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nothing of what had passed in the best companies of court and town.
So that I can only avow in general to your Highness that we do
abound in learning and wit, but to fix upon particulars is a task
too slippery for my slender abilities. If I should venture, in a
windy day, to affirm to your Highness that there is a large cloud
near the horizon in the form of a bear, another in the zenith with
the head of an ass, a third to the westward with claws like a
dragon; and your Highness should in a few minutes think fit to
examine the truth, it is certain they would be all chanced in figure
and position, new ones would arise, and all we could agree upon
would be, that clouds there were, but that I was grossly mistaken in
the zoography and topography of them.
But your governor, perhaps, may still insist, and put the question,
What is then become of those immense bales of paper which must needs
have been employed in such numbers of books? Can these also be
wholly annihilated, and to of a sudden, as I pretend? What shall I
say in return of so invidious an objection? It ill befits the
distance between your Highness and me to send you for ocular
conviction to a jakes or an oven, to the windows of a bawdyhouse, or
to a sordid lanthorn. Books, like men their authors, have no more
than one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to
go out of it and return no more.
I profess to your Highness, in the integrity of my heart, that what
I am going to say is literally true this minute I am writing; what
revolutions may happen before it shall be ready for your perusal I
can by no means warrant; however, I beg you to accept it as a
specimen of our learning, our politeness, and our wit. I do
therefore affirm, upon the word of a sincere man, that there is now
actually in being a certain poet called John Dryden, whose
translation of Virgil was lately printed in large folio, well bound,
and if diligent search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be
seen. There is another called Nahum Tate, who is ready to make oath
that he has caused many reams of verse to be published, whereof both
himself and his bookseller, if lawfully required, can still produce
authentic copies, and therefore wonders why the world is pleased to
make such a secret of it. There is a third, known by the name of
Tom Durfey, a poet of a vast comprehension, an universal genius, and
most profound learning. There are also one Mr. Rymer and one Mr.
Dennis, most profound critics. There is a person styled Dr.
Bentley, who has wrote near a thousand pages of immense erudition,
giving a full and true account of a certain squabble of wonderful
importance between himself and a bookseller; he is a writer of
infinite wit and humour, no man rallies with a better grace and in
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