pamphlet with a caution to the reader, to beware of thinking the author's wit was entirely his own. Surely this must have had fome allay of perfonal animofity, at leaft, mixed with the defign of ferving the public by fo ufeful a difcovery; and it indeed touches the author in a very 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 late Duke of Buckingham. Whatever wit is contained in these 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 tame time protefting 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 should happen to be the fame; which, however, is odd enough, and what he hardly believes; that of Jack not being 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 AlB 3 fatia, fatia phrafe) upon tranfubftantiation, which is taken from the fame Duke's conference with an Irish priest, where a cork is turned into a horse. This the author confeffes to have seen, about ten years after this book was written, and a year or two after it was published. Nay, the answerer overthrows this himself: for he allows the tale was written in 1697; and I think the pamphlet was not printed in many years after. It was neceffary that corruption should have some 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 these words :-" I have been affured, that the battle in St. James's library is, mutațis mutandis, taken out of a French book, intitled, Combat des Livres, if I mifremember not." In which paffage there are two clauses 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 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 anfwerer; and will imitate him by an affirmation at random-that, if there be a word of truth in this reflexion, he is a paultry, imitating pedant, and the answerer is a person 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 miftake 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 smallest hint; giving only allow. ance 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 elfe. So that if ever any defign was unfortunately executed, it must be that of this anfwerer; who, when he would have it obferved, that the author's wit is not his own, is able to produce but three inftances, two of them mere trifles, and all three manifeftly manifeftly falfe. If this be the way these gentlemen deal with the world, in thofe criticisms, where we have not leifure to defeat taem, their readers had need be cautious how they rely upon their credit; and whether this proceeding a 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 ftuck wholly to his bufifinefs 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 has given very fair conjectures towards clearing up fome difficult paffages. But it is the frequent error of those men, (otherwife 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 ge nius, and might have been ferviceable to many readers, who cannot enter into the abftrufer parts of that difcourfe. But optat ephippia bos piger; the dull, unwieldy, ill-fhaped ox would needs put on the furniture of a horse; not confidering he was *Low commentators, who wrote notes upon claffic authors for the ufe of School-boys. born born to labour, to plow the ground for the fake of fuperior beings; and that he has neither the fhape, mettle, nor fpeed 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 fomebody, I know not who, in the country. To which can be only returned, that he is abfolutely mistaken in all his conjectures; and furely conjectures are at best 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 difadvantageous character upon those who never deserve 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 laft night's injury at his door. And thus much for this difcreet, candid, pious, and ingenious anfwerer. How the author came to be without his papers, is a story not proper to be told, and of very little ufe, 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 |