For, in the first place, he does not shew his own, nor, indeed, any part of decent modesty, in exposing any Gentlemans Name in print, when the subject matter is Satyr, Reflection, Scandal, _&c._ and in which case I believe the Law might do Justice, if apply’d to; but if not, I am sure good Manners, and civil Education, ought to tie the Cassock as close as the Sash or Sursingle; but this our Divine helper, most Bully-like, disallows; for he, puff’d with his Priestly Authority, calls us boldly to the Bar of his Injustice by our own Names, the same minute that he is roaringly accusing us of Blasphemy, Smuttery, Foolery, and a thousand Monstrosities besides, as he’d make you believe; unless for variety, he picks out one amongst the rest, now and then, to abuse a little more civilly, and then, rubbing up his old College Wit, he Nicknames ’em, as you may find elegantly made out at the latter end of his Book, (for he shall see that I have read it quite through, and can hop over pages as fast as he for the life of him) where he can find no other Name or Character for two Gentlemen of Honour and Merit, viz. Mr. Congreve and Captain Vanbrooke, who have written several excellent Plays, and who are only scandalous to our Critick, by being good Poets, yet these he can give no other Names or Characters, but what are Abusive and Ridiculous. [Footnote: Collier, p. 74] The first, for only making Jeremy, in Love for Love, call the Natural inclinations to eating and drinking, Whorson Appetites, he tells, That the Manicheans, who made Creation the Work of the Devil, scarcely spoke any thing so course. And then very modestly proceeding onwards says, The Poet was Jeremy_’s Tutor_. The t’other Gentleman he dignifies by a new Coin’d name of his own, viz. The Relapser, and much like an humble Son of the Church, a Man of Morals and Manners tells us, This Poet is fit to Ride a Match with Witches: And, that Juliana Cox_ (a Non-juring Hag, I suppose, of his Acquaintance) never switch’d a Broom-stick with more expedition._ [Footnote: Collier, p. 230.] Faith, such sentences as these, may be taking enough amongst his Party; but if this be his way of Reproving the Stage, and Teaching the Town Modesty, he will have fewer Pupils, I believe, than he imagines.
But to do that Gentleman Broom-stick Rider some Justice, and because we shall want a Name hereafter to Christen the t’other, as he has given the Name of Relapser, so I think that of the Absolver will be a very proper one to distinguish our Switcher, by which the Reader may observe, that we are civiller to him than he to us however. And first then, I desire all Persons to observe, that in other places of the same Chapter of his Book, our Absolver, for all his detestation of the Stage, and of Poetry in general, yet takes a huge deal of pains in taking to pieces, and mending the Comedy of the Relapse; nay,