As to his going out from Publick Employments, which De Cros tells us was upon the King’s being so ill satisfied with his Conduct and Management of Affairs abroad, particularly those at Nimeguen; that he slighted him upon his return from thence, and made very little use of him. I can give no other Account besides what I find of the Time and the manner in the Epistle before the Memoirs; only I find, by comparing the Date of his Return from Nimeguen, with that of King Charles’s Declaration upon his dissolution of the old Council, and selecting a new one, that Sir W. T. was a Member of that new and select Council; and it was the Common Town-talk at that time, that this Declaration was writ by him, and that he was in his Majesty’s Chief Confidence upon that surprising Resolution, which was received with such Applauses, Bonfires, and other expressions of Joy in the City. Besides all this, having had some acquaintance among Spanish Merchants in Town, I came to know, that several of them about two years after, had recourse to Sir W. T. upon his being then declared Ambassador Extraordinary to the Crown of Spain, by the King at Council, whereof he himself was then a Member. All which laid together, does most abundantly verifie what De Cros says of his being disgraced upon his return from Nimeguen. But the best account of all these Passages we must expect whenever he will think fit to publish the first and third part of the Memoirs, which are mentioned at the beginning and end of those the world has seen already. In the mean time, what little has happened to fall in the way of my knowledge or enquiries, may be enough to discover the impudent Forgery of this false Coyner, who pretends to counterfeit all sorts of Metals, but is so wretched a bungler, and performs it so grosly, that not one of them will pass. ’Twas for this Reason, I suppose, that the French Edition of his Letter pretends to have been printed at Cologne, which I have long observed to be the Common Forge, or at least the Common Form of Paltry, Scurrilous Libels, printed in that Language; and which no Printer or Bookseller abroad dare set their Names to. This I cannot but mention for the Credit and Reputation of his honest Stationer at the Mitre, who I believe is the only Stationer in England would have had the ingenuity to set the Mitre on this Monk’s Head.
The last precious piece of his Malice I shall take notice of, is, That he grudges Sir W. T. even the Honour of his Retreat from Publick Affairs, by which perhaps he has been more distinguished, than by his greatest Employments: But this De Cros cannot allow him: No, saye he, p. 8. It was not what he would make us believe; his love for his own ease, and his indispositions of body, that made him decline his Employments. 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; where, telling his Reasons why he excused himself, at his return from Nimeguen, from entring upon the Secretaries Office, are these Words: I that never had any thing so much at heart as the union of my Country, which I thought the only way to its greatness and felicity was very unwilling to have any part in the divisions of it. And towards the end: After almost two years unsuccessful endeavours at some Union, or at least some allay of the Heats and Distempers between the King and his Parliament, I took the Resolution of having no more to do with Affairs of State. Which Resolution it seems was taken about the beginning of the Year 1681. when he sent the King word he would pass the remainder of his life like as good a private Subject as any he had, &c. as is to be seen in the Epistle. 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; which was an admirable wise Contrivance to satisfie his Longings to get again into Business: Truly I my self could have helpt him to a Better: 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? Or, if this Contrivance had failed, he might have herded among the Factious and Discontented about the Town; gone to the Coffee-houses, railed at the Ministers, and quarrelled with the Government, till they would be glad to have hired him at the expence of an Employment to hold his Tongue: 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. Or if these Endeavours had miscarried, he might yet have made some shift or other to have obtained his Desire upon such a Revolution as has since happened; and he is very much wronged by the common Voice of the Town, if he has not found it as hard to excuse himself from entring into Publick Employments in this Reign, as in that of the late King Charles.
