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priest, where a cork is turned into a horfe. 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 anfwerer 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 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 least resemblance between the two ftories. The third inftance is in thefe words; I have been affured, that the battle in St. James's library is, mutatis mutandis, taken out of a French book, intituled, 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 first to know whether, if that conjecture proves an utter falfehood, 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 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 paultry, imitating pedant; and the answerer is a person of wit, manners, and truth. He takes

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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 infift upon the mistake in the title; but let the anfwerer 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 smallest hint; giving only allowance for the accidental encountering of a single 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 inftances, two of them mere trifles, and all three manifeftly falfe. If this be the way these gentlemen deal with the world in thofe 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 humanity or truth, let thofe, who think it worth their while determine.

'It is agreed, this anfwerer would have fucceeded 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 fome fervice to the Public, and hath given very fair conjecture's towards

towards clearing up fome difficult paffages; but, it is the frequent error of those men (otherwise very commendable for their labours) to make excurfions 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 confidering he was born to labour, to plow the ground for the fake of fuperior beings, and that he has neither the shape, mettle, nor speed of that noble animal, he would affect to perfonate.

It is another pattern of this answerer's fair dealing, to give us hints that the author is dead, and yet to lay the fufpicion upon fome body, I know not who, in the country; to which can only be returned, that he is abfolutely mistaken in all his conjectures; and furely conjectures are, at beft, too light a pretence to allow a man to affign a name in public. He condemns a book, and confequently the author, of whom he is utterly ignorant; yet at the fame time fixes, in print, what he thinks a disadvantageous character upon those who never deferved it. A man, who receives a buffet in the dark, may be allowed to be

* Low commentators, who wrote notes upon claffic authors for the ufe of fchoolboys.

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vexed; but it is an odd kind of

to go revenge, to 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 anfwerer.

How the author came to be without his papers, is a ftory 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 furreptitious copy, which was to be altered, &c. This, though not regarded by readers, was a real truth, only the furreptitious copy was rather that, which was printed; and they made all the hafte they could, which indeed was needlefs, the author not being at all prepared: but he has been told, the bookfeller was in much pain, having given a good sum of money for the copy.

In the author's original copy, there were not fo many chasms as appear in the book; and why fome of them were left, he knows not: had the publication been trufted to him, he would have made feveral corrections of paffages, against which nothing has been ever objected. He would likewife have reafon altered a few of thofe, that feem with any to be excepted against; but, to deal freely, the greatest number he fhould have left untouched, as never fufpecting it poffible any wrong interpretations could be made of them.

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The author obferves, at the end of the book there is a difcourfe, called, a fragment; which he more wondered to fee in print, than all the reft; 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 fame subject; he never thought of it afterwards; and it was a fufficient furprize to fee it pieced up together, wholly out of the method and fcheme he had intended, for it was the ground-work of a much larger discourse; and he was forry to observe the materials fo foolishly employed.

There is one farther objection made by those who have answered this book, as well as by fome others, that Peter is frequently made to repeat oaths and curfes. Every reader obferves, it was neceffary to know that Peter did fwear and curfe. The oaths are not printed out, but only fuppofed; 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 curfing people to hell, and imagine them fwearing, 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 accufed. For the judicious reader will find, that the fevereft ftrokes of fatyr in his book, are levelled against the modern custom of employing wit upon thofe topics, of which there is a remarkable inftance in the 156, 157th pages, as well as in feveral others, though perhaps once or twice expreffed in too free a manner, excufable only for the reafons already alledged. Some

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