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palais of his furious engines, and bring your empire hors du page.

It were endless to recount the several methods of tyranny and
destruction which your governor is pleased to practise upon this
occasion. His inveterate malice is such to the writings of our age,
that, of several thousands produced yearly from this renowned city,
before the next revolution of the sun there is not one to be heard
of. Unhappy infants! many of them barbarously destroyed before they
have so much as learnt their mother-tongue to beg for pity. Some he
stifles in their cradles, others he frights into convulsions,
whereof they suddenly die, some he flays alive, others he tears limb
from limb, great numbers are offered to Moloch, and the rest,
tainted by his breath, die of a languishing consumption.

But the concern I have most at heart is for our Corporation of
Poets, from whom I am preparing a petition to your Highness, to be
subscribed with the names of one hundred and thirty-six of the first
race, but whose immortal productions are never likely to reach your
eyes, though each of them is now an humble and an earnest appellant
for the laurel, and has large comely volumes ready to show for a
support to his pretensions. The never-dying works of these
illustrious persons your governor, sir, has devoted to unavoidable
death, and your Highness is to be made believe that our age has
never arrived at the honour to produce one single poet.

We confess immortality to be a great and powerful goddess, but in
vain we offer up to her our devotions and our sacrifices if your
Highness's governor, who has usurped the priesthood, must, by an
unparalleled ambition and avarice, wholly intercept and devour them.

To affirm that our age is altogether unlearned and devoid of writers
in any kind, seems to be an assertion so bold and so false, that I
have been sometimes thinking the contrary may almost be proved by
uncontrollable demonstration. It is true, indeed, that although
their numbers be vast and their productions numerous in proportion,
yet are they hurried so hastily off the scene that they escape our
memory and delude our sight. When I first thought of this address,
I had prepared a copious list of titles to present your Highness as
an undisputed argument for what I affirm. The originals were posted
fresh upon all gates and corners of streets; but returning in a very
few hours to take a review, they were all torn down and fresh ones
in their places. I inquired after them among readers and
booksellers, but I inquired in vain; the memorial of them was lost
among men, their place was no more to be found; and I was laughed to
scorn for a clown and a pedant, devoid of all taste and refinement,
little versed in the course of present affairs, and that knew

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