brary is, mutatis mutandis, taken out of a French book, entitled, Combat des Livres, if I misremember not." In which passage there are two clauses observable: I have been assured; and, if I misremember not. I desire first to know whether, if that conjecture proves an utter falsehood, those two clauses will be a sufficient excuse 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 passage, but a whole discourse, taken out from another book, only mutatis mutandis. The author is as much in the dark about this, as the answerer; and will imitate him by an affirmation at random; that if there be a word of truth in this reflection, he is a paltry, imitating pedant; and the answerer is a person of wit, manners, and truth. He takes his boldness from never having seen any such treatise in his life, nor heard of it before; and he is sure it is impossible for two writers, of different times and countries, to agree in their thoughts after such a manner, that two continued discourses shall be the same, only mutatis mutandis. Neither will he insist upon the mistake in the title; but let the answerer and his friend produce any book they please, he defies them to show one single particular, where the judicious reader will affirm he has been obliged for the smallest hint; giving only allowance for the accidental encountering of a single thought, which he knows may sometimes happen ; though he has never yet found it in that discourse, nor has heard it objected by any body else.

So that if ever any design was unfortunately executed, it must be that of this answerer; who, when he would have it observed, 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 ma◄

nifestly false. If this be the way these gentlemen deal with the world in those criticisms, where we have not leisure to defeat them, their readers had need be cautious how they rely upon their credit; and whether this proceeding can be reconciled to hunianity or truth, let those, who think it worth their while, determine.

It is agreed, this answerer would have succeeded much better, if he had stuck wholly to his business as a commentator upon the "Tale of a Tub," wherein it cannot be denied that he hath been of some service to the publick, and hath given very fair conjectures towards clearing up some difficult passages; but, it is the frequent errour of those men (otherwise very commendable for their labours) to make excursions beyond their talent and their office, by pretending to point out the beauties and the faults; which is no part of their trade, which they always fail in, which the world never expected from them, nor gave them any thanks for endeavouring at. The part of Minellius, or Farnaby *, would have fallen in with his genius, and might have been serviceable to many readers, who cannot enter into the abstruser parts of that discourse; but optat ephippia bos piger: the dull, unwieldy, ill-shaped ox, would needs put on the furniture of a horse, not considering he was born to labour, to plow the ground for the sake of superiour beings, and that he has neither the shape, mettle, nor speed of that noble animal he would affect to personate.

It is another pattern of this answerer's fair dealing, to give us hints that the author is dead, and yet to lay the suspicion upon somebody, I know not who, in the country; to which can only be returned, that he is absolutely mistaken in all his conjectures;

* Low commentators, who wrote notes upon classic authors for the use of schoolboys. H.

and surely conjectures are, at best, too light a pretence to allow a man to assign a name in publick. He condemns a book, and consequently the author, of whom he is utterly ignorant; yet at the same time fixes, in print, what he thinks a disadvantageous character upon those who never deserved it. A man, who receives a buffet in the dark, may be allowed to be vexed; but it is an odd kind of revenge, to go to cuffs in broad day, with the first he meets, and lay the last night's injury at his door. And thus much for this discreet, candid, pious, and ingenious answerer.

How the author came to be without his papers, is a story not proper to be told, and of very little use, being a private fact; of which the reader would believe as little, or as much, as he thought good. He had however a blotted copy by him, which he intended to have written over with many alterations, and this the publishers were well aware of, having put it into the bookseller's preface, that they apprehended a surreptitious copy, which was to be altered, &c. This, though not regarded by readers, was a real truth, only the surreptitious copy was rather that which was printed; and they made all the haste they could, which indeed was needless, the author not being at all prepared but he has been told, the bookseller was in much pain, having given a good sum of money for the copy.

:

In the author's original copy, there were not so many chasms as appear in the book; and why some of them were left, he knows not: had the publication been trusted to him, he would have made several corrections of passages, against which nothing has been ever objected. He would likewise have altered a few of those, that seem with any reason to be excepted against; but, to deal freely, the greatest number he should have left untouched, as

never suspecting it possible any wrong interpretations could be made of them.

The author observes, at the end of the book there is a discourse, called "A Fragment;" which he more wondered to see in print, than all the rest; having been a most imperfect sketch, with the addition of a few loose hints, which he once lent a gentleman, who had designed a discourse on somewhat the same subject; he never thought of it afterwards; and it was a sufficient surprize to see it pieced up together, wholly out of the method and scheme he had intended, for it was the groundwork of a much larger discourse; and he was sorry to observe the materials so foolishly employed.

There is one farther objection made by those who have answered this book, as well as by some others, that Peter is frequently made to repeat oaths and curses. Every reader observes, it was necessary to know that Peter did swear and curse. The oaths are not printed out, but only supposed; and the idea of an oath is not immoral, like the idea of a prophane or immodest speech. A man may laugh at the popish folly of cursing people to Hell, and imagine them swearing, without any crime; but lewd words, or dangerous opinions, though printed by. halves, fill the reader's mind with ill ideas; and of these the author cannot be accused. For the judicious reader will find, that the severest strokes of satire in his book, are levelled against the modern custom of employing wit upon those topics, of which there is a remarkable instance in the 156th and 157th pages, as well as in several others, though perhaps once or twice expressed in too free a manner, excusable only for the reasons, already alleged. Some overtures have been made by a third hand to the bookseller, for the author's altering those passages, which he thought might require it; but it seems the bookseller will not hear of any such

thing, being apprehensive it might spoil the sale of the book.

The author cannot conclude this Apology without making this one reflection; that, as wit is the noblest and most useful gift of human nature, so humour is the most agreeable; and where these two enter far into the composition of any work,' they will render it always acceptable to the world. Now, the great part of those who have no share or taste of either, but by their pride, pedantry, and ill 'manners, lay themselves bare to the lashes of both, think the blow is weak, because they are insensible; and where wit has any mixture of raillery, it is but calling it banter, and the work is done. This polite word of theirs, was first borrowed from the bullies in White Fryars*; then fell among the footmen; and at last retired to the pedants; by whom it is applied as properly to the production of wit, as if I should apply it to Sir Isaac Newton's mathematicks; but, if this bantering, as they call it, be so despisable a thing, whence comes it to pass they have such a perpetual itch toward it themselves?" To instance only in the answerer already mentioned: it is grievous to see him in some of his writings, at every turn going out of his way to be waggish, to tell us of a cow that pricked up her tail; and in his answer to this discourse he says, it is all a farce and a ladle; with other passages equally shining. One may say of these impedimenta literarum, that wit owes them a shame; and they cannot take wiser counsel, than to keep out of harm's way, or at least not to come till they are sure they are called.

To conclude; with those allowances above required this book should be read; after which, the author conceives, few things will remain which may not be excused in a young writer. He wrote

*See p. 29. N.