Notwithstanding all which impudent Disgraces there remains this one comfort to the Church of England that the same man who now vilifies Her so basely had once as mean thoughts of the God-Head of Her blessed Founder Himself But it is easie to conjecture at the Cause of this his harsh Usage of our Church He had but lately Apostatiz'd from the Reformed Religion in France he was but just enter'd into the Romish Communion And he suspected that there might be some doubts still remaining on mens minds of the Reality of his Conversion which might turn to the prejudice not onely of his Spiritual but of his Temporal Estate he had given himself out for a great Philosopher and he understood well enough that few Philosophers are thought to alter their minds that have once been Protestants He was therefore resolv'd to give an Unquestionable proof of his Establishment in the Faith by reviling the Church of England And in performing this I confess Sir he has Counterfeited the Zealot very well he has prosecuted Us with all the Violence and Bigottry which commonly accompanies new Converts But yet I beleive this will hardly do his business Even in this very Book he gives Evidence enough that Calvinism and Heresie are not wholy rooted out of his Heart He grosly abuses the most devoted Children of the Church of Rome the English Roman Catholiques He complains of them that they have no mind to disturb the Peace of their Country tomards the restoration of their Religion which is indeed spoken to their Honour though he intends it to their Shame He says that they are not so zealous in their Way as forein Papists the quite contrary to which is true he makes as if they never saw the True Mass perform'd he affirms that they are all born in Servitude and debases so many Antient Rich and Honourable Families to the condition and the minds of Slaves In all these Speeches he does not express any certain mark of a True Proselyte But above all he has set down such a determination of his Faith that if he had made it in Italy or Spain he had undoubtedly fallen into the Inquisition He boldly pronounces that Transubstantiation Purgatory the Merit of Works Invocation of Saints the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome the authority of Councils and the Infallibility of the Pope are none of them Fundamental Doctrines What greater Apology could be made for the Church of England which he has so much defam'd seeing these are the onely shameful Causes for which we dissented from Rome But I leave him to be corrected by the Pope's Sentence for these Heresies which perhaps the Holy Father has reason to think do more shake the Holy Chair then the five points of Iansenius that he condemn'd which Monsieur de Sorbiere says did raise a dispute about a matter of Nothing From our Religion Let us follow him of our Government And here Sir I was at first a little at a stand how to deal with him But I have heard of the Magnanimous resolution of the late Duke of Buckingham who would never permit any Apology to be written for him And I consider that it is almost as great an arrogance for one obscure Writer to undertake to defend the Actions of Great Princes as it is for another to defame them I will not therefore inlarge my Speech in the praises of the present happiness of England or in paying all the acknowledgements which are due to our Sovereign for the blessings of His Reign That is a Subject ficter for a more elaborate Volum then a single Letter and for a far more elegant Pen then mine I will onely here shew the Vanity of our Historiographers groundless suggestions And as an Introduction to what he says concerning the Political condition of this Nation I will first observe how he deals with some others of the cheif Crown'd Heads in Europe You will perhaps Sir be very hardly induc'd to beleive that he can be guilty of disrespect to Monarchy or Sovereign Princes when you behold him so Panegyrically given towards that Government as to take the pains to go five or six thousand miles to find out a Race of Kings to commend For he here speaks very zealously in praise of the most vertuous and most religious Kings of China This Sir I cannot but applaud in him and to shew how much this one testimony of his good manners has wrought with me I will not be harsh upon him in this place I will not call in question the credit of his Intelligence from the farthest East which you see is so false about a Country that lies only seven Leagues distant from his own Nay I will not so much as inquire whether ever he met with any Chinese Madam Fiennes to give him this Information I will graunt that the Kings of China have been great Menders of Bridges and Planters of Orchards But I will only now softly put him in mind that while his Pen did overflow with sweet words upon the Kings of China he has handled the Kings of Sweden and Denmark more cruelly then Dionysius the Tyrant would have done when he was a King much less when