Tracts relating to IRELAND. Some Arguments against enlarging the Power of Bishops in letting Leafes 333 The Prefbyterians Plea of Merit in order 367 THE PUBLICK SPIRIT OF THE WHIG S, Set forth in their generous Encourage ment of the Author of the CRISIS. WITH Some Obfervations on the Seafonableness, Candour, Erudition, and Style of that Treatife. Upon the first publication of this pamphlet, all the Scotch Lords, then in London, went in a body, and complained to Queen ANNE of the affront put on them and their nation by the author of this Treatife. Whereupon a proclamation was published by her Majesty, offering a reward of three hundred pounds to difcover him. The reafon for offering fo fmall a fum was, that the Queen and Miniftry had no defire to have the author taken into cuftody. THE PUBLICK SPIRIT I OF THE WHIGS*. Cannot without fome envy, and a just refentment against the oppofite conduct of others, reflect upon that generofity and tenderness, wherewith the heads and principal members of a struggling faction treat those who will undertake to hold a pen * It was written in the year 1712, by the confent if not the encouragement of the minifters of that æra, in anfwer to the crifis by Sir Richard Steel. ORRERY. The noble commentator who appears in another inftance to have given an account of the works of his author, from a perufal of no more than a title in the Dublin editions, has been betrayed into mistakes, which, if he had read the piece, he would have escaped. This tract, in the title which his lordship confulted, is faid to have been written in the year 1712: but in that part of it which moft deferves the notice of a critic, because it occafioned the complaint in the House of Lords, mention is made of a motion to diffolve the union, which did not happen till 1713. The complaint, which is faid in the note to happen upon the first publication, was made the 2d of March 1713-14, and the pamphlet according to the cuftom of printers, was dated 1714. See Voyage to Brobdingnag, Chap. VI. OL in their defence. And the behaviour of these patrons is yet the more laudable, because the benefits they confer are almoft gratis. If any of their labourers can scratch out a pamphlet, they defire no more; there is no question offered about the wit, the ftyle, the argument. Let a pamphlet come out upon demand in a proper juncture, you shall be well and certainly paid; you shall be paid before-hand; every one of the party who is able to read, and can fpare a fhilling, fhall be a fubfcribers feveral thousands of each production fhall be fent among their friends through the kingdom; the work fhall be reported admirable, fublime, unanswerable; fhall ferve to raise the finking clamours, and confirm the scandal of introducing popery and the pretender upon the QUEEN and her minifters. Among the present writers on that fide I can recollect but three of any great diftinction, which are the flying post, Mr. Dunton, and the author of the crifis * Mr. Steel was expelled the House of Commons for this pamphlet, at the very fame time that the Houfe of Lords was moved against the Dean for the Reply. The |
