The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 09 - Contributions to The Tatler, The Examiner, The Spectator, and The Intelligencer by Jonathan Swift
page 34 of 422 (08%)
page 34 of 422 (08%)
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hesitation; and though from the beginning to the end of his pretty
discourse, he has not used one proper gesture, yet at the conclusion, the churchwarden pulls his gloves from off his head; 'Pray, who is this extraordinary young man?' Thus the force of action is such, that it is more prevalent (even when improper) than all the reason and argument in the world without it." This gentleman concluded his discourse by saying, "I do not doubt but if our preachers would learn to speak, and our readers to read, within six months' time we should not have a dissenter within a mile of a church in Great Britain." [Footnote 1: In his original preface to the fourth volume, Steele explains that "the amiable character of the Dean in the sixty-sixth 'Tatler,' was drawn for Dr. Atterbury." Steele cites this as a proof of his impartiality. Scott thinks that it must have cost him "some effort to permit insertion of a passage so favourable to a Tory divine." At the time the character was published Atterbury was Dean of Carlisle and one of the Queen's chaplains. He was later created Bishop of Rochester. There is no doubt that Atterbury was deeply implicated in the various Jacobite plots for the bringing in of the Pretender. Under a bill of pains and penalties he was condemned and deprived of all his ecclesiastical offices. In 1723 he left England and died in exile in 1732. His body, however, was privately buried in Westminster Abbey. [T.S.]] [Footnote 2: "De Sublimitate," viii. [T.S.]] [Footnote 3: For twenty years Atterbury was preacher at the chapel of Bridewell Hospital. [T.S.]] [Footnote 4: Daniel Burgess (1645-1713), the son of a Wiltshire clergyman, was a schoolmaster in Ireland before he became minister to the |
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