_Book_. Fie upon it, gentlemen! what, not at your pens? Do you
consider, Mr Quibble, that it is a fortnight since your Letter to a
Friend in the Country was published? Is it not high time for an Answer
to come out? At this rate, before your Answer is printed, your Letter
will be forgot. I love to keep a controversy up warm. I have had
authors who have writ a pamphlet in the morning, answered it in the
afternoon, and answered that again at night.
_Quib_. Sir, I will be as expeditious as possible: but it is
harder to write on this side the question, because it is the wrong
side.
_Book_. Not a jot. So far on the contrary, that I have known some
authors choose it as the properest to shew their genius. But let me
see what you have produced; "With all deference to what that very
learned and most ingenious person, in his Letter to a Friend in the
Country, hath advanced." Very well, sir; for, besides that, it may
sell more of the Letter: all controversial writers should begin with
complimenting their adversaries, as prize-fighters kiss before they
engage. Let it be finished with all speed. Well, Mr Dash, have you
done that murder yet?
_Dash_. Yes, sir, the murder is done; I am only about a few moral
reflexions to place before it.
_Book_. Very well: then Jet me have the ghost finished by this
day se'nnight.
_Dash_. What sort of a ghost would you have this, sir? the last
was a pale one.
_Book_. Then let this be a bloody one. Mr Quibble, you may lay by
that life which you are about; for I hear the person is recovered, and
write me out proposals for delivering five sheets of Mr Bailey's
English Dictionary every week, till the whole be finished. If you do
not know the form, you may copy the proposals for printing Bayle's
Dictionary in the same manner. The same words will do for both.
_Enter_ INDEX.
So, Mr Index, what news with you?
_Index_. I have brought my bill, sir.
_Book_. What's here? For fitting the motto of Risum teneatis
Amici to a dozen pamphlets, at sixpence per each, six shillings; for
Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori, sixpence; for Difficile est
Satyram non scribere, sixpence. Hum! hum! hum!--sum total for
thirty-six Latin mottoes, eighteen shillings; ditto English, one
shilling and ninepence; ditto Greek, four--four shillings. These Greek
mottoes are excessively dear.
_Ind_. If you have them cheaper at either of the universities, I
will give you mine for nothing.
_Book_. You shall have your money immediately; and pray remember,
that I must have two Latin seditious mottoes and one Greek moral motto
for pamphlets by to-morrow morning.
_Quib_. I want two Latin sentences, sir--one for page the fourth
in the praise of loyalty, and another for page the tenth in praise of
liberty and property.
_Dash_. The ghost would become a motto very well if you would
bestow one on him.
_Book_. Let me have them all.
_Ind_. Sir, I shall provide them. Be pleased to look on that,
sir, and print me five hundred proposals and as many receipts.
_Book_. "Proposals for printing by subscription a New Translation
of Cicero Of the Nature of the Gods, and his Tusculan Questions, by
Jeremy Index, Esq." I am sorry you have undertaken this, for it
prevents a design of mine.
_Ind_. Indeed, sir, it does not; for you see all of the book that
I ever intend to publish. It is only a handsome way of asking one's
friends for a guinea.
_Book_. Then you have not translated a word of it, perhaps.
_Ind_. Not a single syllable.
_Book_. Well, you shall have your proposals forthwith: but I
desire you would be a little more reasonable in your bills for the
future, or I shall deal with you no longer; for I have a certain
fellow of a college, who offers to furnish me with second-hand mottoes
out of the Spectator for twopence each.
_Ind_. Sir, I only desire to live by my goods; and I hope you
will be pleased to allow some difference between a neat fresh piece,
piping hot out of the classicks, and old threadbare worn-out stuff
that has past through every pedant's mouth and been as common at the
universities as their whores.