Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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A29192
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An answer to two letters of T.B. by the author of The vindication of the clergy.
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Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.; Eachard, John, 1636?-1697.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing B4213; ESTC R20172
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27,318
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74
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Heroick Magnarum usque adeo sordent primo dia rerum Another small mistake of yours is your Râ—peâ—tition of a great part of my Book and that more unfaithfully than I should have expected from any Scot and then Brandishing your Pen over it and Bragging it deserves no better Answer A very compendious and effectual way to Confute Turk and Pope and Iack of Cumberland to boot The spightful World Sir willnot be so civil as to suffer you or me to be Judges in our own cause and however we think very goodly of our own Brats yet they may possibly if there be no Byass in the case have a different Notion of them especially in a Summer morning when the Sun is got out of Aries 'T is you have taught me so much modesty I shall for ever own it as to think that I can not only maintain every Tittle I have said there but even a bad Cause upon occasion against you and two or three more such triffling Privateers But I am not bound to maintain the Wise Reasoâ—iugs and pleasant Consequences you so ingenuously and plentifully Father upon me Male dum recitas incipit esse tuum They are all your own Sir by a better Title than the Mad-man had to his Smyrna Fleet. I remember one Copie of the Vulgar Translation corruptly reads Evertit domum for Everrit and makes the poor Woman not Sweep but throws down the House to find heâ— lost Groat Now if one single Letter creates so great alteration in the case quoth Ployden what rare work for a Tinker may a man make that takes your liberty of changing whole Words Sentences and Sides What an easie matter it is to put a man upon the Rack and make him conâ—ess what you would have him To render Sermons or Books or any thing Ridiculous by Interlining making false Comments upon them by Reading them backwards or beginning them at the wrong end I would not for Two Pence Half Penny you had been a Scrivener or Lawyers Clerk lest peradventure some of the laâ—ty had then smarted for 't and been as Poor as you have made the Clergy But you must not dream Sir I have so little to do as to fall a Repeating after you to set all right and straight again as I leâ—t it yet this I 'll promise you that if you please to send me a Page of the best Sense that ever you was Master of I will only carry on this little Metaphor of yours and if I don't return it you as Senseless and Impertinent Stuff by the next Post as ever you met with I 'le be your Bondman and give you all the Causes and Effects too that that you and I shall deal in for ever In the mean time I must desire you once more to be ashamed of this easie piece of Foolery and if you have no better Friends about you to Learn a little Ingenuity of Achilles his Horse in Homer or Mycillus's Cock in Lucian for although the one Repeated a number of Verses the other a great deal of Prose yet neither abused the Authour or made him speak other than his own Sense I shall not disturb the Ashes of Old Ferdinando so far as to guess at the true reason why you would not Reply to my Book but why you would not let it alone neither why you must needs shew your Teeth when you could not Bite and neither hold me fast nor let me go is such a Riddle that I dedie any man that understands Trap to resolve it You tell me indeed that I Iump in some Passages with W. S. and that you had Answered him half a year before And is it not a strange thing that two several Men living perhaps above an Hundred Miles distant should speak sometimes to the same effect though Treating of the very same Subject Nay is it not stranger then that any man in his right Wits should deny that you have Answered the said W. S. Back-stroke and Foresstroke fully and throughly and killingly too For my part I meddle with no bodies Principles or Province but my own yet since you are so good at Answering pray answer me one Question Did you ever hear of St. Dunstan But did you ever see a little Book called the Method of Preaching Printed about Fifty years ago the Authour whereof writes himself T. V. as you do T. B They say he and you jump in your Notions that there you had your story of the Weepers though you have added two of your own to his Six and made it consist of Eight parts and to mention no more your Preface from Adam from his beginning of the World which some Ancient Historians will have to be much about the same time In some things indeed you seem to differ for He was a Divine you say you are none He pretends to Instruct young Preachers serionsly whilst you Laugh and Droll upon the very Old ones Now I am not so vain as from this and such like Instances to Indict you for a Plagiary but only to let you know that when ever you speak Sense or Truth somebody else hath done it before you so that you cannot claim the whole Credit thereof more than of your late happy Intention of English Exercises Nor do I stumble upon them again Sir out of a mere malicious design of moving your cholerick Particles but only because I am now passing on to consider your singular Antipathy to a piece of Greek or Latine for you proclaim open War and profess you hate it like a Viper or Toad as if the little Vermine struck so fiercely that he left his Sting behind him Now Sir were I disposed to Mischief what a fair Advantage have you given me to pelt you with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an hundred such Scraps every whit as significant as those soft Compellations of yours my Duck my Dear c. and then Tack about with a Tendimus in Latiam and give you a Broad-side there too But that were a Cowardly Triumph and I hate to use any true English man so Barbarously Nor will I renew the Question once put to a Dogmatical Philosophist after he had made a tedeous Harangue to Disparage and Vilifie the Tongues why he did not cut out his own But rather Argue the Busiâ—ess calmly and seriously with you I hope Sir you don't think there lies any Moral Turpitude lurking under the Skirts of those hateful Languages or that they are absolutely and point blanck against the Law of the Land Our Statutes for English Manufactures and the Encouragement of Trade were never intended to bolt out Learning and Latine sure as Forein Commodities I confess I love the Smoak of my own Country as well as you or any of them that were lately Press'd for his Majesties Service abroad but I would not willingly be such a meer English Machine as not to be able to Write a piece of Latine to borrow Money upon occasion or to teach a Thief his Neck-verse