ignorance and simplicity misled him to begin, his malice taught him to propagate.

I have been the more solicitous to set this matter in a clear light, because Mr Lewis being employed and trusted in public affairs, if this report had prevailed, persons of the first rank might possibly have been wounded through his sides.

A

PREFACE

TO THE

BISHOP OF SARUM's INTRODUCTION

TO THE THIRd volume oF THE

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION

OF THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

BY GREGORY MISOSARUM.

Spargere voces

In vulgum ambiguus, et quærere conscius armą.

PUBLISHED DEC, 8, 1713,

PREFACE, &c.

THE celebrated Bishop Burnet, with many estimable qualities, had much of that bustling vanity, which inclines writers too frequently to parade themselves and their works in the eye of the public. In this spirit, when about to publish the third volume of his "History of the Reformation," he thought proper first to send forth the Introduction in the shape of a pamphlet, to excite the attention of the world, and inform them of the treat which he had prepared for them. This was in 1714, and the book itself did not appear until the year following. Swift, who hated the prelate, fell проп this unnecessary precursor of his third volume with unrelenting severity. "He treats him," says Dr Johnson, “like one whom he is glad of an opportunity to insult."

The Introduction, no doubt, exhibited strong symptoms of personal vanity, and was marked by the usual defects of Burnet's style. But the principal objects of the satirist's wrath are those obtestations with which the bishop calls upon all his readers to beware of the imminent danger of popery. This implied, that it was the object of the Tory ministry to bring in the pope and the pretender; an insinuation which Swift reprobates in his bitterest tone of irony.

As the Bishop had prefaced his Introduction with a note, addressed to the bookseller, Swift has given us a parody of its contents.