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A58390
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Reflections upon two scurrilous libels, called Speculum crape-gownorum by a lay-man.
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Banckes, Matthew.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing R734A; ESTC R2975
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10,205
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20
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not construing Virgils Eclogues and so now in his Buffoon way he disparages what has been so highly valued by all men of Wit and Learning and is incomparably better than any thing he seems ever to have read But I must have a care what I do for he that writes against this Author may disoblige more than one man for the least Part of his Book is his own I shall pass therefore from the 2d pag. to the 15. for all between is stoln only a flourish or two perhaps by the by to make it look sillily and like his own I confess some things there mentioned are so grosly foolish that I can hardly believe any one would ever please himself in 'em but that I hope to make it appear our Author has pleased himself in as bad I defie him or any man else to instance in any one of the conforming Clergy that has vented any such thing and till he does all this is at random and impertinent malice Most of what he produces I grant is meer Cant and Jargon only some few things methinks might be excused as this My Text divides it self into c. For Virgil says Partes ubi se via findit in ambas And why a Text has not as much power to divide it self as a way to cleave it self I cannot understand But I shall not undertake to defend any mans extravagancies I know none that are guilty of so gross ones nor I believe our Plagiary neither To pass to what is his own I shall give you his Complements to the Clergy and his dull fulsom Buffoon expressions as they come in my way that any ordinary Reader may judg how capable this man is of being a Critick The instances set down pag. 15. are his own and I defie him to prove any Minister ever said any such thing in the Pulpit or elsewhere which if he cannot do he must pass for a notorious Lyar Every Whiffler in Divinity pag. 16. Too much Prating in English in our great Cities and all this to feed the Ostentation of our Pulpit-threshers ib. So then he 's for Preaching in an unknown Tongue for Preaching in English is Prating But pray mind the coherence He blames some for going to Coffee-houses as if those places were appropriated for Sedition or the Physitian were to be blamed for visiting the Pest-house and others for handing young brisk Ladies though St. Paul asks the Question have not we the Power to lead about a Sister as if there were not laced Cravats and Ruffles enough about the Town for this amorous Employment and then continues To say truth we have too much Prating in English c. if there be any dependence in this I 'le yield he can write sense Hackney-Sermon-Makers ib. Were Sermons therefore less frequent they would be much more valued for then would men have time to meditate and their abortive irreverences would not drop so often from their mouths without soul or life as not having staid their time in womb of meditation ib. There 's a stroke of Art for you Would not any one think this Fellow had served his time to a Mid-wife I will appeal to the reason of any man whether it be within the verge of mortality there 's Language without affectation to invent a more fulsome Allegory No for a person to preach at six in Corn-hil by ten at St. Martins Outwich c. Why not if he have lungs enough what does the Blunderer mean Well! it is impossible that such a superabundance should be other than the Riff Raff and Quicquid in Buccam venerit of a mercenary brain pag. 17. The light of such a Star of the first magnitude in the firmament of the Church of England or the clouded reflections of meer Divinity Meteors that run whisking up and down to vent their undigested Conceits as the wind of their phantastical Doctrines agitates ' em ib. Now I should fancy this Iolt-head seeks to advance his reputation by affected words or affected and obscure Notions Young Officers of Divinity pag. 18. pitiful striplings illiterate old Mumblers ib. some underling twelve pound a year Disciple ib. Alms-Man-teacher of a Parish pag. 19. But I perceive I am faln upon his stoln goods again I shall therefore only take notice of his Diminitive Divine and pass to pag. 21. They who are disinabled from the Purchasing part are no way to be entrusted with the Teaching part A great pity no doubt that thus it should be for there are certainly no doubt c. No doubt certainly no doubt he is much afraid he should be thought to doubt of any thing Next for a touch of Politicks Now whether it be most convenient to make Ministers for Churches or Churches for Ministers is the Question but the Proverb is Talk of any thing but building Churches for if we build more Churches we must make more land for endowment which cannot be done without drying up of the Sea and that 's a very difficult task What a smart Paraphrase he makes upon a poor Proverb The Latin ones Book-sellers shops they seldom haunt as being out of their Sphere Dissenters men of more understanding than themselves than Conformists ib. Of this let all impartial men judg Crape-Gown-men pag. 22. Like the Disciples of Haly and Mahomet ib. That 's an employment without the verge of Reprehension ib. It seems he is hugely taken with Verges and Spheres Like the Popes white Boys ib. Fanaticism and Dissenterism is the Mode now True and so is Foolism and Ignoranism Now his fit of gravity takes him again and he talks pragmatically of what he does not understand and therefore he had better taken example of our Crape-Gown-men Who he says think it more convenient to let them alone the Papists than to betray their folly and their ignorance But with a jerk he puts off his Asses gravity and is at his Monkey-tricks again a lazy Coffee-drinking life pag. 15. to suffocate what God has so miraculously detected ib. The Plot I suppose he means but whan sense is it to choak a Plot But we must pardon him he takes Choaking and Stifling to be the same whereas stifling is but one way of Choaking and he might as well have said the Plot was kill'd or in his own strain Enecated For in such expressions the manner of doing is principally aimed at and the doing the thing only imply'd and scarce attended to They the Clergy pretend themselves Sons and Children ib. What does he think there are any Daughter Clergy-men Colloguing adherence to the fascinations of Rome That 's great I assure you When some men get into the Pulpit they are so rampant so Hoity Toity they know not where their Tails hang pag. 24. As others are when they get in Print In the next place commend me to that incomparable and admirable Translation of a piece of Latin printed by the Ludgate Excommunicator Nunquam nec Albiani nec Nigriani nec Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani i. e.
