tive, and half annotation *; in the latter of which he hath generally fucceeded well enough. And the project at that time was not amifs to draw in readers to his pamphlet, feveral having appeared defirous, that there might be fome explication of the more difficult paffages. 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 fufficient provocation. The great objection is against his manner of treating it, very unfuitable to one of his function. It was determined by a fair majority, that this answerer had, in a way not to be pardoned, drawn his pen against a certain great man then alive, and univerfally reverenced for every good quality that could poffibly enter into the compofition of the most accomplished perfon; it was obferved how he was pleafed, and affected to have that noble writer called his adverfary; and it was a point of fatyr well directed; for I have been told, Sir William Temple was fufficiently mortified at the term. Áll the men of wit and politenefs were immediately up in arms through indignation, which prevailed

over

* Wotton's defence of his reflections upon ancient and modern learning from the annotation are felected the notes figned W. Wotton; thus Wotton appears bufied to illuftrate a work, which he laboured to condemn, and adds force to a fatyr 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.

over their contempt by the confequences they apprehended from fuch an example; and it grew Porfenna's cafe; idem trecenti juravimus. In fhort, things were ripe for a general infurrection, till my lord Orrery had a little laid the fpirit, and fettled the ferment. But, his lord hip being principally engaged with another antagonist, it was thought neceffary, in order to quiet the minds of men, that this oppofer fhould receive a reprimand, which partly occafioned that difcourfe of the battle of the books, and the author was farther at the pains to infert one or two remarks on him in the body of the book.

This anfwerer has been pleased to find fault with about a dozen paffages, which the author will not be at the trouble of defending, farther than by affuring the reader, that, for the greater part, the reflecter is intirely miftaken, and forces interpretations which never once entered into the writer's head, nor will (he is fure) into that of any reader of taste and candour; he allows two or three at most, there produced, to have been delivered unwarily; for which he defires to plead the excufe offered already, of his youth, and frankness of speech, and his papers being out of his power at the time they were published.

But this anfwerer infifts, and fays, what he chiefly dislikes, is the defign; what that was, I have already told, and I believe there is not a perfon in England, who can understand that book,

Bentley, concerning Phalaris and ƃ1⁄2p,

book, that ever imagined it to have been any thing elfe, but to expofe the abufes and corruptions in learning and religion.

But it would be good to know what defign this reflecter was ferving, when he concludes his pamphlet with a caution to the reader, to beware of thinking the author's wit was intirely his own furely this must have had some allay of perfonal animofity, at least, mixt with the defign of ferving the public by fo useful a difcovery; and it indeed touches the author in a tender point; who infifts upon it, that through the whole book he has not borrowed one fingle hint from any writer in the world; and he thought, of all criticifins, that would never have been one. He conceived, it was never difputed to be an original, whatever faults it might have. However, this anfwerer produces three inftances to prove this author's wit is not his own in many places. The firft is, that the names of Peter, Martin, and Jack, are borrowed from a letter of the late * duke of Buckingham. Whatever wit is contained in those three names, the author is content to give it up, and defires his readers will fubtract as much as they placed upon that ac count; at the fame time protesting folemnly, that he never once heard of that letter, except in this paffage of the anfwerer; fo that the names were not borrowed, as he affirms, though they fhould happen to be the fame; which however is odd enough, and what he hardly believes; that of Jack being not quite

• Villers,

fo

fo obvious as the other two. The fecond inftance, to fhew the author's wit is not his own, is Peter's Banter (as he calls it in his Alfatia phrafe) upon tranfubftantiation, which is taken from the fame duke's conference with an Irish priest, where a cork is turned into a horfe. This the author confeffes to have feen about ten years after his book was written, and a year or two after it was published. Nay, the anfwerer overthrows this himself; for he allows the tale was written in 1697; and, I think, that pamphlet was not printed in many years after. It was neceffary that corruption fhould have fome allegory as well as the reft, and the author invented the propereft he could, without enquiring what other people had written; and the commoneft reader will find, there is not the leaft refemblance between the two ftories. The third inftance is in these words; I have been affured, that the battle in St. James's library is, mutatis mutandis, taken out of a French book, intitled, Combat des livres, if I mifremember not. In which paffage there are two claufes obfervable: I have been affured; and, if I mifremember not. I defire firft to know whether, if that conjecture proves an utter falfhood, those two claufes will be a fufficient excufe for this worthy critic. The matter is a trifle; but, would he venture to pronounce at this rate upon one of greater moment? I know nothing more contemptible in a writer than the character of a plagiary; which he here fixes at a venture; and this not for a paffage,

but

but a whole difcourfe, taken out from another book, only mutatis mutandis. The author is as much in the dark about this as the anfwerer, and will imitate him by an affirmation at random, that, if there be a word of truth in this reflection, he is a paultry, imitating pedant, and the answerer is a perfon of wit, manners, and truth. He takes his boldness, from never having feen any fuch treatife in his life, nor heard of it before; and he is fure it is impoffible for two writers, of different times and countries, to agree in their thoughts after fuch a manner, that two continued difcourfes fhall be the fame, only mutatis mutandis. Neither will he infit upon the mistake in the title; but let the answerer and his friend produce any book they please, he defies them to fhew one fingle particular, where the judicious reader will affirm he has been obliged for the fmalleft hint; giving only allowance for the accidental encountering of a fingle thought, which he knows may fometimes happen; though he has never yet found it in that difcourfe, nor has heard it objected by any body else.

So that if ever any defign was unfortunately executed, it must be that of this answerer; who, when he would have it obferved, that the author's wit is none of his own, is able to produce but three instances, two of them mere trifles, and all three manifeftly falfe. If this be the way thefe gentlemen deal with the world in thofe criticifms, where we have not leifure to defeat them, their readers had need

be