Virtues in so few Years, make the World look upon You as the future Example to all Princes: For altho' Your Highness is hardly got clear of Infancy, yet has the universal learned World already resolv'd upon appealing to Your future Dictates with the lowest and most resigned Submission: Fate having decreed You sole Arbiter of the Productions of human Wit, in this polite and most accomplish'd Age. Methinks, the Number of Appellants were enough to shock and startle any Judge of a Genius less unlimited than Yours: But in order to prevent such glorious Tryals, the Person' (it seems) to whose Care the Education of Your Highness is committed, has resolved (as I am told) to keep you in almost an universal Ignorance of our Studies, which it is Your inherent Birth-right to inspect. IT is amazing to me, that this Person should have Assurance in the face of the Sun, to go about persuading Your Highness, that our Age is almost wholly illiterate, and has hardly produc'd one Writer upon any Subject. I know very well, that when Your Highness shall come to riper Years, and have gone through the Learning of Antiquity, you will be too curious to neglect inquiring into the Authors of the very age before You: And to think that this Insolent, in the Account he is preparing for Your View, designs to reduce them to a Number so insignificant as I am asham'd to mention; it moves my Zeal and my Spleen for the Honor and Interest of our vast flourishing Body, as well as of my self, for whom I know by long Experience, he has profess'd, and still continues a peculiar Malice. 'TIS not unlikely, that when Your Highness will one day peruse what I am now writing, You may be ready 1 Time [1720]. Time, allegorically described as the tutor of Posterity. [Scott.] Compare p. 70, 11. 15-17: 2 'Fourscore and eleven Pamphlets have I written under three Reigns, and for the Service of six and thirty Factions'. to expostulate with Your Governour upon the Credit of what I here affirm, and command Him to shew You some of our Productions. To which he will answer, (for I am well informed of his Designs) by asking Your Highness, where they are? and what is become of them? and pretend it a Demonstration that there never were any, because they are not then to be found: Not to be found! Who has mislaid them? Are they sunk in the Abyss of Things? 'Tis certain, that in their own Nature they were light enough to swim upon the Surface for all Eternity. Therefore the Fault is in Him, who tied Weights so heavy to their Heels, as to depress them to the Center.' Is their very Essence destroyed? Who has annihilated them? Were they drowned by Purges or martyred by Pipes? Who administred them to the Posteriors of ? But that it may no longer be a Doubt with Your Highness, who is to be the Author of this universal Ruin; I beseech You to observe that large and terrible Scythe which your Governour affects to bear continually about him. Be pleased to remark the Length and Strength, the Sharpness and Hardness of his Nails and Teeth: Consider his baneful abominable Breath, Enemy to Life and Matter, infectious and corrupting : And then reflect whether it be possible for any mortal Ink and Paper of this Generation to make a suitable Resistance. Oh, that Your Highness would one day resolve to disarm this Usurping* Maitre du Palais, of Comptroller. * The centre of the earth, as in Hamlet, 11.ii. 159. Compare Bacon, Novum Organum, i. 104: hominum Intellectui non plumae addendae, sed plumbum potius, et pondera'; and i. 71: Tempore (ut fluvio) leviora et magis inflata ad nos devehente'. 2 This should be maire du palais, 'intendant en chef de la maison Miscellaneous Works of 1720. de Palais and hors du Page. his furious Engins, and bring Your Empire* hors de Page.' IT were endless to recount the several Methods of Tyranny and Destruction, which Your Governour is pleased to practise upon this Occasion. His inveterate Malice is such to the Writings of our Age, that of several Thousands produced yearly from this renowned City, before the next Revolution of the Sun, there is not one to be heard of: Unhappy Infants, many of them barbarously destroyed, before they have so much as learnt their Mother-Tongue to beg for Pity. Some he stifles in their Cradles, others he frights into Convulsions, whereof they suddenly die; Some he flays alive, others he tears Limb from Limb. Great Numbers are offered to Moloch," and the rest tainted by his Breath, die of a languishing Consumption. 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 subscribed with the Names of one hundred thirty six of the first Rate, but whose immortal Productions are never likely to reach your Eyes, tho' each of them is now an humble and an earnest Appellant for the Laurel,3 and has large comely Volumes ready to shew for a Support to his Pretensions. The never-dying Works of these illustrious Persons, Your Governour, Sir, has devoted to unavoidable Death, and Your Highness is to be made believe, that our Age has never arrived at the Honor to produce one single Poet. WE confess Immortality to be a great and powerful Out of Guardianship. 1 Cf. Algernon Sidney, Discourses concerning Government (1698), p. 233. * 2 Cf. Jeremiah xxxii. 35. 3 The appointment as PoetLaureate lapsed on the death of the sovereign. Does this sentence refer to the vacancy on the accession of Anne (in which case it is an insertion, the dedication being dated 'Decemb. 1697'); or is its application general? Cf. p. 36, note 2. Goddess, but in vain we offer up to her our Devotions and our Sacrifices, if Your Highness's Governour, who has usurped the Priesthood, must by an parallel'd Ambition and Avarice, wholly intercept and devour them. un TO affirm that our Age is altogether Unlearned, and devoid of Writers in any kind, seems to be an Assertion so bold and so false, that I have been sometime thinking, the contrary may almost be proved by uncontroulable Demonstration.' 'Tis true indeed, that altho' their Numbers be vast, and their Productions numerous in proportion, yet are they hurryed so hastily off the Scene, that they escape our Memory, and delude our Sight. When I first thought of this Address, I had prepared a copious List of Titles to present Your Highness as an undisputed 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 Booksellers, but I enquired in vain, the Memorial of them was lost among Men, their Place was no more to be 2 6 Tub, pp. 4, 5 : Compare also Marvell, The Re- *Their Title 2 found:1 and I was laughed to scorn, for a Clown and a Pedant, without all Taste and Refinement, little versed in the Course of present Affairs, and that knew nothing of what had pass'd in the best Companies of Court and Town. So that I can only avow in general to Your Highness, that we do3 abound in Learning and Wit; but to fix upon Particulars, is a Task too slippery for my slender Abilities. If I should venture in a windy Day, to affirm to Your Highness, that there is a large Cloud near the Horizon in the Form of a Bear, another in the Zenith with the Head of an Ass, a third to the Westward with Claws like a Dragon; and Your Highness should in a few Minutes think fit to examine the Truth, 'tis certain, they would all be changed in Figure and Position, new ones would arise, and all we could agree upon would be, that Clouds there were, but that I was grossly mistaken in the Zoography and Topography of them. BUT Your Governour, perhaps, may still insist, and put the Question: What is then become of those immense Bales of Paper, which must needs have been employ'd in such Numbers of Books? Can these also be wholly annihilate, and so of a sudden as I pretend? What shall I say in return of so These sentences are reminiscences of Biblical phrases, e.g. Deut. xxxii. 26; Zech. x. 10; Rev. xii. 8, xx. 11; 1 Mac. xii. 53. 26 'Pedant, devoid of all' edd. I-4. 3 'do' in italics edd. 1-4. 4 Cf. Antony and Cleopatra (Act Iv, sc. xii): Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish; A vapour sometime, like a bear, or lion, A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon't, that nod unto And mock our eyes with air: horse, even with a thought The rack dislimns. a |