The literary merits of the satire, when we compare it with the powerful verse of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, to which he refers in the exordium, are not great.
"Daniel Defoe"
William Minto
A sudden change in her manner, a new earnestness, makes the Major stop an incipient yawn he is utilising as an exordium to a hint that we ought to go to bed, and become quite wakeful to say: "I will tell you all I can, my child."
"Somehow Good"
William de Morgan
When this dreadful exordium was over, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too.
"Dickens As an Educator"
James L. (James Laughlin) Hughes