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SIR,

POSTERIT Y.

Here prefent your Highness with the fruits of a very few leifure-hours, ftolen from the fhort intervals of a world of bufinefs, and of an employment quite alien from fuch amusements as this, the poor production of that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon my hands, during a long prorogation of parliament, a great dearth of foreign news, and a tedious fit of rainy weather. For which, and other reafons, it cannot chufe extremely to deferve fuch a patronage as that of your Highness, whofe numberlefs virtues, in fo few years, make the world look upon you as the future example to all princes. For although your Highness is hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the univerfal learned world already refolved upon appealing to your future dictates with the lowest and moft refigned fubmiffion; fate having decreed you fole arbiter of the productions of human wit, in this polite and most accomplished age. Methinks, the number of appellants were enough to fhock and startle any judge of a genius lefs unlimited than yours. But, in order to prevent fuch glorious trials, the perfon, it seems, to whofe care the education of your Highness is committed, has refolved (as I am told) to keep you in almost an univerfal ignorance of our ftudies, which it is your inherent birthright to infpect.

The citation out of Irenæus in the title page, which feems to be all gibberish, is a form of initiation, used anciently by the Marcofian heretics. W. Wotton.

It is the usual style of decried writers, to appeal to Pofterity; who is here reprefented as a prince in his nonage, and Time as his governor; and the author begins in a way very frequent with him, by perfonating other writers, who fometimes offer fuch reafons and excufes for publishing their works, as they ought chiefly to conceal, and be ashamed of,

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It is amazing to me, that this perfon fhould have af furance, in the face of the fun, to go about perfuading your Highness, that our age is almost wholly illiterate, and has hardly produced one writer upon any fubject. know very well, that when your Highness fhall come to riper years, and have gone through the learning of antiquity, you will be too curious to neglect enquiring into the authors of the very age before you. And to think that this infolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, defigns to reduce them to a number fo infignificant as I am afhamed to mention it moves my zeal and my fpleen for the honour and intereft of our vaft flourishing body, as well as of myself, for whom I know, by long experience, he has profeffed, and still continues, a peculiar malice.

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It is not unlikely, that when your Highness will one day perufe what I am now writing, you may be ready to expoftulate with your governor upon the credit of what I here affirm, and command him to fhew you fome of our productions. To which he will answer, (for I am well informed of his defigns), by asking your Highnefs, Where they are? and, What is become of them? and pretend it a demonftration that there never any, becaufe they are not then to be found. Not to be found! Who has miflaid them? Are they funk in the abyfs of things? It is certain, that in their own nature they were light enough to fwim upon the furface for all eternity. Therefore the fault is in him, who tied weights fo heavy to their heels, as to deprefs them to the centre. Is their very effence destroyed! who has annihilated them? were they drowned by purges, or martyred by pipes? who adminiftered them to the pofteriors of ? But that it may no longer be a doubt with your Highness, who is to be the author of this uni-.verfal ruin; befeech you to obferve that large and terrible fcythe, which your governor affects to bear continually about him. Be pleafed to remark the length and strength, the sharpness and hardness of his nails and teeth; confider his baneful, abominable breath, enemy to life and matter, infectious and corrupting; and then reflect, whether it be poffible for any mortal ink and paper of this generation ́to make a fuitable resistance. Oh !

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Oh! that your Highness would one day refolve to difarm this ufurping maitre du palais * of his furious engines, and bring your empire hors de page †.

It were endless to recount the feveral methods of tyranny and destruction which your governor is pleafed to practise upon this occafion. His inveterate malice is fuch to the writings of our age, that of feveral thoufands produced yearly from this renowned city, before the next revolution of the fun there is not one to be heard of: Unhappy infants, many of them barbarously destroyed, before they have fo much as learned their mother tongue to beg for pity. Some he ftifles in their cradles; others he frights into convulfions, whereof they fuddenly die: fome he flays alive, others he tears limb from limb: great numbers are offered to Moloch; and the reft, tainted by his breath, die of a languifhing confumption.

But the concern, I have most at heart, is for our corporation of poets; from whom I am preparing a petition to your Highness, to be fubfcribed with the names of one hundred thirty-fix of the first rate; but whofe immortal productions are never likely to reach your eyes, though each of them is now an humble and an earneft appellant for the laurel, and has large comely volumes ready to fhew for a fupport to his pretenfions. The never dying works of these illuftrious perfons, your governor, Sir, has devoted to unavoidable death; and your Highness is to be made believe, that our age has never arrived at the honour to produce one fingle poet.

