SIR,

I here present your Highness with the fruits of a very few leisure

hours, stolen from the short intervals of a world of business, and of

an employment quite alien from such amusements as this; the poor

production of that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon my hands

during a long prorogation of Parliament, a great dearth of foreign

news, and a tedious fit of rainy weather. For which, and other reasons,

it cannot choose extremely to deserve such a patronage as that of your

Highness, whose numberless virtues in so few years, make the world look

upon you as the future example to all princes. For although your

Highness is hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the universal learned

world already resolved upon appealing to your future dictates with the

lowest and most resigned submission, fate having decreed you sole

arbiter of the productions of human wit in this polite and most

accomplished age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough to

shock and startle any judge of a genius less unlimited than yours; but

in order to prevent such glorious trials, the person, it seems, to

whose care the education of your Highness is committed, has resolved,

as I am told, to keep you in almost an universal ignorance of our

studies, which it is your inherent birthright to inspect.

It is amazing to me that this person should have assurance, in the face

of the sun, to go about persuading your Highness that our age is almost

wholly illiterate and has hardly produced one writer upon any subject.

I know very well that when your Highness shall come to riper years, and

have gone through the learning of antiquity, you will be too curious to

neglect inquiring into the authors of the very age before you; and to

think that this insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view,

designs to reduce them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed to

mention; it moves my zeal and my spleen for the honour and interest of

our vast flourishing body, as well as of myself, for whom I know by

long experience he has professed, and still continues, a peculiar

malice.

It is not unlikely that, when your Highness will one day peruse what I

am now writing, you may be ready to expostulate with your governor upon

the credit of what I here affirm, and command him to show you some of

our productions. To which he will answer--for I am well informed of

his designs--by asking your Highness where they are, and what is become

of them? and pretend it a demonstration that there never were any,

because they are not then to be found. Not to be found! Who has mislaid

them? Are they sunk in the abyss of things? It is certain that in their

own nature they were light enough to swim upon the surface for all

eternity; therefore, the fault is in him who tied weights so heavy to

their heels as to depress them to the centre. Is their very essence

destroyed? Who has annihilated them? Were they drowned by purges or

martyred by pipes? Who administered them to the posteriors of ----. But

that it may no longer be a doubt with your Highness who is to be the

author of this universal ruin, I beseech you to observe that large and

terrible scythe which your governor affects to bear continually about

him. Be pleased to remark the length and strength, the sharpness and

hardness, of his nails and teeth; consider his baneful, abominable

breath, enemy to life and matter, infectious and corrupting, and then

reflect whether it be possible for any mortal ink and paper of this

generation to make a suitable resistance. Oh, that your Highness would

one day resolve to disarm this usurping _maître de 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 unparalled

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 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 changed 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 so 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 lantern. 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

more sprightly turns. Further, I avow to your Highness that with these

eyes I have beheld the person of William Wotton, B.D., who has written

a good-sized volume against a friend of your governor, from whom, alas!

he must therefore look for little favour, in a most gentlemanly style,

adorned with utmost politeness and civility, replete with discoveries

equally valuable for their novelty and use, and embellished with traits

of wit so poignant and so apposite, that he is a worthy yoke-mate to

his fore-mentioned friend.

Why should I go upon farther particulars, which might fill a volume

with the just eulogies of my contemporary brethren? I shall bequeath

this piece of justice to a larger work, wherein I intend to write a

character of the present set of wits in our nation; their persons I

shall describe particularly and at length, their genius and

understandings in miniature.

In the meantime, I do here make bold to present your Highness with a

faithful abstract drawn from the universal body of all arts and

sciences, intended wholly for your service and instruction. Nor do I

doubt in the least, but your Highness will peruse it as carefully and

make as considerable improvements as other young princes have already

done by the many volumes of late years written for a help to their

studies.

That your Highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, as well as years,

and at last outshine all your royal ancestors, shall be the daily

prayer of,

Sir,

Your Highness's most devoted, &c.

_Decem_. 1697.