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might offend the chastest Mind, and the most modest Ear, allowing but just room to mention the Crime that is reproved, and hardly that in some Places sufficient to have it understood.
If I have given the least Cause of Complaint, I profess it to be unseen and undesigned; nor upon revising the whole Work, do I yet see any Reason for altering or wiping out any thing on that Account.
The Scripture it self, the sacred Pattern of Modesty in Expression, and which I have all along kept in my Eye as a Director in that particular Point, has, in many Places, been obliged to speak plainer than I have done in the like Cases.
But when the Censure is to be pass'd, there must be so much said at least, as may let the Reader understand what it is we reprove, or else we speak of nothing, and to no purpose; yet I have studied with the utmost Care to do it, so as to leave no room for Reproach. None can find Occasion to blush here but those that are guilty; let them blush and reform, then the End of the Satyr is answered.
As to the second Case; I cannot but lament the necessity I have been under to omit several flagrant Stories, with Names and Sirnames too attending them, good Evidence of Fact ready, which yet I have not been able to find Words to express with Decency enough to bear reading, or to preserve the Purity of the Design, and the Dignity of a just Satyr.
What vile and perhaps unheard-of Practices could I have exposed, could I have found Words to dress up the Relation in? And what inimitable Examples have I ready to produce to sup-port
