this of the Memoirs And finding Common Fame wherever I had met it agrees so well with the Picture these Pieces had given me of him I will own to have had a very great Honour for the Author as well as for his Books and could not but esteem both a great deal the more for this Letter of de Cros when I found that the triple-corded Malice of the Writer the Translator and the Advertiser had not given one lash either to the Honour of the Person or the truth of his Books And all this put together has in very truth given me so much Spight and Indignation that I could not refrain entring on the Pamphletiers Trade which I never did before nor ever thought I should have done at all And but for this Provocation could have been very well satisfied to have lived on without the itch of seeing how I look in Print so that I may truly say for this as the Poet does for his Verses Facit Indignatio Versus Before I enter upon observing what de Cros says concerning Sir W. T. which takes up the greatest part of his Letter and leaves him either no Room or no Memory for the Memoirs he pretends to Answer I shall first examine what he speaks of himself and in his own defence against what he takes himself to be charged with He begins p. 10. There arrived says he quoting the Memoirs at that time from England one whose Name was de Cros. Upon this he falls immediately into a Scurrilous Chafe Now one would wonder what should make the Man so offended to be called by his own Name or what would have become of Sir W. T. if he had call'd him out of his Name which is indeed commonly thought an injury but not the other as ever I heard of before yet he reckons it a terrible one to himself and his Family which he tells us is a good one I know not whether he means the de Cros's or the Monks The first I must confess I never heard of in France but the other is indeed a great one abroad and a good one at home But whatever he would have us think of the Goodness of his Family I will never believe by what little understanding I have of Heraldry that any Gentleman would either write such a Letter or Translate it tho it were only out of the common Respect that is due to the Memory of a Great King whose Person Sir W. T. has so often represented and in so high a Character But to proceed That he was formerly a French Monk as the Memoirs call him he confesses and owns besides tho with a great deal of ill-will that He changed his Frock for a Petticoat For tho he denies it positively p. 11. yet five Lines after he has these words There was too great advantage to throw off my Frock for the Petticoat I have taken not to do it it is a Petticoat of a Scotch Stuff c. I am glad it is of one so good as he mentions and wish it were large enough to cover all his Shame But whatever he says in the same Page too malicious to be taken notice of here of Princesses who have quitted the Veil for the Breeches tho in that it self I believe he is mistaken yet all this will never serve to wipe off the Ignominy of Un Moin Defroquè Upon which I shall only add That the Marriage of a Monk when stripp'd of his Frock is not thought likely to mend the matter And I believe men of all Religions will agree in the Opinion That if a Monk leaves his Frock he ought to do it for a Gown rather than for a Petticoat and if he leaves the Orders of one Church should in decency continue in the Orders of that Church to which he professes himself converted As to his being a Swedish Agent tho he is very angry the Memoirs should call him so one cannot well discover by his Letter whether he has a mind to grant it of no however he confesses p. 13 14. That being Envoy from the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp the Interests of his Master being inseperable from those of Sueden he found himself engaged to be very much concerned in the Interests of that Crown and that Monsieur Van Beuninguen believed He was intrusted with some Affairs from thence Which amounts to the very same with what the Memoirs say p. 335. That he de Cros had a Commission from the Court of Sueden or Credence at least for a certain petty Agency in England This he says Is very Dirty Alas for the cleanly Gentleman one would think he was afraid of fouling his Fingers but he had a great deal more need have taken care of his mouth By the way I cannot but admire at the insufferable Impudence of the English Printer or Translator who hath in the Title Page named this man An Ambassador at the Treaty of Nimeguen since in the several Accounts I have seen printed of that Treaty there is not the least mention of such a Name any other way than in those Memoirs he pretends to Answer And 't is doubt less very agreeable to think that a man who gives himself so good a Character in his own Letter should make so great a one in so August an Assembly as that is recorded to have been And he himself in his whole Letter arrogates