my Lord, you have more need to complain of a bad Grammar, than of a dull Dictionary. Doctor Freind, I dare anfwer for him, never taught you to talk of Sapphic, Lyric, and Iambic Odes. Your Lordfhip might as well bid your prefent Tutor, your Taylor, make you a Coat, Suit of Cloaths, and Breeches; for you must have forgot your Logic, as well as Grammar, not to know, that Sapphic and Iambic are both included in Lyric; that being the Genus, and those the Species. For all cannot invent who can tranflate, No more than these who cloath us, can create. Here your Lordship feems in labour for a meaning. Is it that you would have tranflations, Originals? for 'tis the common opinion, that the business of a Tranflator is to tranflate, and not to invent, and of a Taylor to cloath, and not to create. But why should you, my Lord, of all mankind, abuse a Taylor? not to fay blaf pheme him; if he can (as fome think) at least go halves with God Almighty in the formation of a Beau. Might not Doctor Sherwin rebuke you for this, and bid you Remember your Creator in the days of your Youth? From a Taylor, your Lordship proceeds (by a beau tiful gradation) to a Silkman. Thus P-pe we find The gaudy Hinchcliff of a beauteous mind. Here too is fome ambiguity. Does your Lordfhip use Hinchcliff as a proper name? or as the Ladies fay a Hinchcliff or a Colmar, for a Silk or a Fan? I will venture to affirm, no Critic can have a perfect taite of your Lordfhip's works, who does not understand both your Male Phrafe and your Female Phrafe. Your Lordship, to finish your Climax, advances up to a Hatter; a Mechanic, whofe Employment, you inform us, is not (as was generally imagined) to cover people's heads, but to dress their brains 68. A nost uteful Mechanic indeed! I can't help wifhing to have been one for fome people's fake. But this too may be only another Lady - Phrafe: Your Lordship and the Ladies may take a Head-dress for a Head, and understand, that to adorn the Head is the fame thing as to dress the Brains. - Upon the whole, I may thank your Lordship for this high Panegyric: For if I have but drefs'd up Homer, as your Taylor, Silkman, and Hatter have equip'd your Lordship, I must be own'd to have drefs'd him marvellously indeed, and no wonder if he is admir'd by the Ladies 69. After all, my Lord, I really wish you would learn your Grammar. What if you put yourself awhile under the Tuition of your Friend W. m? May not I with all refpect fay to you, what was faid to another Noble Poet by Mr. Cowley, Pray, Mr. Howard 7o, if you did read your Grammar, what harm would it do you? You yourself with all Lords would learn to write 7; tho' I १.५ 68 For this Mechanic's like the Hatter's pains. Are but for dressing other people's brains 69 by Girls admir'd P. 6. 70 The Honourable Mr. Edward Howard, celebrated for his postry. 71 And when you fee me fairly write my name, "For England's 'fake wish all Lords did the fame. don't fee of what ufe it could be, if their whole bufinefs is to give their Votes 72: It could only be ferviceable in figning their Protefts. Yet furely this fmall portion of learning might be indulged to your Lord. ship, without any breach of that Privilege 73 you fo ge nerously affert, to all thofe of your rank, or too great an Infringement of that Right 74 which you claim as Hereditary, and for which, no doubt, your noble Fa ther will thank you. Surely, my Lord, no man was eyer fo bent upon depreciating himself! As your Readers have obferved the following Lines: How oft we hear fome Witling pert and dull, Then from his Common-place · book he repeats, That Life itself is like a wrangling game, &c. The whole Town and Court (my good Lord) have heard this Witling; who is fo much every body's ac quaintance but his own, that I'll engage they all namė the fame Perfon. But to hear you fay, that this is only of whipt Cream a frothy Store, is a fufficient proof, that never mortal was éndued with fo humble an opinion both of himself and his own Wit, as your Lordfhip: For, I do affure you, these are by much the beft Verfes in your whole Poem, 72 All our bus'nefs is to dress and vose. 73 The want of brains. 74 To be fools. ibid. ibid. P. 4. "How unhappy is it for me, that a Perfon of your Lordship's Modesty and Virtue, who manifefts so tender a regard to Religion, Matrimony, and Morality ; who, tho' an Ornament to the Court, cultivate an exem. plary Correspondence with the Clergy; nay, who dif dain not charitably to converfe with, and even affist, fome of the very worst of Writers (fo far as to caft a few Conceits, or drop a few Antitheses even among the Dear Joys of the Courant) that you, I fay, fhould look upon Me alone as reprobate and unamendable! Reflect what I was, and what I am. I am even Annihilated by your Anger: For in these Verfes you have robbed me of all power to think 75, and, in your others, of the very name of a Man! Nay, to fhew that this is wholly your own doing, you have told us that before I wrote my last Epistles (that is, before I unluckily mention'd Funny and Adonis, whom, I protest, I knew not to be your Lordship's Relations) I might have lived and died in glory 76. What would I not do to be well with your Lordfhip? Tho', you observe, I ain a mere Imitator of Homer, Horace, Boileau, Garth, &c. (which I have the lefs caufe to be afham'd of, fince they were Imitators of one another) yet what if I should folemnly engage never to imitate your Lordfhip? May it not be one ftep towards an accommodation, that while you remark my Ignorance in Greek, you are fo good as to fay, you have forgot your own? What if I fhould confefs 1 tranflated from D'Acier? That furely could not but oblige your Lordship, who are known to prefer French 76 in glory then he might have liv'd and dy'd. ibid. to all the learned Languages. But allowing that in the space of twelve years acquaintance with Homer, I might unhappily contract as much Greek, as your Lordship did in Two at the Univerfity, why may I not forget it again, as happily? Till fuch a reconciliation take effect, I have 'but one thing to intreat of your Lordship. It is, that you will not decide of my Principles on the fame grounds as you have done of my Learning: Nor give the fame account of my Want of Grace, after you have loft all acquaintance with my Perfon, as you do of my Want of Greek, after you have confeffedly loft all acquaintance with the Language. You are too generous, my Lord, to follow the Gentlemen of the Dunciad quite fo far, as to feek my utter Perdition; as Nero once did Lucan's, merely for prefuming to be a Poet, while one of fo much greater quality was a Writer. I therefore make this humble request to your Lordship, that the next time you please to write on me, speak of me, or even whisper of me 77, you will recollect it is full eight Years fince I had the honour of any conversation or correspondence with your Lordship, except just half an hour in a Lady's Lodgings at Court, and then I had the happiness of her being present all the time. It would therefore be difficult even for your Lordship's penetration to tell, to what, or from what Principles, Parties, or Sentiments, Moral, Political, or Theological, I may have been converted, or perverted, in all that time. I befeech your Lordship to confider, the Injury a Man of your high 77 The whisper, that, to greatness fill too near, Perhaps yer vibrates on his Sovʻreign's ear. Vol. VIII. Epift. te Dr. Arbuthnor. P |