beauty of Stile peculiar to him If he had proved that Dr. B. had falsified the Record he might justly have called it a Fable and have also bestowed on the Doctor all the good words that he could invent His Raillery concerning the Women is too coarse to deserve an answer He censures the Dr. for setting Francis the 1st before Charles the 5th This he thought so remarkable an Error that not contented with the Reflection that he bestows on it he sets it in the Preface as one of his most Conspicuous Faults though if such an Error had been committed in a Letter which does not require an exactness of Stile it had been no great matter But Dr. B. was speaking of the Wars of Millan so to observe the Order of the History he ought to have mentioned Francis the 1st in the first place because he had conquered Millan and was in possession of it for some years before either Charles the 5th was chosen Emperor or before he began to meddle in the matters of that Dutchy So all his discourse of the Precedence due to the Emperor is meer fooling here where the Order of Time was only considered without any regard to the Dignity of the Persons And the Order in which the Doctor put the Three Religions that had their Exercises in the Church of the Concord at Manheim had no relation to their Dignity or Precedence but meerly to the Order of Time the Calvinists having their Exercise first the Lutherans next and the Papists last The Reflecter studies to infer from Dr. B's Promise to write an account of those things that he saw which pleas'd him most That therefore the Misery which he observed in France and with which he begins his Letters was a thing that pleased him mightily But the Dr. might be pleased with the Observation that he made without delighting in the Misery which he saw For to a man that loves a Legal Government and a Religion free of Superstition it is no small pleasure to be confirmed in that by the Observation of the Effects that these things have upon Civil Society which are never so sensibly felt as when one sees the Effects that flow from a contrary Constitution of Government and Religion so the Doctor might have had all the tenderness with which such objects ought to have moved him and yet be pleased to think of the happiness of other Nations and Churches I dare say the Doctor is very well pleased to find such a book writ against him without being pleased with the Impertinences that are in it so he might find a real pleasure in observing the difference between England and France and yet have all the Compassions that became him for the Oppressions under which the French groan He finds matter of Censure in the Doctor 's making a difference between the Publick Iustice of Geneva and the Private for that which he says relating to their Arsenal is too much honoured by being mentioned it being so excessively impertinent The Publick Iustice is fully explained by the Doctor by which he means the Iustice of the Government and the Court of Iudicature which may be highly commendable in a State in which there may be too great a mixture of double dealing in private Transactions and an Author that fancies there is a Contradiction in saying that the Switzers are heavy witted and yet conduct their matters with much dexterity and address has it seems studied Logick to good purpose Wit flowing from a lively imagination and Dexterity from a solidity of judgment Those that have a small share of the one may be that very defect be so much the more eminent in the other And it seems the Reflecter's knowledge of Manuscripts is of a piece with his other Qualities since he quarrels with Dr. B. for saying that the Manuscripts in St. Mark 's Library are Modern and not above Five Hundred Years old Those Manuscripts are the Works of the Old Greek Philosophers and the Fathers and nothing but an Ignorance equal to his could except to the calling the Manuscripts of those Writers Modern since they are not above Five Hundred Years old But it seems he is so ignorant as to think they lived but Five Hundred Years ago and upon that supposition the Manuscripts cannot be Modern if they are as Ancient as the Authors themselves are There is but one part of this Preface in which I am of the Reflecter's mind which is that he confesses he expects no praise from the Work and in that I dare answer for it his hopes will not fail him He adds that there is no need of Ingenuity in it and indeed he has writ like one that thought the smallest measure of it would have quite spoiled his performance Therefore he has put in none of that mixture which would have been very foreign to his design But if what he adds is true that a man of a mean capacity was proper for it then his which is of the lowest Form will scarce be allowed to rise up to the size of a mean capacity He avoids the saying any thing of Switzerland though if he had found matter for Reflections he who to the reproach of his Countrey is said to be a Switzer born should have insisted most upon matters that he may be supposed to know But to supply that defect he pretends that he is informed by a friend that a Learned man of Zurich is about a Work to expose the Insipid Errors of the Doctor This would make one think that he is a Protestant though his Reflections shew the contrary If he has had any correspondence at Zurich hitherto he must expect that will soon fail him that Canton being too severe to the Principles of their Religion to endure such a rotten member long and from what Canton soever the Doctor may apprehend some severity certainly it cannot be from Zurich of whom he has given so just and so high a Character that he can look for no sharpness from any of that Body So far I have gone over our Reflecter's Preface and have found faults enough in my way for so short a discourse But I go next to the Book it self I am indeed ashamed to write against such an Author and if it were not that I intended to discover by a fresh Instance the Spirit of Impudence and Imposture that appears even in the most Inconsiderable things that pass through the hands of a certain sort of men I would not have put Pen to Paper For as I do not find that Dr. B's Reputation is concerned in any thing that is contained in these Reflections so if it were these Gentlemen know sufficiently well that he is of Age and can answer for himself I cannot easily imagine why the Reflecter has set down the Abstract which the Learned men of Leipsic gave of the Doctor 's Travels unless it was to let the World see how many matters were treated of in his Letters to which the Reflecter has not a
ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE REFLECTIONS UPON Dr. B's TRAVELS Printed in the Year 1688. ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE REFLECTIONS UPON Dr. B's TRAVELS WHEN we were made believe that Reflections upon Dr. B's Travels would quickly appear somewhat that was considerable was both promised and expected and even Dr. B's friends apprehended that in such a number of particulars with which he had filled his Letters some few might have been found that had been ill warranted For no body could have imagined that a Book which had been so much read and so well received should have been reflected on with so much malice and with so little judgment that after a Preface full of dull spite there should not have been one single Article among Fourscore and Two that are pickt out that should in the least shake the Credit in which the Book and its Author are held Some have fancied that either Dr. B. or the Printers of his Book have hired the Reflecter to this perfotmance for raising the credit of those Letters of Travels and for giving them the advantage of selling another Edition of them Sure such Reflections cannot possibly have any other effect If we had a party of men of our side that had learned to put in practise the Modesty and other Morals of the Jesuits one should have imagined that this Book might have been such an Imposture as was discovered about thirty years ago among the Iesuits at Paris who hearing of a severe book that was coming out against them from the Cabal of the Iansenists imployed one of their own Fathers to write a book which as it had the same Title so seemed to pursue the same design but was writ in so poor and contemptible a manner that it could have no effect but to render the party from which it was believed to come ridiculous and the Press wrought so hard that this mock-book prevented the true one so that upon its appearance and its passing for that which was expected the party was much deceived till a little time laid open the Imposture which had covered the Society with a just confusion if their being accustomed to such practices had not rendred them insensible of the shame that the discovery brought upon them So upon this occasion I staid a while to see if there might not be some foul play here though our side has no reason to be so much as suspected of such Legerdemain I confess I do not know what judgment to make of the Author or his Translator for as report and the Title-Page call him a Foreigner so the gross errors and the coarseness of the Stile are capable of no excuse but that of a Translator's being tied to his Author though a liberty of changing such Phrases as that his breath should fail and the most polite Nation of the English is practised by all that have a right notion of giving a true Translation I do not know which is the most polite Nation of the English I hope he does not mean the Irish and I am sure whatever that Nation is he is not of it His Helvetia Sorbierius and Amelottius Houssarus shew that the Translator knows not how these Names ought to be writ in English. There are some very few touches that look like Wit and that by consequence are so little of a thread with the whole that I am apt to believe these have been drop't in by a once famous Poet who as is said review'd it and perhaps he had some Remnants in his Common-place book of Wit that were not yet imployed by him so as he found that this book wanted garnishing extreamly he was so bountiful as to afford some but that was done so sparingly as not to exhaust his own stock which is now low Our Reflecter shews his good tast of Wit by giving us that gross Clinch of Asinitas set against Patavinitas as due to Asinius Pollio for reproaching Livy with the other and this he seems to think a flower His accusing of Plutarch of dullness and want of Spirit shews that his taste is as correct concerning the Authors whom he despises as concerning those whom he esteems and Dr. B. has no reason to be troubled to see himself attack't by a man that had the confidence to disparage the greatest of all the Ancient Authors in whose simplicity and seeming carelessness there is a beauty that far exceeds all the painting of a laboured Stile The other parts of the Preface shew how little he either understands books or men But as he seems not capable of correction so he is too Inconsiderable to need that a Warning should be given to the World for preventing the mischief that his Pen may do it This Essay is warning enough He warns us of his Choler against Dr. B. and thinks that he has used him severely which injury he says ought to be redressed But I dare say he cannot raise any choler in the Doctor or make him complain either of the injuries he does him or of his severe usage of him Such a Writer as he is can do injuries to none but himself He makes a fair parallel between Learning and Vertue and to shew us how well he knows the History of the last Age he gives us the Constable Momorancy for a pattern of great Vertue In conclusion he fancies Dr. B. is little concerned in the esteem that the World may have of his Vertue so long as he maintains the Character of a Learned Man but I do not know in which of the Doctor 's Actions or Writings he has discovered this to be sure our Reflecter has found nothing like it in these Letters of his Travels for though he pretends to say somewhat on those points which relate to Learning yet he has not mentioned any one thing that can in any manner lessen the opinion that any may have of the Doctor 's Vertue So that all this discourse is besides the malice of it absolutely impertinent He reckons up some who have writ of the Commonwealth of Venice among whom he names Amelotius Houssarus as the last which shews how little he knows the Books writ concerning that State since Mr. St. Didier a man of another sort of force as well as of greater probity who was Secretary to the Count of Avaux while he was Ambassador at Venice has given an account of that Commonwealth that is both more faithful and more exact than the other I do not love to tell personal things that may be to a third man's prejudice but since the Reflecter opposes his Houssarus to Dr. B. I must tell him that de la Houssarie is too well known in France to build much on his Credit the accidents of his Life have been too publick and his Attempt on the Memory of Mr. Ablancourt has been turned upon him in so vigorous and so severe a manner that few things will pass upon his Authority The Reflecter's calling an Extract drawn from a Record the Fable of the Monks of Bern is a