no other besides that of Envoy Extraordinary from the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp into England who was a Prince at that time wholly dispossess'd of His Dominions Another Passage in the Memoirs which he takes sadly to heart is in the same Pag. 335. as follows At London he had devoted himself wholly to Monsieur Barillon the French Ambassador though pretending to pursue the Interests of Sweden Against which he thus defends himself First Letter pag. 14. He absolutely denies it and says in the next He fell out with Monsieur Barillon for three Months because he diverted the King of England from taking into his consideration the Interests of Sweden And pag. 16. He says further That Monsieur Barillon put all in practice to sift him to the bottom concerning the Swedish Affairs nevertheless all the Offers of this Ambassador proved ineffectual and wrought nothing upon this man meaning himself who if a man would give credit to Sir W. T. was entirely devoted to Monsieur Barillon and yet Monsieur Barillon found him not to be corrupted or bribed All this would be an Account good enough of his Innocence in that point if it had not the misfortune to be so ill plac'd 'T is indeed a good way back to the fifth Page of his Letter And therefore what he says there one may by the help of a little Charity impute to the shortness of his Memory These are his Words I have had the happiness during some years to partake in the confidence of a Minister of State c. And a little after Sir W. T. may well imagine that I did not ill improve this
scheleri and which is as true and like the Original as a man would make of this Dauber if he should say De Cros were a very honest worthy well-natur'd well-bred fait-spoken plain-dealing ingenious Writer of excellent Morals wondrous Wit and exact Truth And now I have done with him I can hardly answer it to my self why I ever began or why I went about to foul my fingers with such a Subject I am sure nothing could have forced me but an irresistible Impulse and some natural love I bear to Vertue to Learning and to Truth of all which I find so great a share in this Honourable person's Writings which I have read so often and with so much pleasure and from which I cannot but confess to have learnt more than from all other Books I have read in my life which I say after much greater and better Readers than my self and yet I have been a great Porer too All this would not suffer me to let De Cros's Libel pass without these Reflections for as to any regular Reply it could no more be made to this than to a Paper that comes with a very fair Superscription and subscribed by some Worshipful Name but had nothing clear through besides long unsightly Scrawls and foul Blots with a Pen and so intended for some such flam as your Twelve-Penny Writers use to gull those idle people with that buy up all Pamphlets they meet And since I have confess'd my self such a Customer 't is but justice I should be laughed at in my turn After all I have writ upon this Subject I cannot but think my Ink has been too white all this time however I have Gall enough about me to make it blacker at another if ever the fit of Scribling should take me again which may very well be when I meet with another Author of so little Wit so little Memory and so little Truth as De. Cros. Melius non tangere Clamo Flebit insignis tota cantabitur Vrbe As to the candid Translator I cannot forbear doing him the Justice to give him that part which he deserves and belongs to him in all I said of De Cros for his share in the Letter by so false and so malicious a Translation nor can refuse him my approbation for a worthy Translator to so worthy an Author wherein he has taken the same pains a man would do in smutting over a Chimny-Sweeper or blacking over a Crier of Smalcoal Which is all I shall say of him But for the Advertiser as his Stile is much fairer and consists mostly of Criticisms so he will deserve no other than very fair and critical Reflections Yet I cannot but wonder that in the first part of his Advertisement he should go about to defend the severe or indecent Language as he calls it in De Cros's Letter Which sure nothing could do towards a person who has so often represented a great King whatever his own Merits or Demerits might have been I am also something at a loss what he should mean by slandering De Cros with such a Title as that of The Ingenious Author of the foregoing Letter For doubtless if the Man has any Wit I may say of it as one did of a Gentleman's Courage which another had much commended That he might have courage for ought he knew but he had as live be damn'd as shew it The rest of his gentle Advertisement consists as he pleases to call it of the Sentiments of the Criticks upon these Memoirs when they first came out The first whereof is That The Stile was too luscious and affected I confess I am