he was a Schole-Master Of the two last Kings of Sweden he affirms that their Glory is almost wholy vanish'd and that all moderate men must needs read the Desolations which they caus'd with Horror You see Sir what an excellent occasion he has here given me of Triumphing over him You know very well how many great and irresistable arguments this matter might suggest to me what might not be said of that Victorious Nation how copious might I be in extolling the indefatigable Industry the Conduct the Good Fortune the Generosity of those Kings What Passions might here be rais'd in appealing to all Mankind and in aggravating the common misery of all Great Commanders of Armies if it shall be permitted to every small Pamphleteer to invade their Lives and to arraign their Ashes when he pleases But there is no need of going so powerfully to work or of imploying against him any of the Lofty and Tragical Forces of Eloquence It will suffice if I recall to his Memory the Title in which he boasts so much I will only ask him how the Historiographer of France can assert the Wars of Gustavus Adolphus to have been horrible Divastations without casting some share of the Dishonor on the Crown of France it self For if we will believe all the French Writers of that time there was a strict Confederacy and a real Union of Interests between those Two mighty Monarchs I give him leave to use the Fame of the Kings of Sweden as he pleases Let them in his account pass for Theives and Oppressors They deserve so to be us'd for they were mortal Enemies to that belov'd Country with whose Muâ—ick and Latin and Dancing he was before so much ravish'd I only bid him look back on the relation which Lewis
whence he took his conjecture I am likewise inclin'd to think that he has discretion enough to determine upon the English sluggishness from the private way of living of our Scholars It must be so For every where else he beheld many marks of diligence In his Journey to London he confesses It was admirable to see what an infinite number of Seamen and Shipwrights were at work on the Banks of the Thames In London it self he reports that there are more Shops and better beautified then in any Citty in the World He found every where in England men busie about Natural Experiments from whose labours he is confident mankind may expect prodigious Inventions And are all these the signs of an overgrown slothfulness But besides these Sir he never saw any of the cheif Seats of the English Industry he beheld not the Cole-pits of New Castle the Clothworks of the West and the North the Lead Mines of Derby the Orchards of Hereford the Plough-lands of Devon the New Rivers of the Fenns the Tinn Mines of Cornwall These and many more he should have view'd he should thence have passed into our Western Colonies he should have considered the Sugar works of the Barbadoes the Tobacco Plantations of Virginia the Silk Trade that is begun there and the Vast Mole which goes on at Tangier that pittifull place as he terms it after all these surveys he might have been a fitter Judge of the English labours This exactness of Information might have been expected from an Historiographer Royal. But he has been as carefull in this as in most of the rest of his Intelligence For as soon as ever he sets his foot on the English shore he strait positively condemns all the whole Nation of laziness from the first Posthorse that he saw gallop His last disgrace is the English cowardize And the occasion from whence he takes this Observation is very remarkable He saw an Oxford Scholar affronted by a Frenchman that had been seven years the Protectors soldier And thence He passes sentence on the baseness of our Nation What Sir will the Dutch and the Spaniards think of this The one when they remember the Battels of Portland and the North forland and the other when they call to mind Tenariff and the sandy hills of Dunkirk Will they not take it very ill at his hands that he should reckon all those for Cowards whom Cromwells Soldiers had defeated But if our late civil Warrs have not given an unconfutable evidence of the English valour if the magnanimous Deaths of so many Martyrs for the Royall Cause do not prove it If Eighty Eight if the Immortal Sir Richard Greenvill if our Conquests of Ireland and Scotland be forgotten if the joynt Testimony of almost all the Historical Writers for these last six hundred years be of no account yet to say no more I could never have believ'd that any French Historiographer would have given it under his hand that the English are Cowards And now Sir having laid all these Ignominies together would you not have ghess'd that he would never have dar'd to pronounce so boldly upon us unless he had convers'd all his Life time with us unless he had throughly studied our Temper and deeply pierc'd by a long search into the Compoâ—ition of our Nature But when I find that as soon as ever he was call'd Monsieur by the Children of