Anonymous

“ However, let such Statesmen as de Cros; or such Criticks as our Advertiser, or Malice and Detraction it self, say what they will of the Memoirs; I dare answer for all Scholars and Lovers of Learning, that they shall pay the Honour and Esteem which is, and will be ever justly due to the Miscellanea; and shall not only find what is pleasing and instructing, but also something that is new and surprizing whenever they read them, let this Author’s Stile be as Luscious and Affected as it will; which is all I need say for the poor Bookseller’s sake. ”

“ I cannot imagine why any such words in the Memoirs, should put a man into so much passion: And for my part, both in this and all the rest, I see but one reason why he is angry; and that is, Because he is angry. However, against this grievous Imputation, he defends himself by this strong Argument; That he was not sent over on purpose to deliver the Dispatch to Sir W. T. but for something of greater importance, which he knows himself, and will not tell any body. ”

“ If he deserves well, why is he used so very ill? Does de Cros understand what a man of great worth means? I doubt he does not, either by himself, or by such Company, as so much good Language in all the rest of his Letter, would make us believe he keeps. Can a man of great worth, and that deserves well, be Vain, Proud, Revengeful, Ungrateful to his Friend, False to his Master, and impertinently Ambitious in his very Retreat from all Publick Affairs? ”

“ But since Monsieur de Cros is so bold with the Sacred Memory of a Great King, for which he is yet so Impudent, as to profess a most profound Respect; What can a Subject expect, for whom he owns such a virulent Malice, and to whom he threatens such open Revenge.
The same vein of truth and sincerity shines through the whole Letter, and the Author’s Ingenuity is at the old pitch in what he pretends to rake out of the Memoirs concerning several Persons in great Employments ”

“ Who would have believed that the Author of the Observations on the Netherlands, and of the charming Miscellanea, should be such a Cully, if de Cros had not made the discovery? but sure he could never be Author of those Books; doubtless he either hired some body to write them for him, or else some honest Bookseller like his own, had got the Copies, and set Sir W. T’s name to them. I would to God he had been so honest to set mine in the stead. But now we have heard the Charge, pray make room for the Evidence: Sir W. T. is the proudest Man in the World ”

“ Besides, if he be so proud a Person, as De Cros is pleased to call him; certainly, while he remembers his own Quality, and the great Employments he has passed through with so much Honour to himself, and such important Services for his Prince and Country, such thoughts will never allow him to enter the Lists with one, who to say no more, has owned himself in his Letter to be Un Moin Defroquè, which none who understand the least of the French Tongue, need be told, is the lowest and most profligate Character that can be given a Man. ”

“ To let everybody see he has means in his hands to be revenged; there is one point, and that alone, where he brings his Proof, lays downs his Instance, and that out of the Memoirs themselves; ’tis designed undeniably to convince the World of Sir W. T’s Vanity, of which he could give my Lord many instances, but at present contents himself with one, and ’tis a thumping one. ”

“ And I only wish, since the Spark is so good at finding out what other men think, that he would take the pains to learn for his comfort what all men think of him: One thing I am sure is, that with all the Bloaches of his dirty Pencil, he has daub’d up a Picture of Sir W. T. which has top-fil’d the measure of all Forgery; Sed Vetitum nihil est scheleri, and which is as true and like the Original, as a man would make of this Dauber, if he should say, De Cros were a very honest, worthy, well-natur’d, well-bred, fair-spoken, plain-dealing, ingenious Writer ”

“ I suppose the reason of it is, because he who has once broke his Vow to God, there are People enough apt to believe he will never regard any he makes to them.
A third Reason is, Because his Letter is indeed unanswerable; and Prosecution would be as little necessary to him, as to one that pleads guilty at the Bar; for he owns over and over, every Line of the Charge that he pretends is laid against him; says not one word, either to defend or extenuate it; does not contradict the least point in the Memoirs he pretends to Answer; nor lays one ill Action to Sir W. T’s Honour. ”