not acquainted with that Term of a Luscious Stile and cannot easily stumble upon what it means unless it be to say That the Bride is too fair or the Grapes are too sweet But 't is yet harder for my poor Conception to find out how a Stile can be both Luscious and Affected Which latter I should have otherwise mistook for a Quality that had ever given a harshness to any Stile that would not be very consistent with Luscious And Tacitus has not escaped the Imputation of being both harsh and Affected by several Criticks I am afraid the Gentleman's Mouth might have been a little out of taste by reading these Memoirs and that might possibly have proceeded from some cholerick Humour redundant in his Stomach which I the rather suspect from these words in the beginning of his Advertisement As nothing more sensibly touches US than no have our Reputation c. which seem to insinuate that he took himself for one of the Persons he thought offended by them and treated with too much Freedom and too little Ceremony as he afterwards speaks of others But if Sir W. T 's Stile be faulty I have nothing to say only desire That some of the Criticks the Advertiser speaks of will be so kind to mend it when they write next whereby I think they will do a very great Honour to our Language I am only sorry for those poor Booksellers who have so rashly undertaken the printing of his several Works and wish they may not be undone after the Judgment of these severe Criticks upon them Yet to give them a little comfort I must needs take notice that all men are not of the same nice Palat neither at home nor abroad For Monsieur Wiquefort concludes his Memoirs of Ambassadors with regretting that there had been so few Accounts given by any of them of Foreign Countries and that there were like to be fewer hereafter Because Monsieur Temple is inimitable in what he has written of the United Netherlands And among many Books and Pamphlets that mention his Works I have yet seen none that does it without great Value and Approbation I am sure in all the French Editions of his several Works which have had the luck to be still Translated into several Languages as they came out the Epistles and Prefaces prefixed before them are full of the greatest Honour and Applause that can be given to Writings which pass so ill with the Criticks this Advertiser tells us of at home so that 't is possible some of these Memoirs may yet go off which I suppose was the chief thing intended by him that publisht them However let such Statesmen as de Cros or such Criticks as our Advertiser or Malice and Detraction it self say what they will of the Memoirs I dare answer for all Scholars and Lovers of Learning that they shall pay the Honour and Esteem which is and will be ever justly due to the Miscellanea and shall not only find what is pleasing and instructing but also something that is new and surprizing whenever they read them let this Author's Stile be as Luscious and Affected as it will which is all I need say for the poor Bookseller's sake The second Criticism the Advertiser mentions is upon the Digressions tho he is so good to confess himself not of their Opinion who find sault with them But I
REFLECTIONS UPON TWO PAMPHLETS Lately Published One called A LETTER from Monsieur de Cros concerning the MEMOIRS of Christendom And the Other An ANSWER to that Letter Pretended to have been written by the Author of the said MEMOIRS By a Lover of Truth IMPRIMATUR April 21st 1693. EDWARD COOKE LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane 1693. REFLECTIONS ON A LETTER From Monsieur de Cros c. I Was very glad when I heard that one Monsieur de Cros had published an Answer to a late Book Entituled Memoirs of what pass'd in Christendom c. And could not but expect some considerable Discoveries in those Affairs and Intriegues from a person who thought himself a Match for Sir W. T. Besides I hoped it might have had this good Effect to move that Author in his own defence to oblige us once more with his Pen. This was sufficient to make me buy this Pamphlet greedily as I do most others which tho very often they entertain one ill enough yet serve in general for some amusement amidst the Noise and Hurry of a dirty Town But when I had read it over I soon found my self deceived in the first and have now lost all hopes of the other since I have waited above two months in that Expectation whereas two days were sufficient had that Author thought fit to take any notice of such a Trifle which makes me now despair of it and as I perceiv'd the Town never looked for any such thing so all I meet with either in Coffee-houses or Ordinary Conversation have such despicable Thoughts of this Letter that I now begin to find I never had any reason to expect it at all For in truth the whole Letter seems to me only design'd to Banter Fools or Children and to be written by a man who had lost all