This apology being chiefly intended for the fatiffaction of future readers, it may be thought unneceffary to take any notice of fuch treatises as have been written against the enfuing difcourfe, which are already funk into waste paper and oblivion, after the ufual fate of common answerers to books which are allowed to have any merit: they are indeed like annuals, that grow about a young tree, and seem to vie with it for a fummer, but fall and die with the leaves in autumn, and are never heard of more. When Dr. Eachard writ his book about the contempt of the clergy, numbers of these anfwerers immediately started up, whofe memory memory if he had not kept alive by his replies, it would now be utterly unknown, that he was ever anfwered at all. is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expofe a foolish piece; fo we ftill read Marvel's anfwer to Parker*, with pleasure, though the book it answers be funk long ago; fo the Earl of Orrery's remarks will be read with delight, when the differtation he expofes will neither be fought nor found +: but these are no enterprises for common hands, nor to be hoped for above once or twice in an age. Men would be more cautious of lofing their time in fuch an undertaking, if they did but confider, that to answer a book ef

There

* Parker, afterwards bishop of Oxford, wrote many treatises against the diffenters, with infolence and contempt, fays Burnet, that enraged them beyond measure; for which he was chaftifed by Andrew Marvel, under-fecretary to Milton, in a little book called the rehearfal tranfprofed.

Boyle's remarks upon Bentley's differtation on the epistles of Phalaris.

fectually,

fectually, requires more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgment, than were employed in the writing of it. And the author affures thofe gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the obfervation, and the invention of feveral years; that he often blotted out much more than he left, and if his papers had not been a long time out of his poffeffion, they must have still undergone more fevere corrections: and do they think fuch a building is to be battered with dirt-pellets, however envenomed the mouths may be that discharge them? He has feen the productions but of two answerers, one of which at first appeared as from an unknown hand, but fince avowed by a perfon *,, who, upon fome occafions, has difcovered no ill vein of hu

mour.

It is a pity any occafion fhould put him under a neceffity of being fo hafty in his productions, which, otherwise, might be entertaining. But there were other reasons obvious enough for his mifcarriage in this; he writ against the conviction of his talent, and entered upon one of the wrongest attempts in nature, to turn into ridicule by a week's labour, a work, which had coft fo much time, and met with fo much fuccefs in ridiculing others: the manner how he handled his fubject I have now for got, having just looked it over, when it first came out, as others did, merely for the fake of the title,

Suppofed to be Dr. William King, the civilian, author of an account of Denmark, a differtation on famplers and other picces of burlefque on the Royal Society, and the art of cookery in imitation of Horace's art of poetry.

The

The other anfwer is from a person of a graver character, and is made up of half invective, and half annotation; in the latter of which he has 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 pleased, 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. the men of wit and politenefs were immediately up in arms through indignation, which prevailed over their contempt by the confequences they apprehended from fuch an example; and it grew Por

All

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 fatire pointed against himfelf 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.

fenna's

fenna'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 lordship being principally engaged with another antagonist *, it was thought neceffary, in order to quiet the minds of men, that this opposer should 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 entirely 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 candour; he allows two or three at moft, 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 diflikes, 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, that ever imagined it to be any thing elfe, but to expose the abuses and corruptions, in learning and religion.

Bentley concerning Phalaris and Æsop.

But

But it would be good to know what design this reflecter was serving, when he concludes his pamphlet with a caution to the reader, to beware of thinking the author's wit was entirely his own furely this must have had fome allay of perfonal animofity at least, mixt with the design of ferving the Public, by so useful a discovery; and it indeed touches the author in a tender point; who infists upon it, that through the whole book he has not borrowed one single hint from any writer in the world; and he thought, of all criticisms, that would never have been one. He conceived, it was never difputed to be an original, whatever faults it might have. However, this answerer produces three instances to prove this author's wit is not his own in many places. The first 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 account; at the fame time protesting 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 phrase) upon transubstantiation, which is taken from the fame duke's conference with an Irish

• Villers.

priest,