And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. Luke x. 25 to 38.
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There is now in the press a proposal for raising a fund towards paying the National Debt by the following means: The author would have commissioners appointed to search all the public and private libraries, booksellers shops and warehouses, in this kingdom, for such books as are of no use to the owner, or to the public, viz. all comments on the Holy Scriptures, whether called sermons, creeds, bodies of divinity, tomes of casuistry, vindications, confutations, essays, answers, replies, rejoinders, or sur-rejoinders, together with all other learned treatises and books of divinity, of what denomination or class soever; as also all comments on the laws of the land, such as reports, law-cases, decrees, guides for attorneys and young clerks, and, in fine, all the books now in being in this kingdom (whether of divinity, law, physic, metaphysics, logics or politics) except the pure text of the Holy Scriptures, the naked text of the laws, a few books of morality, poetry, music, architecture, agriculture, mathematics, merchandise and history; the author would have the aforesaid useless books carried to the several paper-mills, there to be wrought into white paper, which, to prevent damage or complaints, he would have performed by the commentators, critics, popular preachers, apothecaries, learned lawyers, attorneys, solicitors, logicians, physicians, almanac-makers, and others of the like wrong turn of mind; the said paper to be sold, and the produce applied to discharge the National Debt; what should remain of the said debt unsatisfied, might be paid by a tax on the salaries or estates of bankers, common cheats, usurers, treasurers, embezzelers of public money, general officers, sharpers, pensioners, pick-pockets, &c.
APPENDIX III. SWIFT AND SERJEANT BETTESWORTH.
The rencontre with Serjeant Bettesworth, to which reference has already been made in the note prefixed to "The Presbyterians' Plea of Merit," is further illustrated by the Resolution which the inhabitants of the Liberty of St. Patrick's passed, and which they presented to the Dean. Bettesworth, as a note in the thirteenth volume of Swift's works (1762) states, "engaged his footman and two ruffians to attend him, in order to secure the dean wherever they met him, until he had gratified his resentment either by maiming or stabbing him." Accordingly, he went directly to the deanery, and hearing the Dean was at a friend's house (Rev. Mr. John Worrall's in Big Ship Street), followed him thither, charged him with writing the said verses, but had not courage enough to put his bloody design in execution. However, as he had the assurance to relate this affair to several noblemen and gentlemen, the inhabitants of the Liberty of St. Patrick's waited upon the Dean, and presented the following paper, signed by above thirty of them, in the name of themselves, and the rest of their neighbourhood:
"We the inhabitants of the Liberty of the Dean and Chapter of St Patrick's Dublin, and the neighbourhood of the same, having been informed, by universal report, that a certain man of this city hath openly threatened, and sworn before many hundred people, as well persons of quality as others, that he resolves upon the first opportunity, by the help of several ruffians, to murder or maim the Reverend the Dean of St. Patrick, our neighbour, benefactor, and the head of the Liberty of St Patrick, upon a frivolous unproved suspicion of the said Dean's having written some lines in verse reflecting on the said man.
"Therefore, we, the said inhabitants of the said Liberty, and in the neighbourhood thereof, from our great love and respect to the said Dean, to whom the whole kingdom hath so many obligations, as well as we of the Liberty, do unanimously declare, that we will endeavour to defend the life and limbs of the said Dean against the said man, and all his ruffians and murderers, as far as the law will allow, if he or any of them presume to come into the said Liberty with any wicked malicious intent against the house, or family, or person, or goods of the said Dean. To which we have cheerfully, sincerely, and heartily set our hands."