as fast as they please provided they be subject to the Kings Laws and disturb not the peace of their Neighbours and I 'll ask no more nor trouble my head about them But whereas you tell me that no true Gentile English Spirit would have guess'd as I did when you make it out you was gentile in hussing our Clergy in general and every particular Member that comes in your way I will warrant every word and syllable I have said of you and your Family to be not onely Gentile but Right Honourable As for the many small Games and petit Catches you abound with I shall onely say Mum to them all and if you please to imploy some body else to pick the feathers off your Querpo I will inquire a little into the great Design of your Letter which is to magnifie your own way of talking or Wit as you call it and vilifie all others and then bid you good night Not that I would be thought to set up for a Wit of all the Tradâ— in Town but because I find my self bound by the Laws of Errantry like some Palph or Sancho to follow my Leader into any even the most Magnificently foolish Adventures Standers by may possibly see more than Gamesters without Spectacles and now my hand is in I will be so hardy as to descant a little upon your very Master-piece and if you be taken tardy here too I must request you also to burn your Common Place Book or quit the Pit In the first place Sir though you would seem to be highly incensed against a Quibble yet I perceive you know not what it is because you call conceits of the first and second Rate by that diminutive name For according to the best Authors that have written on this Subject a Quibble is nothing else but a Gingling and Chiming of Consonant words and this I must tell you is no less then a Figure in Rhetorick call'd Paronomasia saving your presence But Bishop Sanders in the very Sermon you Cite maintains this kind of Speeches to be Elegancies and flowers of Elocution when they are used sparingly without Affectation and only as Sawce to our Meat You might there have espied Ten or Twelve several places in the Bible where this Figure occurres whereof the good Advice of St. Paul is one if you please to take it and not Play with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mention no more From whence that right Learned Prelate takes occasion to Chastise those idle inconsiderate Persons who Scoff at the like Elegancies in Sermons and other Discourses concluding utterly against you viz. That 't is only Affectation in this as in every other thing that makes it tedeous or ridiculous But those Levities of mine you so judiciously call Quibbles belong Sir to another Figure in Rhetorick yâ—lâ—ped Homonymia when the words are Ambiguous and Ianus like look two ways at least And what ever you say or opine to the contrary these Sir will be not only Lawful but Useful and Elegant and have a Sting in them when you and I are dead Vossius was never Laugh'd at before for saying Hermolaus nomine non re Barbarus nor Heylin for Baiting the Pope's Bulls and telling us of one Iohn Selden whose Name needs no Titles of Honour do you see Sir how bold he makes with the Title of a Book purely for the Phancies sake Nor Tâ—lly for his Ex agro Falerno depellantur Anseres the same word unluckily signifying both a Man and a Goose. I could for a need throw you an hundred more into the Bargain but as I told you before they must be used sparingly Now Sir would you have us blot out two several Figures in Rhetorick meerly to please you Must we get an Act of Parliament in all haste against latter especially which no Language in Europe can live without Even your own English is utterly ruin'd if you take it away all your Proverbs Tropes Metaphors and other Elegancies signifying no more than Chip in Pottage without their Allusions or Ambiguities And may not I take the same liberty of Speech that all the World has done before me for fear of angring you But I 'm confident what e're you say you don't really think such kind of Allusions ridiculous if you do you left your Memory surely in your other Breeches when you went last to the Press Pray Sir present my Services to R. L. and ask what 's the first Letter of that Gentleman's name who stylâ—s his Grace Guardian of Humane Nature and says May and Can are of the same Mood and Tense and talks of pure terse Good-man he would have said Terce humâ—ne Nature newly drawn out of the Clouds Who plays most Childishly with the Reverend B. O. â— for saying the Writes like one Puffed up as if he meant that he was Fat and Bloated when he is soberly attempting to Cure the Tympany iâ— his Mind Who tells me I am as utterlâ— undone as ever was Oyster and that his Caâ— was not free to be Roasted The same Figure all along to a Cows Thuâ—b These I only return you Sir to let the World see that however you hate these little things yet you can't forbear them more than others although by your quarrelling at them other-whiles you start a new Figure in Rhetorick called Autocatacrisis or Self-contradiction You complain indeed I now and then speak as some others have done before me and that the Humour is not my own as if you were for none but New Phancies new Stories new Proverbs new Old-sayingâ— all spick and span New But if this be a Fault you have no reason to call it so of any man living For did you make those Forms of Speeches so frequent wâ—th you Dunstable Stuff Catching old Birds with Chaff From Top to Toe Tumble down Dick Courage Cakes The Story of the Oyster Hogs to Rumford Novâ—rint Vniversi Sink or Swim The Whore of Babylon A Phancie of his Worships and Nineteen more I will not trouble my Head to remember Did you spin them all out of your own Brain Alas Sir they are not only Trite and Common but of as long standing as that of the Boy that made the Knife many of them are as Old as ever was Paul's or if that be yet too young as Old as Spilmans Trial Mr. Eaton's Goose or that of Iohn Hall the Capper you know where I am Nay had I nothing else to do I could Trace some of the most tolerable Humours in all your Works and shew the very Page and Line in Don Lucian and the other Don where you had them albeit you put them off for New as your Philautus does his borrowed Notions and own not those Old Gentlemen's kindness for fear of spoiling your Markets But for you to charge me with your own guilt Quis tulerit Gracchos For my part I love to speak in the Language of other men sometimes and do declare I suspect all things that have nothing but pure Terce