Dover he strait makes Conclusion of our general Inhospitality and of our Insolence from the next Carrier that he employ'd and of our Abusiveness from a silly Zealander that was his fellow-Traveller and of our want of Courage from a pitiful Fray between a naked scholar and an armed French Souldier at Beaconsfield This puts me in mind of the Judgment which one of the greatest men that ever liv'd did passe on the Antient Gaules It was the experience of Caesar himself of their trifling and changeable Humour that in their most solemn Councils they determin'd on the weightiest Affairs upon the Authority of any slender Report of the next wandring Pedlar This I hope I may repeat without offending the present French Nation For I do not say as Monsieur de Sorbiere of us That it came from the Nature of their Soyl and that therefore it must needs descend on all that are born on the same Earth But I only affirm that I know a certain French Trumpeter that has made good this Observation of Caesars This Sir being the Form which he has fanci'd in his Brain of the wild Manners of the English it is easie to ghess what thoughts he has of their Religion And the Truth is having represented us as such Monsters in our Civil Customs and Behaviour he could do no other then paint us out to be as bad as Infidels in â—ur Spiritual Condition For whosoever are Barbarous in their Lives can never be good Christians in their Hearts It is the peculiar glory of the True Christianity that it does not onely Save but Civilize its Reall Professours We shall therefore find that his reproaches are proportionable concerning our Religion And by the Irreverence of the Language which he uses towards it you may perceive that he did not only learn from the Trooper that was his Companion to Oxford that the English are Insolent and Cowards But that he also furnish'd him with this Intelligence of Church For this account which he has here set down could have been given by no man Living so properly as by one that had been a Soldier in Cromwells Army To pass by the friendly names of Schismaticks and Hereticks which he as freely bestows upon us as if they were our National Titles he has ventur'd to say that We separated from the Church of Rome for shameful causes that are known to all the World that the people has an universal Aversion from the Religion establish'd by Law that there is a probability that all our Sects may shortly unite to destroy it that our solemn Publique Prayers are only a Morsel of a Liturgy that the King did the most hazardous thing he could undertake when he restor'd Episcopacy that our Ecclesiastical Government is nothing else but the Shaddow and the Corruption of the true Hierarchy that the Introduction of our Church-Service into Scotland was the cause of the shedding of so much Blood in the three Nations that our chief Clergy men who have Pluralities of Benefices make their Grooms their Curats that our Bishops do horribly abuse their Iurisdiction in their Excommunications and Impositions that they are so haughty that none of the Inferiour Priests dare speak to them that they rob the Church by letting its Leases for thirty years getting all the Money into their own Pockets and leaving only a small Revenue to their Successours that England is a Country where no man is afraid of committing Simony This Sir is his Judgment of our Church And you may be pleas'd to
as it became a Philosopher without deceipt or ornament But expecting that he would have continued the Argument with some material Objection he soon found that the Traveller understood nothing of the whole matter but answer'd him as little to the purpose as if he had only said Pax Bello Potior He try'd him in other subjects But nothing could he get of him except only some few Philosophical terms and ends of Poetry as In puris naturalibus Ex aequo Bono contundantur grosso modo Homo est animal credulum mendax and Os homini Upon this he gave him over as he would have done a yongtraveller of twenty years old left him to reckon the College Quadrangles to tell the Pillars in Saint Iohn's Cloysters to commend their Grove to measure King Harry's Sword to describe Saint Catherines College if there be any such there to examine why one of the Colleges took its name from a Brazen Nose to number the Books in the Bodleian Liberary to consider why it was built in the form of an H. and to count how many Folios and how many Quarâ—â—â— are above and below in every Shelf These Sir he perceiv'd were fitter Subjects for Sorbiereâ—o â—o handle And he has confirm'd this his Opinion of him to be true For his long Tale of his Journy to Oxford is made up of such childish contemplations While he was speaking of that place which for the beauty and convenience of its buildings for the vastness of its revenue and above all for the sobriety the virtue and the piety of its discipline is to be prefer'd before all others that have been ever dedicated to liberal Studies