Colour which is the very thing that the Doctor said That it did not run through it unmixed as some Travellers had fondly imagined For through it imports from the one end of it to the other The Doctor had commended the real Charity of those in Zurich who took care of their Poor without building Magnificent Palaces for them which he represents as a Vanity that is too generally affected elsewhere And here the Reflecter flies out into great anger and thinks that no good man can pardon such Malignity Here is a common place on which he thought to shew his force and I dare say the poor man has done his best and so I leave him But as I had enough to do to read what he writ on this Head so I can assure him I will not venture on answering such stuff Dr. B gave us an account of some Lettters he saw at Zurich from England concerning the Disputes in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign relating to the Habits of the Clergy in which it is said by some of the Bishops that Cranmer and Ridley intended to procure an Act for abolishing the Habits on which our Author bestows this Judicious Reflection That Cranmer died before Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown as if those Letters that were writ Ten years after his death might not have mentioned an Intention which he had though he died before he could execute it Our Author finds fault with the Doctor 's saying That the Observation which he made on the various readings of that Verse in St. Iohn's Epistle may may seem too Learned as if this were his setting an high value on his own Learning Yet since Books of Travels are writ for all sorts of Readers it seemed necessary to make some excuse for setting down some Observations that belonged more properly to a Treatise of Divinity But the malice of our Reflecter is too heavy and his Raillery is too dull to stand on either of them Our Author has a long Discourse concerning that Passage the meaning of which I do not understand It is certain from St. Ierome's Preface that he restored it having found it struck out in the Copies that the Arrians had vitiated and therefore those Bibles which have his Prefaces but have not that passage must owe that defect only to the negligence of the Copiers since if they copied his Bible truly they must have copied that passage which according to that Preface was certainly in it All our Author's Reflection seems to amount to this That St. Ierome was exact that so he might discover the Cheat of the Arrians but not that he had actually done it and so he seems to conclude that the passage was not in his Bible This is stuff worthy of our Author and I leave him the honour of it The Doctor had said Thus will I finish my Account of Zurich and three or four lines after that he ends his Letter in these words And so I will break off Here comes an heavy Reflection on the Doctor 's pride and haughtiness and his maintaining of falsities and that he neither believes nor desires that any other should credit what he says unless he twice repeat it But if one asks why so much wrath It amounts all to this that the Doctor first says he will finish his Account of Zurich and then that he will put an end to his Letter And this to him seemed so nauseous a Repetition that it stirred up all this Choler in him Certainly he is the tenderest stomached person that ever was But I leave him to the Physitians for such stuff as this shews how much he needs their help The Doctor dated his Letter from Zurich as he did the others from Millan Florence Rome and Nimeguâ—n at which our Author is extream uneasie For if you but tread hard near a sick man you discompose him quite He finds some passages in some of the Letters that shew that the Doctor had seen the places which are mentioned in his following Letters when he wrote the former And indeed if the Doctor had cast his Observations into so many Letters and had made the Dates only at pleasure I do not see any great mischief in it He might also have writ the Letters in those places from which he dates them and yet have added passages that belonged to the things which occurred to him in other places and I see no great hurt in all this The Doctor had mentioned the Switzers throwing off the Austrian and German Yoke upon which our Reflecter triumphs as if the Doctor had represented the Switzers as oppressed at the same time by Two Nations But though the Archdukes of Austria were their Immediate Lords yet they were likewise Members of the German Empire and the Switzers having not only shaken off the Tyranny of the Austrians but having likewise separated themselves from the German Empire and formed themselves into a Free and Independent Commonwealth the Doctor had not fully expressed that matter if he had not made mention of the German Yoke as well as of the Austrian And thus I have examined all that is Reflected on in the Doctor 's first Letter and have found that as every one of the Particulars is ill-grounded so if every one of them were acknowledged to be well grounded there is not one of them all that leaves the least Reflection on the Doctor 's Vertue and Sincerity the uttermost to which they can amount being to discover some neglect in the Doctor 's way of expressing himself But even in that I have made it clear that the Doctor writ with more exactness than at first view perhaps every Reader might imagine Dr. B. had said that the Remnants of St. Emerita's Veil which were shewed him at Coire that are pretended to have been saved out of the Fire looked as if the burning had not been a Month old at which the Reflecter laughs as very ridiculous since by this the Doctor seems to judge of Ashes how long ago they were burnt but the Doctor only speaks of the pieces of Linnen And certainly it is no hard thing by looking on a piece of Linnen-cloth that is burnt all about the edges to judge whether it seems fresh and lately burnt or not He concludes this Article after some coarse Raillery that he fears that it will be said both of him and the Doctor That too much Learning had made them both mad I dare say every body will be of opinion that he is not far from being mad But unless he gives other Proofs than appear in this Book I am very confident no body will ascribe the cause of it to too much Learning The Doctor had mentioned the Archdukes of Inchspruck upon which the Reflecter runs division according to his Talent of Raillery as if there were no such Archduke One should have expected that if the Reflecter knew any thing it should have appeared in matters that relate to Germany where the Branches