I Was very glad when I heard that one Monsieur de Cros had published an Answer to a late Book, Entituled, Memoirs of what pass’d in Christendom, &c. And could not but expect some considerable Discoveries in those Affairs and Intriegues, from a person who thought himself a Match for Sir W. T. Besides, I hoped it might have had this good Effect, to move that Author in his own defence to oblige us once more with his Pen. This was sufficient to make me buy this Pamphlet greedily, as I do most others; which tho very often they entertain one ill enough, yet serve in general for some amusement amidst the Noise and Hurry of a dirty Town.
But when I had read it over, I soon found my self deceived in the first; and have now lost all hopes of the other, since I have waited above two months in that Expectation, whereas two days were sufficient, had that Author thought fit to take any notice of such a Trifle, which makes me now despair of it; and as I perceiv’d the Town never looked for any such thing; so all I meet with, either in Coffee-houses, or Ordinary Conversation, have such despicable Thoughts of this Letter, that I now begin to find I never had any reason to expect it at all. 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. For besides Railing and Foul Language, his whole Letter from the beginning to the end is an errant Sham, and has nothing in it. I was therefore in vain to imagine Sir W. T. would descend so much below himself, to take any notice of so fulsome a Libel; and I do not believe either de Cros, or the kind Writer of the Advertisement after the Letter, did ever expect it.
For first, If Sir W. T. be such a Philosopher, as he seems to be by his Essay upon the Gardens of Epicurus, as well as several others; he must infinitely contradict the Ideas those Writings have given of him, if so sordid and insipid a Trifle as this Letter of de Cros could have any power to provoke him, tho it were but to scorn it.
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. 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. So that there remains but one way to Answer this Letter with any Rule or Justice, and that is, to gather all the cleanly Language one can pick up at Billingsgate, and bring it in its natural Reeking to the Press, and so make up a short, but sweet Pamphlet, set out with a Bead-roll of such Pearls, as are always to be found among the Oyster-women.
A fourth Reason is, Because that Book which goes by the Name of Sir W. T’s Memoirs, as one sees by the Publishers Preface, has been printed wholly without his Knowledg or Consent: For in the very first lines he plainly intimates he had his Copy from no Man then alive: And a known Writer since, who pretends to have inquired into that matter, assures us, the Publisher had it lying by him several years before it was published; nor can I find by my own best Inquiries, that Sir W. T. has ever own’d it. And tho I may believe, like others, that he must have writ them, by that excellent Stile, that strength and clearness of Expression, as well as by that Spirit and Genius which so brightly shines through the whole, and is peculiar to that Author above others of his Age; and besides, because I suppose no Man else was capable of knowing or discovering so much of these Transactions; yet since they have stollen into Publick against his will and his privity, it is not to be imagined he should defend a thing he does not reckon as his own; and therefore if de Cros, or the honest Translator, had found themselves injured, their resentments had been more justly levelled at the Publisher, than the supposed Author.
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; for tho the venom of this be too weak to reach where it aim’d; yet all those who have any regard for Truth or Justice, for Learning or Virtue, or even for good Manners and common Civility, must think themselves concern’d in a Quarrel, where they find so notorious a breach of them all.
’Tis fit therefore so ignominious a Libeller should be exposed in his proper Colours, of an infamous, slandring, and unprovok’t Railer; which tho his own Letter has plentifully done, yet ’twill be very proper to point to several places in it, where it is most remarkable.
For my own part, I will confess, I have been a great Reader of all Sir W. T’s Writings, and perhaps may have doated on some of them, especially, That Immortal Essay on Heroick Virtue, as one Writer since has deservedly called it; and that other upon Poetry, and even on this of the Memoirs. And finding Common Fame, wherever I had met it, agrees so well with the Picture these Pieces had given me of him, I will own to have had a very great Honour for the Author, as well as for his Books, and could not but esteem both a great deal the more for this Letter of de Cros, when I found that the triple-corded Malice of the Writer, the Translator, and the Advertiser, had not given one lash either to the Honour of the Person, or the truth of his Books. And all this put together, has in very truth given me so much Spight and Indignation, that I could not refrain entring on the Pamphletiers Trade, which I never did before, nor ever thought I should have done at all: And but for this Provocation, could have been very well satisfied to have lived on without the itch of seeing how I look in Print; so that I may truly say for this, as the Poet does for his Verses,
——Facit Indignatio Versus.