in the past or present times But here Sir I confess I have been a little too rigid upon him It was ill done of me to expect that he should on the sudden turn so unlike himself as to give a good account of our Vniversity alone I will not therefore bestir my self against him for having omitted the most memorable things in Oxford My quarrel to him now is upon another score He has here committed a grosse oversight in his own way For in this exact enumeration of all our fine Rarities he has wholy pass'd by one famous Curiosity which was of all others the most proper for such an Historiographer or at least for such a Trumpeter to mention and that is Queens College Horn. From his new acquaintance I proceed to his rudeness towards the only man in England to whom he professes himself to have been long familiar Mr. Hobbs was the chief man for whose sake he came over and he speaks very many great things in his commendation he prayses his good humor his excellent Wit the vigor of his old Age and his long and diligent search into Nature After this Sir you will perhaps think that this Philosopher is safe from his invectives But you will find it otherwise he commends him indeed for that upon which Mr. Hobbs lays not so much stress for his good Breeding but he wounds him in the most dangerous place his Philosophy and his understanding He very kindly reports of him that he is too dogmatical in his Opinions that he Writ against the Church of Rome because he never had a right Idea of it in his thoughts and because he had only read the controversies on the Protestant side How dâ—ye think Sir this will sound to Mr. Hobbs who professes to have reduc'd all the Politicks to demonstrations when his Translator shall tell him that he concluded against a Church and a Religion before he had heard one word that could be said in their defence The Title of Dogmatical which he gives him being propounded by a declar'd Sceptick was the worst fault that could be charg'd on a Philosopher and indeed it is the same that he bestows on Borri while he strives in a long Story to render him to appear nothing but a foolish Charletan But let him not fear I have no mind to aggravate this injury to Mr. Hobbs It is the particular manner of his passing this judgment upon him of which I will take notice He tells the World that Mr. Hobbs was censur'd for Dogmatical between his Majesty and himself in his private discourse with him And is not Monsieur de Sorbiere a very fit man to upbraid to Dr. Wallis his want of good manners when he himself is at once rude to his antient Friend and insolent to the King himself in betraying what he was pleas'd to Whisper to him in his Cabinet But however to comfort Mr. Hobbs for this affront I dare assure him that as for Monsieur de Sorbiere's part he understands not his Philosophy Of this I will give an unanswerable testimony and that is the resemblance that he makes of him to the Lord Verulam Between whom there is no more likeness then there was between St. George and the Waggonerâ— He says that Mr. Hobbs was once his Amanuenâ—is that from thence he has retein'd very much of him that he has Studied his manner of turning things that he just expresses himself in that way of Allegory wherein the other excell'd and that he is in Truth a very remaine of my Lord Bacon This Sir is his opinion but how far from being True let any man judg that has but tasted of their Writings I scarce know two men in the World that have more different colors of Speech then these two great Witts The Lord Bacon short allusive and abounding with Metaphors Mr. Hobbs round close sparing of similitudes but ever extraordinary decent in them The one's way of reas'ning proceeds on particulars and pleasant images only suggesting new ways of experimenting without any pretence to the Mathematicks The other 's bold resolv'd setled upon general conclusions and in them if we will believe his Friend Dogmatical But it is the Royal Society to which he is most favourable and that he may shew him self a great Benefactor to their designe he has bestow'd Gresham College upon them Whereas you know Sir they only hold their present meetings there by the permission of the Professors of the Foundation of Sir Thomas Gresham to whom that house does belong We are beholding to him for this noble Bounty But perhaps the Citizens of London who are the overseers of Sir Thomas Gresham's Will may take it ill at his hands especialy having such just ground to quarrel with him already For he said before that they are almost all Presbyterians or Phanaticks He comes to describe the Weekly assemblies of the Royal Society and he does it in words becoming a meeting of Natural Philosophers The Vsher carries a great Silver Mace before the President Which is layd on the Cushion where he sits they have a large Hall and a handsom Anti-chamber the place where they Assemble is Wainscotted there is a long Table before the Chimny seven or eight grey