For my own part, I can profess with the greatest Truth in the world, That before this Libel of De Cros, I have never met with in all my Conversation and Reading, with the least Reproach from any man against Sir W. T. except it be in one point; Of his having made too rashly, or kept too obstinately, his Resolution, Never to enter again into [Publick] Employments; especially since he lives in an Age where such persons as he appears to be by his Writings, might be of so uncommon use and Advantage to his Country: This I cannot but own, I have often heard said, and that somewhat warmly, to his charge, and must leave it to himself to clear it as he can. But however, De Cros it seems knows his thought best, and must be believed in all he says upon this Point, as well as the rest: 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; of excellent Morals, wondrous Wit, and exact Truth.
And now I have done with him, I can hardly answer it to my self why I ever began, or why I went about to foul my fingers with such a Subject: I am sure nothing could have forced me but an irresistible Impulse, and some natural love I bear to Vertue, to Learning, and to Truth; of all which I find so great a share in this Honourable person’s Writings, which I have read so often, and with so much pleasure; and from which I cannot but confess to have learnt more than from all other Books I have read in my life; which I say after much greater and better Readers than my self, and yet I have been a great Porer too. All this would not suffer me to let De Cros’s Libel pass without these Reflections; for as to any regular Reply, it could no more be made to this, than to a Paper that comes with a very fair Superscription, and subscribed by some Worshipful Name, but had nothing clear through, besides long unsightly Scrawls and foul Blots with a Pen; and so intended for some such flam as your Twelve-Penny Writers use to gull those idle people with, that buy up all Pamphlets they meet: And since I have confess’d my self such a Customer, ’tis but justice I should be laughed at in my turn.
After all I have writ upon this Subject, I cannot but think my Ink has been too white all this time; however, I have Gall enough about me to make it blacker at another, if ever the fit of Scribling should take me again; which may very well be, when I meet with another Author of so little Wit, so little Memory, and so little Truth as De Cros.
——Melius non tangere, Clamo,
Flebit, & insignis tota cantabitur Urbe.
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. Which is all I shall say of him.
But, for the Advertiser, as his Stile is much fairer, and consists mostly of Criticisms, so he will deserve no other than very fair and critical Reflections. Yet I cannot but wonder, that in the first part of his Advertisement, he should go about to defend the severe or indecent Language (as he calls it) in De Cros’s Letter: Which sure, nothing could do towards a person who has so often represented a great King, whatever his own Merits or Demerits might have been. I am also something at a loss what he should mean by slandering De Cros with such a Title as that of, The Ingenious Author of the foregoing Letter. For doubtless if the Man has any Wit, I may say of it as one did of a Gentleman’s Courage, which another had much commended; That he might have courage for ought he knew, but he had as live be damn’d as shew it.
The rest of his gentle Advertisement consists, (as he pleases to call it) of the Sentiments of the Criticks upon these Memoirs when they first came out.
The first whereof is, That the Stile was too luscious and affected. I confess I am not acquainted with that Term of a Luscious Stile, and cannot easily stumble upon what it means, unless it be to say, That the Bride is too fair, or the Grapes are too sweet. But ’tis yet harder for my poor Conception to find out how a Stile can be both Luscious and Affected; Which latter I should have otherwise mistook for a Quality that had ever given a harshness to any Stile, that would not be very consistent with Luscious: 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; as he afterwards speaks of others. 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. Yet to give them a little comfort, I must needs take notice, that all men are not of the same nice Palat, neither at home nor abroad: For Monsieur Wiquefort concludes his Memoirs of Ambassadors, with regretting that there had been so few Accounts given by any of them of Foreign Countries; and that there were like to be fewer hereafter; Because Monsieur Temple is inimitable in what he has written of the United Netherlands. And among many Books and Pamphlets that mention his Works, I have yet seen none that does it without great Value and Approbation. I am sure in all the French Editions of his several Works (which have had the luck to be still Translated into several Languages as they came out) the Epistles and Prefaces prefixed before them, are full of the greatest Honour and Applause that can be given to Writings, which pass so ill with the Criticks, this Advertiser tells us of at home; so that ’tis possible some of these Memoirs may yet go off, which I suppose was the chief thing intended by him that publisht them.