which I know your Lordship must have taken fo much pains to acquire. In short, my Lord, if you at all regard That, you ought not to fuffer those Lexiphanefes, those Shiners, those Dealers in hard words, and abfurd phrafes, those Fabricators of Triads and Quaternions, and I know not what, to carry all before them in the manner they have lately done, and to perfuade themselves and the publick, that they are the only authors worth regard, and that their uncouth trash is the fole standard of perfection in the English tongue. There is as great an antipathy between a pure and natural writer, fuch as your Lordship, and a Lexiphanes, as there is between an elephant and a rhinoceros. When they meet,

they are fure to fall foul of one ano

ther, most commonly the Lexiphanes

first, for the other often holds him too

cheap, and the contest is never at an end till one is destroyed.

Be

Besides, the very circumstance of your being a man of fortune and quality, will procure you worfe quarter from those Lexiphaneses, than a mere adventurer would have. The reason

is this. They are all, excepting the boys just raw from the university, authors by profeffion; and they reckon a gentleman who writes, or in the language of the shop, makes a book, an interloper who takes so much of their trade out of their hands. They would much rather have his custom than his assistance in what they all profess, the improvement and inftruction of the reader. They look upon him with no friendlier eyes, than a taylor would on a man of fashion, who should take a fancy to cut out and make up his own cloaths.

But that they entertain a particular spite against noble authors, I shall give your Lordship a very pregnant proof, and shew you, from the fate

of

of others, what you have reason to expect. Highly as I esteem your writings, and though I may think them, from their moral tendency and the excellent political inftruction contained in them, of more general benefit than the productions of either Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, or Granville Lord Lansdown; yet, in respect to elegance and purity of style, there are few that can be deemed superior. On the contrary, I am afraid, the highest praise any modern writer can now reasonably aspire to, is not to be excelled in these articles by them. And yet that dogmatical Pedant, who is the Hero, or rather the Butt in the following Dialogue, talking of the small damage he imagines Letters have sustained by the loss of authors, once famous in their day, comforts us, by supposing, he does not tell us for what reason, they might be only the Sheffields and Granvilles of their times; (I won

(I wonder, when his hand was in, he did not add Clarendon, Temple, Dorfet, in a word, every man of rank and fortune, who ever put pen to paper, he might have done it with equal justice;) and then proceeds very gravely to inform us, pofterity will wonder, by what chance or accident, such men ever came to acquire any reputation.

These Noblemen, my Lord, for the protection and encouragement they afforded to Letters, and for the honour they did them by their practice and example, were highly and justly celebrated by all their rival and cotempora ry wits, and by none more than the two greatest our nation ever produced, Dryden and Pope, one of whom, at leaft, can never be suspected of flattery. By him too your Lordship has been greatly celebrated, for the other was gone long before you appeared, and yet both have not faved your predeceffors from the attacks of this prefumptuous Pedant. My My Lord, from the care and polishing I perceive you have bestowed on your writings, you must have been fomewhat earnest about their success, and that reputation you have taken fuch pains to acquire, you cannot but wish to preferve.. Nor can you be indifferent about the language of your native country, that country you love so much, of which you are so bright an ornament, and whose excellent constitution you have illustrated, explained and defended, both in your publick and private capacity, with fo great zeal and fuccefs. But, my Lord, the Ramblers of Mr. J--n, who has, befides the advantage of being author of, what is believed, the only Grammar and Dictionary we yet have, not to mention many works of others, all in the same strain, and much applauded and fought after, are proposed with great confidence to the publick, not only by the man himself, but by his