[6] Passages that included Jonathan Swift-style irony, where Burke acted as though he was Bolingbroke and those who supported him in many ways in the Vindication,[7] and as a theoretical realization of the danger such controversial opinions may have upon a career are the following: "In such a Discussion, far am I from proposing in the least to reflect on our most wise Form of Government; no more than I would in the freer Parts of my philosophical Writings, mean to object to the Piety, Truth, and Perfection of our most excellent Church.

"[9]The preface presents the occasion of the essay as a riposte to the philosophy of Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (died 1751), whose Collected Works and Letters had been published by David Mallet in 5 volumes in 1754.

[10] In this apologetic preface, he wrote that Vindication was inspired by "seeing every Mode of Religion attacked in a lively Manner, and the Foundation of every Virtue, and of all Government, sapped with great Art and much Ingenuity" in Lord Bolingbroke's collected works.

He writes: "The Fabrick of Superstition has in this our Age and Nation received much ruder Shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the Chinks and Breaches of our Prison, we see such Glimmerings of Light, and feel such refreshing Airs of Liberty, as daily raise our Ardor for more.

"[16]In a swift survey of history, Burke finds nothing but "Tumults, Rebellions, Massacres, Assassinations, Proscriptions, and a Series of Horror",[18] and remarks that "All Empires have been cemented in Blood" as the casualties mount in the millions, with cruelties perfected by technology.

[19] Contrasted with natural liberty and natural religion, Burke sets the Aristotelian general forms of government,[20] which he describes with the same emphatic detail as used in the Satires of Juvenal: starting from despotism, the simplest and most universal, where "unbounded Power proceeds Step by Step, until it has eradicated every laudable Principle";[21] then republics, which "have many Things in the Spirit of absolute Monarchy, but none more than this; a shining Merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular Assembly, as well as in a Court";[22] followed by aristocracy, which is scarcely better, as "a Genoese, or a Venetian Republick, is a concealed Despotism";[23] and finally giddy democracy, where the common people are "intoxicated with the Flatteries of their Orators".

Embedded in the whirl of extravagant invective, Burke is able, like all writers of Menippean satire, to express some subversive criticism thusly: "You may criticise freely upon the Chinese Constitution, and observe with as much Severity as you please upon the Absurd Tricks, or destructive Bigotry of the Bonzees.