Respect to the Publick whom he thinks fit to entertain with such wretched stuff which certainly he could not pretend should either please or instruct any Reader who had not as much malice and as little Wit as himself For besides Railing and Foul Language his whole Letter from the beginning to the end is an errant Sham and has nothing in it 'T was therefore in vain to imagine Sir W. T. would descend so much below himself to take any notice of so fulsome a Libel and I do not believe either de Cros or the kind Writer of the Advertisement after the Letter did ever expect it For first If Sir W. T. be such a Philosopher as he seems to be by his Essay upon the Gardens of Epicurus as well as several others he must infinitely contradict the Ideas those Writings have given of him if so sordid and insipid a Trifle as this Letter of de Cros could have any power to provoke him tho it were but to scorn it Besides if he be so proud a Person as De Cros is pleased to call him certainly while he remembers his own Quality and the great Employments he has passed through with so much Honour to himself and such important Services for his Prince and Country such thoughts will never allow him to enter the Lists with one who to say no more has owned himself in his Letter to be Un Moin Defroquè which none who understand the least of the French Tongue need be told is the lowest and most profligate Character that can be given a Man I suppose the reason of it is because he who has once broke his Vow to God there are People enough apt to believe he will never regard any he makes to them A third Reason is Because his Letter is indeed unanswerable and Prosecution would be as little necessary to him as to one that pleads guilty at the Bar for he owns over and over every Line of the Charge that he pretends is laid against him says not one word either to defend or extenuate it does not contradict the least point in the Memoirs he pretends to Answer nor lays one ill Action to Sir W. T 's Honour So that there remains but one way to Answer this Letter with any Rule or Justice and that is to gather all the cleanly Language one can pick up at Billingsgate and bring it in its natural Reeking to the Press and so make up a short but sweet Pamphlet set out with a Bead-roll of such Pearls as are always to be found among the Oyster-women A fourth Reason is Because that Book which goes by the Name of Sir W. T 's Memoirs as one sees by the Publisher's Preface has been printed wholly without his Knowledg or Consent For in the very first lines he plainly intimates he had his Copy from no Man then alive And a known Writer since who pretends to have inquired into that matter assures us the Publisher had it lying by him several years before it was published nor can I find by my own best Inquiries that Sir W. T. has ever own'd it And tho I may believe like others that he must have writ them by that excellent Stile that strength and clearness of Expression as well as by that Spirit and Genius which so brightly shines through the whole and is peculiar to that Author above others of his Age and besides because I suppose no Man else was capable of knowing or discovering so much of these Transactions yet since they have stollen into Publick against his will and his privity it is not to be imagined he should defend a thing he does not reckon as his own and therefore if de Cros or the honest Translator had found themselves injured their resentments had been more justly levelled at the Publisher than the supposed Author By all these Reasons 't is easy to believe that a Person of Sir W. T.'s Character and Honour and whose Reputation is so firmly established in the World will never fall so low to oppose himself against the Scurrilous Reproaches of so foul-mouth'd a Railer 't would be like a set Duel between a strong Man well-arm'd and a poor wretched Cripple The Quarrel therefore will be more properly turn'd over to the rest of Mankind for tho the venom of this be too weak to reach where it aim'd yet all those who have any regard for Truth or Justice for Learning or Virtue or even for good Manners and common Civility must think themselves concern'd in a Quarrel where they find so notorious a breach of them all 'T is fit therefore so ignominious a Libeller should be exposed in his proper Colours of an infamous slandring and unprovok't Railer which tho his own Letter has plentifully done yet 't will be very proper to point to several places in it where it is most remarkable For my own part I will confess I have been a great Reader of all Sir W. T 's Writings and perhaps may have doated on some of them especially That Immortal Essay on Heroick Virtue as one Writer since has deservedly called it and that other upon Poetry and even on