“ Yet for all this Mons. De Cros, who knows his thoughts better than himself, or than his Actions can inform us, says, Never did man desire more to have a hand in Affairs. Why here he shews us the silly Bubble again, and the wise way he takes to fulfil this impatient Desire; ’Tis by going to his House in the Country, where he stays five years, as he tells us in one of his Essays, without so much as ever seeing the Town: and since (as I am inform’d) to avoid so much Resort at that smaller distance from the City, he goes to another of his Houses of a much greater in the Country ”

“ Now, tho it may be true, that in every Age there may be more than Nine Worthies who put a greater value on their Money than their Honour, yet there may be every where, and at all times, some silly Foplings, who do quite the contrary; and I know no reason, why they should not pretend to be safe in the Possessions they most value, as well as the others; nor why the Law should not take some care of such poor Innocents. Nor further, can I find out why a Stationer should not be punisht for Forgery, as well as a Notary or Scrivener may be. ”

“ I could never well comprehend the true reason, why it should be such a disgrace to be a Cuckold, or why one Person should suffer for another’s fault, how nearly soever related to him: But I can very easily apprehend the Injury of it, which is, that one Man should be out upon fathering another Man’s Children, or at the best should be in danger of it ”

“ For in truth, the whole Letter seems to me only design’d to Banter Fools or Children, and to be written by a man who had lost all Respect to the Publick, whom he thinks fit to entertain with such wretched stuff, which certainly he could not pretend should either please or instruct any Reader, who had not as much malice, and as little Wit as himself. ”

“ But if Sir W. T’s Stile be faulty, I have nothing to say; only desire, That some of the Criticks the Advertiser speaks of, will be so kind to mend it when they write next, whereby I think they will do a very great Honour to our Language. I am only sorry for those poor Booksellers who have so rashly undertaken the printing of his several Works, and wish they may not be undone after the Judgment of these severe Criticks upon them. ”

“ Alas! what a sad Fate that man falls under, that dares incur the displeasure of Mons. De Cros? or who can tell what will become of him? He must neither live at Court, nor at his own House, in publick Business, nor out of it; In Town, nor in Country: where shall we find a place for him? I know none but the middle Region of the Air: But, It was not his love for his own Ease, &c. that made him decline his Employments. Why? whoever informed this Conjurer it was? I am sure the Memoirs say no such thing, but in the last Page gives us a quite different account ”

“ As to the candid Translator, I cannot forbear doing him the Justice to give him that part which he deserves, and belongs to him in all I said of De Cros, for his share in the Letter, by so false, and so malicious a Translation; nor can refuse him my approbation for a worthy Translator to so worthy an Author; wherein he has taken the same pains a man would do in smutting over a Chimny-Sweeper, or blacking over a Crier of Smalcoal. ”

“ For he would fain make it to have been a piece of Revenge against him, for having brought that Dispatch to the Hague; and yet he lays it much to heart, that in that Affair he should only take him for a Messenger. And this indeed is to make him a very reasonable person, and like a man, that when he receives a blow, grows angry with the Stone by which it is given. But by all I can observe in these Memoirs, I do not find any thing which bears the least resemblance of Anger or Spleen, much less of Revenge against Mons. de Cros ”

“ I find when men are very angry, that Truth is the least thing they regard: For this is more than ever I could observe after reading those Memoirs with more care and application than I am sure his good humour would ever permit him; and in pag. 336. find these Words: How this Dispatch by De Cros was gain’d, or by whom, I will not pretend to determine. Which De Cros has very politickly thus altered, Letter, pag. 18. I will not pretend to determine by what means, and how De Cros obtained this Dispatch. ”

“ By all these Reasons, ’tis easy to believe, that a Person of Sir W. T’s Character and Honour, and whose Reputation is so firmly established in the World, will [Pg 4] never fall so low to oppose himself against the Scurrilous Reproaches of so foul-mouth’d a Railer; ’twould be like a set Duel between a strong Man well-arm’d, and a poor wretched Cripple. The Quarrel therefore will be more properly turn’d over to the rest of Mankind ”

