tempts in nature, to turn into ridicule by a week's labour a work, which had coft fo much time, and met with so much fuccess in ridiculing others: the manner how he handled his Jubject I have now forgot, having just looked it over, when it first came out, as others did, merely for the fake of the title.

e

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

• This we cannot recover at prefent, it being fo abfolutely forgotten, the oldeft bookfellers in trade remember nothing of it.

f Wotton's defence of his reflections upon ancient and modern learning: from the an notation are selected the notes figned W. Wotten; thus Wotton

appears bufied to illustrate a work, which he laboured to condemn, and adds force to a fatire 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.

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 pleased, and affected to have that noble writer called his adversary; and it was a point of fatyr well directed; for I have been told, Sir William Temple was fufficiently mortified at the term. All the men of wit and politeness were immediately up in arms through indignation, which prevailed over their contempt by the confequences they apprehended from fuch an example; and it grew Porfenna's cafe; idem trecenti juravimus. In short, things were ripe for a general infurrection, till my lord Orrery had a little laid the fpirit, and fettled the ferment. But, his lordship being principally engaged with another antagonist, it was Bentley, concerning Phalaris and Efop. H

с

VOL. I.

thought

thought neceffary, in order to quiet the minds of men, that this opposer should receive a reprimand, which partly occafioned that discourse 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 answerer 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 mistaken, 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 candor; he allows two or three at most, there produced, to have been delivered unwarily; for which he defires to plead the excuse offered already, of his youth, and franknefs of fpeech, and his papers being out of his power at the time they were publifhed.

But this answerer infifts, and fays, what he chiefly diflikes, is the defign; what that was, I have already told, and I believe there is not a perfon in England who

can

can understand that 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 fome allay of perfonal: animofity at least mixt with the defign of ferving the public by fo useful a discovery; 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 criticifms, 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 ate Duke of Buckingham. Whatever wit

› Villers.

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 account; at the same time protefting folemnly, that he never once heard of that letter, except in this paffage of the answerer: so that the names were not borrowed, as he affirms, though they should happen to be the fame; which however is odd enough, and what he hardly believes; that of Jack being not quite 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 transubstantiation, which is taken from the fame duke's conference with an irish prieft, where a cork is turned into a horse. This the author confeffes to have seen about ten years after his book was written, and a year or two after it was published. Nay, the answerer overthrows this himfelf; 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 some allegory as well as the reft; and

the