able Minister's Confidence when he tells us that I had wholly devoted my self to him But then how comes it that in the same 15 th page where he twice endeavours to defend himself against this Imputation he should make such a Blunder as to say But yet I must confess that at such time as he Monsieur Barillon stickled for my Master's Interest and that of Sweden I was entirely devoted to him c. After this let the Reader judge whether de Cros does not confess at least as much if not more in this Point than the Memoirs charge him with And it is to be observed from the same Book that at the very time de Cros speaks of France had taken into its Protection the Interests of Sweden which it seem'd for some Months before to have very little regarded But nothing touches him so nearly as the following Passage in the same 335 th page of the Memoirs This man brought me a Pacquet from Court commanding me to go immediately away to Nimeguen Upon which says he Pag. 16. Sir W. T. has a mind to make men believe that I was only sent into Holland to carry him a Dispatch from the Court This passage has so fiercely gall'd him that he is set a railing for six pages together and the affront is that he should be taken for an ordinary Courier or Messenger Had a dozen Wasps setled on his Tongue they could not have swell'd or infus'd more Poison in it he frets and foams at the mouth and spatters so much Dirt on all sides that it is not safe following him In short he takes it so heinously to be reckoned a Common Courier that one could not have netled him more had one call'd him a Post or a Post-horse I cannot imagine why any such words in the Memoirs should put a man into so much passion And for my part both in this and all the rest I see but one reason why he is angry and that is Because he is angry However against this grievous Imputation he defends himself by this strong Argument That he was not sent over on purpose to deliver the Dispatch to Sir W. T. but for something of greater importance which he knows himself and will not tell any body Wherein I think he acts very discreetly and I do not doubt but the best way to give any Reputation to his mighty Secrets is to hinder them from taking Air Tho had he done us the favour to discover but one of all those he boasts so much of it would perhaps have been the most effectual way to raise our expectation of the rest He would indeed make us believe that in five Hours time he stay'd at the Hague he had made some mighty Turn of State by his Negotiations there which if there be any truth in it we will grant him to have been not only an Agent but a Conjurer and from the strange Effect of his Conduct in that strange Adventure of five hours we may hope one day to see a Tragedy of that Name as there has been a Comedy already But till he thinks fit to make more important Discoveries he will pardon our suspense in that modest Opinion he had of himself That doubtless he should publish more just and solid Memoirs than Sir W. T. if he would set about it But I observe he desires My Lord to take notice that Sir W. T. confesses it was De Cros procured this Dispatch I find when men are very angry that Truth is the least thing they regard For this is more than ever I could observe after reading those Memoirs with more care and application than I am sure his good humour would ever permit him and in pag. 336. find these Words How this Dispatch by De Cros was gain'd or by whom I will not pretend to determine Which De Cros has very politickly thus altered Letter pag. 18. I will not pretend to determine by what means and how De Cros obtained this Dispatch But pag. 19. he forgets himself again and says As for me tho I had the dispatch given me yet he Sir W. T. does not accuse me openly in this place of bearing any other part in this affair that only as a Messenger intrusted with the Conveyance But I suppose he never looked farther than his malice would give him leave which is usually very short-sighted But after all 't is not easily thought why he should lay it so much to heart to be called a Courier when the whole account he gives of his great Negotiations besides his being Envoy of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp is that he was sent by King Charles the Second into Sweden and Denmark to hasten the Passports for the Congress at Nimeguen Which is all he tells us of his great Employments and must be thought to have brought him into that intimacy and confidence he pretends with that great King and for which he is pleased to make his Majesty such grateful Returns and to form such a Character of him as he does in his Letter For in the first place he tells us p. 5. That Mons Barillon was the Primum Mobile of that King's conduct which surprized all the World Which is to affirm more of him than any of his discontented Subjects the pretended Patriots of that Age. For it is to assert openly and positively what they only pretended to suspect Again Soon after the King had made the Peace with Holland De Cros