“ Peradventure such Actors would not have plaid such Parts upon the Stage, if they had not trusted to the Disguises and Masks they were in, or had suspected they would be pull’d off by some plain, rough hand, either while the Play lasts, or as soon as ’tis ended. For men are seldom so harden’d, as to grow totally careless of their Names, and their Memories, after they are dead, tho they may hope to escape while they are alive. ”

“ And I am sure if he talks as well as he writes, he might very well have gone this way to work, and with as much likelihood to succeed as Others have done, or pretend to do. Tho a Common Reader would be apt to think the Author of these Memoirs might have found some other ways, either of preserving himself in Business, or of getting in when he was out; at least in so easy a Court as that of King Charles the Second’s is taken to have been. ”

“ And thus I have with much ado rid my hands of a great part of De Cros’s Rubbish, as far as it endeavours to bespatter Sir W. T. in his Morals and Intellectuals. It remains now I should observe a little what he says concerning his Fortunes, which seems to turn upon these two rusty Hinges, that make as ill a noise as all the rest; the obscurity from whence he was raised to all those great Employments, and his disgrace upon leaving them, which De Cros says was immediately after his Return from Nimeguen. ”

“ For could he not like other men of such a craving Kidney, have still buzzed about the Court, knocked at every dore there, and when one was deaf and would not open, go to another; and at the worst have grown so troublesome, that some body would at last bring him into Employment, tho it were but to be rid of him? ”

“ Like hot Porridge, that burns his Tongue; tho ’tis pretty plain, that all his heat proceeds from the overflowing of his Gall within, and from nothing without. One would think he has very well practised the old Rule of Calumniare fortiter; yet he has lamentably fail’d of the consequence, Aliquid inherebit; for all the Dirt he endeavours to fling about, loves its own Element, and sticks close to his own Fingers. ”

“ But in truth since his time, his Method has been very little pursued, and more is the pity, since it has made so much room, and so unworthily, for the fulsome Flatteries, and nauseous Panegyricks of so many Books or Prefaces as have over-run the Press in our Age; which not only endeavour to put Shams and Cheats upon Mankind ”

“ I shall add to all these, what I observed in an Advertisement before the First Part of the Miscellanea, where the Bookseller tells the Reader from the Author, that thenceforth he would never Publish any thing without putting his Name to it, which not finding before this Pamphlet, was another Reason to conclude it a supposititious Piece. All which put together, makes me believe Sir W. T. was no more the Author of this Answer, than of Tully’s Offices. ”

“ And Tacitus has not escaped the Imputation of being both harsh and Affected, by several Criticks. I am afraid the Gentleman’s Mouth might have been a little out of taste by reading these Memoirs; and that might possibly have proceeded from some cholerick Humour redundant in his Stomach; which I the rather suspect from these words in the Beginning of his Advertisement; As nothing more sensibly touches US, than to have our Reputation, &c. which seem to insinuate, that he took himself for one of the Persons he thought offended by them, and treated with too much Freedom, and too little Ceremony ”

“ For let the Criticks say what they please against writing Story with too much Freedom, and too little Ceremony, I am a little disposed to believe, That if there were more such Authors, there would not be so many such Actors, as have been so often seen upon the Publick Stages of the World ”

“ That he made and observed his Treaties with ill-meaning, or with ill-intentions; and that he treated his chiefest Confident (whom he makes to be Mons. Barillon) and another Embassador, with the greatest scorn and contempt.
Besides, he brings this noble Prince upon the Stage, acting a mean piece of Dissimulation to cover his Confidence with so worthy a Person as Mons. de Cros; ’tis concerning his Dispatch so often mentioned into Holland; for being forc’t to confess, that the King was angry with him at his return from thence; He plaisters it up with saying, p. 25. ”