you like my Lord Mayors Horse or his Wifses Monkey to compare you to Esops Crow a Thief in a Mill a Dog in a Bath or a Dog in a Doublet and make you like any thing between York and London But I disclaim all such sneaking Comparions as having no Sting in their Tails I have odds enough of you besides and shall ever think me at the better end of the Staff so long as you continue only like your self In the next place I find my self much oblig'd to you for the choice Library you have assign'd me Wits Commonwealth Spencers Similitudes c. But that phancy Sir begins to grow stale and besides I wonder you left your own learned Works out of the Catalogue for I 'le assure you I make more use of them to quit scores with you than of all the Books in St. Pauls Church-yard However methinks you are vilely out in your Politicks here again I have read in Lucian another of my Authours Sir which you quite forgot of a certain Addle-headed Historian who having begun his Work with a solemn Invocation of the Mâ—ses that they would inspire him mighâ—â—ly made it his great business not so much to tell the truth as to praise and flatter his Emperour To be shot Sir when 〈◊〉 had Drawn up his Men and given the Enemy Battel and Routed them Horse and Foot for indeed it was done to his hand to shew how well he was vers'd in Homer he falls a comparing his own Prince to Achilles and the Persian King who fell that day by his hands to Thersites for Pureness as if it had not been more for his honour to have killed Hector or some such Valiant and Princely Hero than the despicable Thersites The Application Sir is easie and it goes thus If it had not been more for your Credit to have Conquered or to have been Baffled by a considerable Adversary and well provided than such a silly Creature as you have described and so ill Arm'd too I never saw the like on 't But above all things Sir I must desire you for the future to have a great care of a Mouse-Trap especially if it be Baited with a bit of Greek 't is not good Nibbling too far where there may be Danger in the Case For although it seems to be your Hogen Mogen design in this Epistle to take me to Task for my Greek yet I am affraid you were better to have kept within your own Element your beloved English Exercises still than have ventured out to so little purpose Your charging me with mistaking the Sense or the Authour or both in those two pieces of Greek is so Imposing that were that very Grandame alive that Taught you this kind of Confidence as your self somewhere tells us I believe she would scarce save you from a Whipping The â—â—â—st is an end of one of those golden Verses so highly prised anciently be the Sect of the Mummâ—rs wherein you make me construe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virtue and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—overty If you make me Sir I can't help it but upon consulting my Copy I find no such matter pray Sir next time when your hand is in make me render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Great Turk and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pope and upon my word I will not take it half so hainously But to give you as much Rope as you can in reason expect let it be as you will have it let the one signifie Virtue but not as it is opposed to Vice Sir that 's your mistake but to Infirmity and implies only a Faculty or Power of doing a thing and the other Poverty Fate hard Fate Necessity or what you please provided it signifie something that doth either occasionally or necessarily Excite Quicken and Enforce the Faculty or Power aforesaid and I am content I could shew you several Authours that use the words to this effect but that they are Old ones whose Authority you don't use to value Howeeer the World may be in your debt for your New-found exposition of this place I shall hold to my Old one still viz. That whether we attribute a man's condition of Life to Fate with the Stoicks to Fortune with the Epicureans or to Providence with all sober Christians the Text will bear these and many more Senses Necessity is and ever will be a reasonable Spur to Action it will make us do our utmost and more then we thought to be in our power I must forgive my Trespassing Friend for once else I shall lose him for ever and so in other like Cases Hierocles who knew that Authour's mind better than you did mine Sir is much of the same Opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The ancient Sages of Greece were wont to draw up the Sum and Heads of their Principles in certain Schemes Tables or Trees as they phancied for the benefit of their Pupills and in the Pythagorean Scheme Power dwelt hard by as I think at the very next door to Necessity to imitate what I told you before Now whereas you take Fate and Necessity to be one and the same because Curteous to shun that unruly word Necessitati translates the place for his Verse sake fato vicina poteâ—t as yet what if they should prove it to be sometimes two things For instance Sir your Fates may decâ—ee what they please and my poor Scholar for whom all this stir and criticizing is be never the wiser but he is so well acquainted with his own circumstaâ—ces that he easily perceives a manifest Necessity he should study without consulting the Almanack of Fate if ever he intend to be a wise learned rich or great man knowing that this same poor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can almost do Miracles and so much for that As for my other Greek remnant it seems I am out in my Author and then no wonder I mistake his meaning too But who is the Tyger now Sir can't a man cite a Comment for the Text without all this noise as if Hannibal were at the Gates or Apprentices in an uproar It were neither Felony nor Man-slaughter however you dispatch your Hue and Cry so fast after me But what if you should reckon without your Host Sir What if the Text have not taken new Lodgings lately but is to be found still where I left it lâ—st in plodding Aristotle's own House when you go that way next praâ— call at the fourth Book of his Physicks chap. 19. 128. and you will either meet with that or one very like it i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Examine him accurately take out your Compasses for sureness set one foot at the Text the other on the Comment and see where you find those words but be sure you don't confess your errour indeed I was amaz'd to see you quote the very Chapter and then question your faculties as far as to deny a palpable matter of fact till I understood you trusted a scurvâ— Lexicon and
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