brings his Majesty in p. 23. speaking to him in these Words Tell the King my Brother meaning the French King that it is much against my mind that I have made peace with these Coquins the Hollanders And then a little before the conclusion of the Peace at Nimeguen he delivers the King speaking thus to Mons Shrenburn concerning the Hollanders In a little time Monsieur I will bring these Coquins to Reason And in the same page he makes that Prince use the same Name to two great Ministers Mons Barillon and Mons De Avaux The former whereof he pretends to have been the first Mover of all His Majesty's Councils All which if they be not absolute Untruths as from his plentiful Gift that way I am very much inclined to believe yet are so far from shewing the profound Respect the Writer pretends to for the Memory of that Prince that being put together they make up this malicious Character That a King of England was guided in his Conduct by a French Embassador That he made and observed his Treaties with ill-meaning or with ill-intentions and that he treated his chiefest Confident whom he makes to be Mons Barillon and another Embassador with the greatest scorn and contempt Besides he brings this noble Prince upon the Stage acting a mean piece of Dissimulation to cover his Confidence with so worthy a Person as Mons de Cros 't is concerning his Dispatch so often mentioned into Holland for being forc't to confess that the King was angry with him at his return from
they are in many places imperfect and uncorrect by having never been reviewed and so may be justly liable to some Exceptions of that kind And the Gallicisms upon which De Cros's Advertiser says the Criticks have been so severe may easily discover they were not designed for the Publick in that Dress they have appeared Now tho this Pretended Answerer endeavours to imitate Sir W. T. in this Point as well as in the use of several other Words which are found in the Memoirs and he imagines a little particular yet he has made so great a discovery in several others that by consisting of two such different pieces the whole lies too open to deceive For altho such words as Blunder Hans-en Kelder A man of such a Kidney with some others may well enough become such a Scribler as I am yet they are very unlike that Author's Expressions and below his Stile Another ground I have to conclude this Answer for a Counterfeit is for some Quotations which I shall never suspect such a Writer as Sir W. T. would have made use of As first that poor Line Canes qui latrant c. which looks like an English Proverb translated into very bald Latin Then to mention no more of them another Quotation as unlike as the first from Mr. Samuel Johnson which agrees very little with that Author's way who is observed in all he writes to be very tender in medling with controverted Points of State and Government Besides This whole Pamphlet tho it must be confess'd to be ingenious and written with a great deal of Wit yet that very strain of Witting it so much and running things into Ridicule makes it look very different from any thing we have yet seen of Sir W. T 's Writings And I observe in several places of the Miscellanea this very vein is taken notice of for a thing of pernicious Consequence to Learning and good Manners so that if Sir W. T. be really possessed of such a Talent he keeps it very much to himself and must be allowed for the best Disguiser of it in the World through all he had published which would make his Readers think that he intended to pass rather for a Wife and Good Man than for a Witty Another sufficient Reason for me to reject this Answer is That it makes Sir W. T. grant in some kind the severest of de Cros's unreasonable Slanders of failing in his Fidelity to his Master and to defend himself in it by excusing it from Examples of that kind which in my Opinion would be to lay himself needlesly open to Censures that I suppose he has not deserved and would shew such a want of Judgment in him as I shall not be apt to believe from and other Writings but his own and better attested than I find it here I shall add to all these what I observed in an Advertisement before the First Part of the Miscellanea where the Bookseller tells the Reader from the Author that thenceforth he would never Publish any thing without putting his Name to it which not finding before this Pamphlet was another Reason to conclude it a supposititious Piece All which put together makes me believe Sir W. T. was no more the Author of this Answer than of Tully's Offices When I had satisfied my self in this Point it was not easy for me to find out what the Writer of this Answer should mean by taking so much pains to make it pass for Sir W. T.'s which seems to me a very new way of Writing and whereof I cannot give any other instance besides this from what has occured in my Reading or Conversation I know very well that