Et ne Supplaudit point de Qualitez d’autrui.
A great Soul scorns to usurp another’s worth, and is always content with its own.
The Doctor seems to have an Opinion, that every body loves Flattery as well as himself, and will take any Thing kindly that is said in their Favour. A little more Sincerity would not be amiss in the Composition of a Clergy-man and if this is the way to get the Medal he talks of, it will be dearly purchas’d.
I shall be heartily glad to see some of those Productions from Men above Money, that shall deserve the Laurel he has prepar’d for them. People, I doubt not, will crowd to get their Scriptions in, as they do to get Money into the Lottery; but certainly, the Society will take care of themselves, and if there’s any thing to be got have the Forestalling of the Market. The Design itself is useful, and cannot meet with too much Encouragement, Her Majesty, always willing to promote the Good of our Country, will, it is hop’d, hearken to it in due time; but if it be defer’d till Peace there will be no great Harm in it, tho’ he is pleas’d to rally one of the late M————rs, as much above his Satyr as his Panagyrick, for being so silly as to prefer Necessity to Convenience.
The want of a Grammar and Dictionary has been long complain’d of; and we cannot expect our Tongue will ever spread abroad, unless Foreigners are put into a more regular Method of learning it. To distribute Rewards to Merit, is the Duty of a good Ministry, and nothing contributes more to the Glory of a Country than Works of Eloquence and Wit; but he has assum’d a Post that will not be allow’d him. He has set himself in the Director’s Chair of an English Academy; before he has past Examination whether he is fit for a Place at the Board; Members are nam’d that have no Right to such Honour, unless it is a Privilege that is Inseperable from their Posts and Peerage; and he has given us Assurance of fine Pieces of Wit and Eloquence from a Quarter it never yet came.
Projectors, like Quacks, promise Wonders but ’tis always the Labour of the Mountain————I might enlarge on this Head if I had not run my Reflections too far already. I shall therefore conclude with a Discription of one of those Quacks and Pretenders, as I find it in the Speech of the famous Alexander Bendo, who, as much a Quack as he was, understood our Tongue and our Constitution as well as the Doctor and his Master.
Reflect a little, says he, what a kind of Creature a Quack is. Mind what follows. He is one who is fain to supply some higher Ability he pretends to with Craft. He draws great Companies to him by undertaking strange Things which can never be effected. The rest is so valuable, that tho I digress’d in it Ten times more than I do, I would present the Doctor with it, and leave it to his serious Consideration.
The Politician by his Example, no doubt, finding how the People are taken with specious, miraculous Impossibilities, plays the same Game, protests, declares, promises, I know not what things, which he is sure can ne’er be brought about. The People believe, are deluded, and pleased; the Expectation of a future Good, which shall never befal them, draws their Eyes off of a present Evil. Thus they are kept and establish’d in Subjection, Peace and Obedience, and he in Greatness, Wealth, and Power: So you see the Politician is, and must be a Quack in State Affairs and the Quack (no doubt if he thrives) is an Errant Politician in Physick.