REFLECTIONS Upon Two Scurrilous LIBELS Called Speculum Crape-Gownorum By a Lay-man LONDON Printed for Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1682. REFLECTIONS C. AMONG all the silly Scurrilous Libels that have been Printed since the Liberty of the Press I never saw such a medley of Malice and Nonsense as this piece of Plagiarism And indeed 't is an Affront to any common Reader to suppose him not able to see how ridiculous a Trifle it is But because I perceive the Scribler values himself upon it and has put out a Second Part and sets up for an Author I thought fit to give him a view of himself in his own Looking-Glass that he may if he have any Sense or Ingenuity left forbear to expose himself any further when he knows how ridiculous he must needs appear to all but such as cannot or will not judg I have good reason to suspect this Looking-glass-maker was expelled one of the Universities if he were ever so happy as to prevail with some Pedagogue to recommend him thither or denied Orders for his dulness or debauchery or both sure I am he deserves to be banish'd the Society of all Men of common Sense for the first whatever he may for the latter But 't is but a poor impertinent revenge thus to rave against the Universities and Clergy when all the World knows there never was less reason Those which he so much contemns of two or three years Standing would undergo a severe Censure if in any Exercise they should vent so much Nonsense as this Fop has done in his little Scrible And there is no part of Learning in which the conforming Clergy have not shewn themselves eminently skilful Their Sermons are famous throughout our Neighbour-Nations and their Stile as good generally as that of any other Order of Men yea many of them write in so expressive and exact a manner and with so true a Genius that they out-do all that has ever been Written in the English Tongue and may deservedly be compared to the Romans and Grecians themselves Mr. Baxter himself confesses in his Book against Dr. Stilling-fleet that they are but too exact But whatever he acknowledges I think I may with modesty say Our Sermons almost equal the powerful pious Eloquence of the first Ages of the Church I wish the practice of our times were as like that of the Primitive Christians as the Preaching is The People now begin to see the Difference between Enthusiastick Cant and a sober rational Discourse and this makes our Libeller under Pretence of inveighing against bad Preaching exclaim against all Preaching in General and call it Prating c. Though this was the beloved Ordinance of his dear Dissenting Brethren when they inveighed and infatuated the poor People into Rebellion and play'd worse Pranks in their Pulpits than the most extravagant Farce durst present upon a Stage But I shall only mention this because 't is notorious but must take notice withal that whatever absurdities this man pretends our Clergy guilty off I doubt they are collected out of Nonconformists Sermons and he might have gone no further than his own Conventicle-Note-Book for ' em Sure I am nothing of Stile can be more slovenly or unhandsom than most of their Writings as I could easily make appear if it were not every mans observation and the Dissenters Sayings will sufficiently shew it where you have the most hellish Opinions set forth in the ugliest Dress being a compleat Epitome of the whole Black Art But I come now to examine with what modesty this man can censure other mens Stile or pretend to be so great a Master of it himself The Church of England is the closest to Primitive Institution of any Religion in the World So that Church and Religion with him are all one and the Religion professed by the Church of England is the Church it self and by Church-Militant we must mean Religion militant But I doubt all this is but Complement and is not without the Phylacteries of Hypocritical Ceremonies as he quaintly words it The Nation is so over-stock'd with Crape-Gowns that What that he must needs give his Pamphlet a silly Pedantick Title as ridiculous as any thing mentioned in it Well! but he had reason for it he was loth this pretty conceit should be lost An ill Omen of sick divinity when it comes to be mant led in the shrouds appropriated for the dead This facetious lucky Touch put him upon inventing the Title and then who could forbear writing a Book that had such a Title for it A Title well chosen that nicks the business is commonly the most Taking Part of a bad Book and if it be in Latin the Vulgar Readers like it the better because he does not understand it But whoever said Appropriated for I thought things had been appropriated To and not For till this Critick came forth They will do well to accept of this Mirrour here presented them new foyled and furbish'd up to be placed in their Studies and look'd in every Morning and by reforming their contemplated blemishes c. Admirable Was it not worth his while to call his Pamphlet a Looking-Glass for the sake of this fustian Allegory Thus we have the reason of his Crape and of his Looking-glass now put these two together and you have a Scheme of the whole Work so exact that you may easily discern what is stoln and what is his own in it for this Title I assure you is a Master piece and all the rest is but the same at large that you have here in little Thus I have traced him through little more than his first Page which is the least obnoxious to Censure of any in the whole Libel so that the Reader may judg by this what he must expect from such a Coxcomb to use a Term of Art by which he complements the ingenious Author of Heraclitus and restore the word to him 't is appropiated for No Plagiary Looking-Glass pag. 2. That 's a damned lye for there is scarce three words of sense but what is stoln out of a Book entitled The Reasons and Grounds of the Contempt c. He refers the reason of the contempt of the Clergy to two very plain things the Ignorance of some and the Poverty of others but sure I am if this man be as poor as he is ignorant no Clergy-man in England will change conditions with him Then he exclaims against slavery to a few Greek and Latin words and I commend him for I dare swear he understands neither in any tolerable manner no nor English any more than a Ballad-singer or merry Andrew Next he is mightily displeased with a tedious story how Phaeton broke his Neck but if the Dunce had known the moral it might have deterred him from undertaking a Task so much above him Why he should be so angry with poor Tityrus's Apples and Nuts I can't imagine unless it be because he has been lash'd at School for