several Ancient Pieces which go under great Author's Names are found by the Learned Criticks of these latter Ages to have been spurious yet they were never born till long after the Death of the supposed Fathers I know likewise that there have been several Laws made in France one I am sure in this present Century against the Printing any Books under severe Penalties without setting the Author's Name to them and their known Name because some having two Names one by which they were commonly called tho the other perhaps were the particular Name of their Family some Persons disguised their Writings under the Name that was little known tho it might be their own To so nice and cautious Cares the Laws there thought fit to descend upon this matter I remember there was an Ingenious Discourse Printed within these few years in France upon the Custom of using borrowed or disguised Names in the Publishing of Books But in the Censures and Complaints that Author makes of this ill Custom I did not take notice of any one Example he mentions further than of such Books as had been published under Names of Persons dead or else under such as were wholly fictitious and made at their own pleasures which last has peradventure appear'd in most Ages and Countries where Printing has been used but toucht no Man farther than a Satyr of Don Quixot or Francion or any such like But I have never observed nor heard of any Example of this kind besides this Answer where the Auther whole Name was borrowed was alive and in the same Kingdom and so avowedly with the Name of a known Bookseller in the Title-page Whatever the intention may have been in the Writer whether wholly innocent or a little interessed to give Vogue to his Pamphlet or in considering the Bookseller's profit by making it pass for an Author's whose Name he knew would help it off the better yet I cannot but apprehend the Example of it ill and the Consequences of it may be worse if it should fall into Common practice for by this way of Writing and Publishing either Books or Pamphlets any Man may be made a publick Defamer of himself at another Man's pleasure and not only so but to accuse himself of any Crime which the Rigour of our Laws requires no man to do As far as my Thoughts will reach I do not conceive why it should not be as bad to counterfeit a Book as a Bond and to wrong a Man in his Reputation as great an Injury as to cheat him of his Money This must be the reason why Slander and Scandal are as sufficient a ground to maintain an Action in Law as Damage and Battery Nothing is an injury any farther than it is taken and hurts a Man more or less as he is sensible of it Now tho it may be true that in every Age there may be more than Nine Worthies who put a greater value on their Money than their Honour yet there may be every where and at all times some silly Foplings who do quite the contrary and I know no reason why they should not pretend to be safe in the Possessions they most value as well as the others nor why the Law should not take fome care of such poor Innocents Nor further can I find out why a Stationer should not be punisht for Forgery as well as a Notary or Scrivener may be Whether I am too serious or no upon a Subject that may appear trivial at first sight or whether such a Trifle be worth any legal Provisions against it I am sure Hae Nugae seria ducunt in Mala and that 't is at least an Edg-tool which ought not to be plaid with I could never well comprehend the true reason why it should be such a disgrace to be a Cuckold or why one Person should suffer for another's fault how nearly soever related to him But I can very easily apprehend the Injury of it which is that one Man should be put upon fathering another Man's Children or at the best should be in danger of it and this seems to be meant by the word which at first was intended that a Man was Cuckoo'd that is dealt with as Cuckoos are said to do with other Birds by laying their Eggs in their Nests and thereby making them hatch and bring up young Ones that are none of their own for this is the best Etymology I can find out for a word so commonly used Now the same Injury may be as sensible in what concerns the Children of the Brain as Books have been call'd which may be as lawful and as natural Issues and some parents may be as fond of them and as much concerned about them And tho it pass for no Crime for People to expose their Children when they have no mind to own them or think they are not able to maintain them and they may be content any body else should father them that will yet this is an Office no body would be forc'd upon undertaking how little soever it may cost them and how innocently soever it may have been intended I could not forbear to make this Reflection upon this Subject if it were for nothing else but to make good my Profession in the Title-page of being A Lover of Truth FINIS