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In a word, if all the Complaints of this kind are causeless and needless, and there are neither the Crimes or the Criminals to be found, or to be heard of among us, then indeed the Satyr cannot be just, and the Author deserves the Censure of a false Accuser. Let him be try'd by God, and his Country; and let the abused Persons who are without the Sin, throw the first Stone at him.
But if the Fact is to be prov'd, if the Guilt is notorious, if he not only has pointed out the Crime, but is ready, if called upon in a lawful way, to point out the Criminals too, and to convict them upon their own Evidence, and out of their own Mouths; if they not only daily commit those Things, but daily boast of them; if the Coffee-houses are witnesses on one Side, and the Tea-Tables blush on the other, and lewd Dialogues on that wicked Subject circulate from one to t'other; if the differing Sexes are united in the guilt, tho' in a differing way, and the odious Facts are become flagrant, 'tis then high time to combate the Vice, and endeavour by any possible Ways to bring the World to blush for them, since they are past blushing for themselves.
As the Guilt thus legitimates the Satyr, so the Circumstances of it, and the unhappy state of Things justifies the Author in the Method of attacking it. The Law cannot reach it; the Fact is not cognisable in a way of Justice; no criminal Process can lie in the Case, 'tis one of the Offences that are too vile to be hid, and yet too secret, and too much hid, to be laid hold of. They seem to be fenced and protected by those very Laws that should censure and expose them; and tho' they frequently sally out,and
