fore better exposing the pretended virtue of numbers, a superstition there intended to be ridiculed.

Another thing to be observed, is, that there generally runs an irony through the thread of the whole book, which the men of taste will observe and distinguish, and which will render some objections that have been made, very weak and insignificant.

This Apology being chiefly intended for the satisfaction of future readers, it may be thought unnecessary to take any notice of such treatises as have been writ against the ensuing discourse, which are already sunk into waste paper and oblivion; after the usual fate of common answerers to books, which are allowed to have any merit: they are, indeed, like annuals that grow about a young tree, and seem to vie with it for a summer, but fall and die with the leaves in autumn, and are never heard of any more. When Dr. Echard writ his book about the contempt of the clergy, numbers of those answerers immediately started up, whose memory, if he had not kept alive by his replies, it would now be utterly unknown that he were ever answered at all. There is, indeed, an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvel's

answer to Parker* with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago; so the Earl of Orrery's Remarks will be read with delight, when the Dissertation he exposes will neither be sought nor found:† but these are no enterprizes for common hands, nor to be hoped for above once or twice in an age. Men would be more cautious of losing their time in such an undertaking, if they did but consider that to answer a book effectually, requires more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgment than were employed in the writing it. And the author assures those gentlemen who have given themselves that trouble, with him, that his Discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out much more than he left, and if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must have still undergone more severe corrections: and do they think such a building is to be battered with dirt-pellets, how

• Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, wrote many treatises against the Dissenters, with insolence and con tempt, says Burnet, that enraged them beyond measure; for which he was chastised by Andrew Marvel, undersecretary to Milton, in a little book called, The Rehearsal Transposed. Hawkes.

+ Boyle's Remarks upon Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris. Hawkes.

ever envenomed the mouths may be that discharge them? He hath seen the productions but of two answerers, one of which at first appeared as from an unknown hand, but since avowed by a person, who, upon some occasions, hath discovered no ill vein of humour. 'Tis a pity any occasion should put him under a necessity of being so hasty in his productions, which otherwise might often be entertaining. But there were other reasons obvious enough for his miscarriage in this; he writ against the conviction of his talent, and entered upon one of the wrongest attempts in nature, to turn into ridicule by a week's labour, a work which had cost so much time, and met with so much success in ridiculing others: the manner how he handled his subject, I have now forgot, having just looked it over when it first came out, as others did, merely for the sake of the title.†

The other answer is from a person of a graver character, and is made up of half invective, and

Supposed to be Dr. William King, the civilian, author of an Account of Denmark, a Dissertation on Samplars, and other pieces of burlesque on the Royal Society, and the Art of Cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry, &c. Hawkes.

+ This we cannot recover at present; it being so absolutely forgotten; the oldest booksellers in trade remember nothing of it. Hawkes.

half annotation.*

In the latter of which he

hath generally succeeded well enough. And the project at that time was not amiss, to draw in readers to his pamphlet, several having appeared desirous that there might be some explication of the more difficult passages. Neither can he be altogether blamed for offering at the invective part, because it is agreed on all hands that the author had given him a sufficient provoca tion. The great objection is against his manner of treating it, very unsuitable to one of his function. It was determined by a fair majority, that this answerer had, in a way not to be par doned, drawn his pen against a certain great man then alive, and universally reverenced for every good quality that could possibly enter into the composition of the most accomplished person: it was observed, how he was pleased and affected to have that noble writer called his adversary, and it was a point of satire well directed; for I have been told, Sir W. Temple was suffi

* Wotton's Defence of his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning. From the annotations, are selected the notes, signed W. Wotton. Thus, Wotton appears busied to illustrate a work which he laboured to condemn, and adds force to a satire pointed against himself: as captives were bound to the chariot-wheel of the victor, and compelled to increase the pomp of his triumph, whom they had in vain attempted to defeat. Hawkes.

nion, they might have found more proper objects to employ them on: nondum tibi defuit hostis; I mean those heavy, illiterate scriblers, prostitute in their reputations, vicious in their lives, and ruined in their fortunes; who, to the shame of good sense as well as piety, are greedily read, merely upon the strength of bold, false, impious assertions, mixed with unmannerly reflections upon the priesthood, and openly intended against all religion; in short, full of such principles as are kindly received, because they are levelled to remove those terrors that religion tells men will be the consequence of immoral lives. Nothing like which is to be met with in this discourse, though some of them are pleased so freely to censure it. And I wish, there were no other instance of what I have too frequently observed, that many of that reverend body are not always very nice in distinguishing between their enemies and their friends.

Had the author's intentions met with a more candid interpretation from some, whom out of respect he forbears to name, he might have been encouraged to an examination of books written by some of those authors above described, whose errors, ignorance, dullness and villainy, he thinks he could have detected and exposed in such a manner, that the persons who are most conceived to be infected by them, would soon