; men dividing the time between God and their bellies, when after a gluttonous meal, their senses dozed and stupefied, they retire to God’s house to sleep out the afternoon.  Surely, brethren, these things ought not so to be.

“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  And God give us all grace to hear and receive His holy word to the salvation of our own souls.

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APPENDIX I.

SWIFT’S REMARKS ON DR GIBBS’S PARAPHRASE OF THE PSALMS.

NOTE.

“THE following manuscript was literally copied from the printed original found in the library of Dr. J. Swift, Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin, in the year 1745.  The marginal notes and parodies were written by the Dean’s own hand, except such as are distinguished with this mark [O/] with which I am only chargeable.  Witness my hand, this 25th day of February, 1745.  WILLIAM DUNKIN.

“N.B.—­The original was by me presented to his excellency Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, lord lieutenant general and general governor of Ireland.  W.D.”