We confefs Immortality to be a great and powerful goddefs, but in vain we offer up to her our devotions and our facrifices, if your Highness's governor, who has ufurped the priesthood, muft, by an unparallelled ambition and avarice, wholly intercept and devour them.

To affirm that our age is altogether unlearned, and devoid of writers in any kind, feems to be an affertion

* Comptroller. The kingdom of France had a race of kings, which they call les roys faineans, (from their doing nothing) who lived lazily in their apartments, while the kingdom was administered by the mayor de palais; till Charles Martel, the laft mayor, put his mafter to death, and took the kingdom into his own hand. Hawkes.

† Out of guardianship.

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fo bold and fo falfe, that I have been fometime think ing, the contrary may almost be proved by uncontroul able demonstration. It is true indeed, that although their numbers be vaft, and their productions numerous in proportion; yet are they hurried so hastily off the fcene, that they escape our memory, and elude our fight. When I first thought of this addrefs, I had prepared a copious lift of titles to prefent your Highness, as an undifputed argument for what I affirm. The originals were posted fresh upon all gates and corners of streets; but, returning in a very few hours to take a review, they were all torn down, and fresh ones in their places. I enquired after them among readers and bookfellers ; but I enquired in vain; the memorial of them was loft among men, their place was no more to be found: and I was laughed to fcorn for a clown and a pedant, without all taste and refinement, little versed in the course of pres fent affairs, and that knew nothing of what had paffed in the best companies of court and town. So that I can only avow in general to your Highness, that we do abound in learning and wit; but to fix upon particu lars, is a task too flippery for my flender abilities. I fhould venture in a windy day to affirm to your Highnefs, that there is a large cloud near the horizon, in the form of a bear, another in the zenith, with the head of an afs, a third to the weftward, with claws like a dragon; and your Highness fhould in a few minutes think fit to examine the truth; it is certain, they would all be changed in figure and position; new ones would arife ; and all we could agree upon, would be, that clouds there were, but that I was grofsly mistaken in the zo grophy and topography of them.

But your governor perhaps may ftill infift, and put the question, What is then become of thofe immenfe bales of paper, which must needs have been employed in fuch numbers of books? Can these alfo be wholly annihilate, and fo of a fudden, as I pretend? What fhall I fay in return of fo invidious an objection? It ill befits the distance between your Highness and me, to fend you for ocular conviction to a jakes or an oven; to the windows of a bawdy-houfe, or to a fordid lantern. Books, like men, their authors, have no more than one way of coming

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into the world; but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

I profefs to your Highness, in the integrity of my heart, that what I am going to fay, is literally true this minute I am writing. What revolutions may happen before it fhall be ready for your perufal, I can by no means warrant however, I beg you to accept it as a fpecimen of our learning, our politenefs, and our wit. I do therefore affirm, upon the word of a fincere man, that there is now actually in being a certain poet, called John Dryden, whofe tranflation of Virgil was lately printed in a large folio, well bound, and, if diligent fearch were made, for aught I know, is yet to be seen. There is another, called Nahum Tate, who is ready to make oath, that he has caufed many reams of verse to be published, whereof both himself and his bookfeller (if lawfully required) can fill produce authentic copies; and therefore wonders, why the world is pleased to make fuch a fecret of it. There is a third, known by the name of Tom Durfey, a poet of a vaft comprehenfion, an univerfal genius, and most profound learning. There are alfo one Mr. Rymer, and one Mr. Dennis, moft profound critics. There is a perfon ftyled Dr. Bentley, who has written near a thousand pages of immenfe erudition, giving a full and true account of a certain fquabble of wonderful importance between himfelf and a bookfeller *. He is a writer of infinite wit and humour; no man rallies with a better grace, and in more sprightly turns. Farther, I avow to your Highness, that with these eyes I have beheld the perfon of William Wotton, B. D. who has written a good fizeable vofume against a friend of your governor † (from whom, alas, he must therefore look for little favour) in a moft gentlemanly ftyle, adorned with the utmoft politenefs and civility; replete with difcoveries, equally valuable for their novelty and ufe; and embellished with

Bentley, in his controverfy with Lord Orrery upon the genuinenels of Phalaris's epifties, has given, in a preface, a long account of his dialogues with a bookseller, about the loan and reftitution of a MS. Hawkef.

Sir William Temple.

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