To instance only in that passage about the three wooden machines mentioned in the Introduction: in the original manuscript there was a description of a fourth, which those who had the papers in their power, blotted out, as having something in it of satire, that I suppose they thought was too particular; and therefore they were forced to change it to the number Three, from whence some have endeavoured to squeeze out a dangerous meaning, that was never thought on. And, indeed, the conceit was half spoiled by changing the numbers; that of Four being much more cabalistic, and, therefore, better exposing the pretended virtue of Numbers, a superstition there intended to be ridiculed.
Another thing to be observed is, that there generally runs an irony through the thread of the whole book, which the men of taste will observe and distinguish, and which will render some objections that have been made, very weak and insignificant.
This Apology being chiefly intended for the satisfaction of future readers, it may be thought unnecessary to take any notice of such treatises as have been writ against this ensuing discourse, which are already sunk into waste paper and oblivion, after the usual fate of common answerers to books, which are allowed to have any merit: they are indeed like annuals, that grow about a young tree, and seem to vie with it for a summer but fall and die with the leaves in autumn, and are never heard of any more. When Dr. Eachard writ his book about the Contempt of the Clergy, numbers of those answerers immediately started up, whose memory, if he had not kept alive by his replies, it would now be utterly unknown that he were ever answered at all. There is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvell’s Answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago: so the Earl of Orrery’s Remarks will be read with delight, when the Dissertation he exposes will neither be sought nor found: but these are no enterprises for common hands, nor to be hoped for above once or twice in an age. Men would be more cautious of losing their time in such an undertaking, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually, requires more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgment, than were employed in the writing it. And the author assures those gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out much more than he left, and if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must have still undergone more severe corrections: and do they think such a building is to be battered with dirt-pellets, however envenomed the mouths may be that discharge them? He hath seen the productions but of two answerers, one of which first appeared as from an unknown hand, but since avowed by a person, who, upon some occasions, hath discovered no ill vein of humour. ‘Tis a pity any occasion should put him under a necessity of being so hasty in his productions, which, otherwise, might often be entertaining. But there were other reasons obvious enough for his miscarriage in this; he writ against the conviction of his talent, and entered upon one of the wrongest attempts in nature, to turn into ridicule by a week’s labour, a work which had cost much time, and met with so much success in ridiculing others: the manner how he has handled his subject I have now forgot, having just looked it over when it first came out, as others did, merely for the sake of the title.
The other answer is from a person of a graver character, and is made up of half invective, and half annotation; [3] in the latter of which, he hath generally succeeded well enough. And the protect at that time was not amiss, to draw in readers to his pamphlet, several having appeared desirous that there might be some explication of the more difficult passages. Neither can he be altogether blamed for offering at the invective part, because it is agreed on all hands that the author had given him sufficient provocation. The great objection is against his manner of treating it, very unsuitable to one of his function. It was determined by a fair majority, that this answerer had, in a way not to be pardoned, drawn his pen against a certain great man then alive, and universally reverenced for every good quality that could possibly enter into the composition of the most accomplished person; it was observed how he was pleased, and affected to have that noble writer called his adversary; and it was a point of satire well directed; for I have been told Sir W____ T____ was sufficiently mortified at the term. All the men of wit and politeness were immediately up in arms through indignation, which prevailed over their contempt, by the consequences they apprehended from such an example; and it grew to be Porsenna’s case; idem trecenti juravimus. In short, things were ripe for a general insurrection, till my Lord Orrery had a little laid the spirit, and settled the ferment. But his lordship being principally engaged with another antagonist, it was thought necessary, in order to quiet the minds of men, that this opposer should receive a reprimand, which partly occasioned that discourse of The Battle of the Books; and the author was farther at the pains to insert one or two remarks on him, in the body of the book.
This answerer has been pleased to find fault with about a dozen passages, which the author will not be at the trouble of defending, farther than by assuring the reader, that, for the greater part, the reflecter is entirely mistaken, and forces interpretations which never once entered into the writer’s head, nor will he is sure into that of any reader of taste and candour; he allows two or three at most, there produced, to have been delivered unwarily: for which he desires to plead the excuse offered already, of his youth, and frankness of speech, and his papers being out of his power at the time they were published.
But this answerer insists, and says, what he chiefly dislikes, is the design: what that was, I have already told, and I believe there is not a person in England who can understand that book, that ever imagined it to have been anything else, but to expose the abuses and corruptions in Learning and Religion.
But it would be good to know what design this reflecter was serving, when he concludes his pamphlet with a Caution to Readers to beware of thinking the author’s wit was entirely his own: surely this must have had some allay of personal animosity, at least mixed with the design of serving the public by so useful a discovery; and it indeed touches the author in a very tender point, who insists upon it, that through the whole book he has not borrowed one single hint from any writer in the world; and he thought, of all criticisms, that would never have been one. He conceived it was never disputed to be an original, whatever faults it might have. However this answerer produces three instances to prove this author’s wit is not his own in many places. The first is, that the names of Peter, Martin, and Jack, are borrowed from a letter of the late Duke of Buckingham. Whatever wit is contained in those three names, the author is content to give it up, and desires his readers will subtract as much as they placed upon that account; at the same time protesting solemnly, that he never once heard of that letter, except in this passage of the answerer: so that the names were not borrowed, as he affirms, though they should happen to be the same; which, however, is odd enough, and what he hardly believes, that of Jack being not quite so obvious as the other two. The second instance to show the author’s wit is not his own, is Peter’s banter (as he calls it in his Alsatia phrase) upon Transubstantiation, which is taken from the same duke’s conference with an Irish priest, where a cork is turned into a horse. This the author confesses to have seen about ten years after his book was writ, and a year or two after it was published. Nay, the answerer overthrows this himself; for he allows the Tale was writ in 1697; and I think that pamphlet was not printed in many years after. It was necessary that corruption should have some allegory as well as the rest; and the author invented the properest he could, without inquiring what other people had writ; and the commonest reader will find, there is not the least resemblance between the two stories. The third instance is in these words; ‘I have been assured, that the battle in St. James’s Library is, mutatis mutandis, taken out of a French book, entitled, Combat des Livres, if I misremember not.’ In which passage there are two clauses observable; ‘I have been assured’; and, ‘if I misremember not.’ I desire first to know whether, if that conjecture proves an utter falsehood, those two clauses will be a sufficient excuse for this worthy critic. The matter is a trifle; but, would he venture to pronounce at this rate upon one of greater moment? I know nothing more contemptible in a writer than the character of a plagiary, which he here fixes at a venture; and this not for a passage, but a whole discourse, taken out from another book, only mutatis mutandis. The author is as much in the dark about this as the answerer; and will imitate him by an affirmation at random; that if there be a word of truth in this reflection, he is a paltry, imitating pedant; and the answerer is a person of wit, manners, and truth. He takes his boldness, from never having seen any such treatise in his life, nor heard of it before; and he is sure it is impossible for two writers, of different times and countries, to agree in their thoughts after such a manner, that two continued discourses shall be the same, only mutatis mutandis. Neither will he insist upon the mistake of the title, but let the answerer and his friend produce any book they please, he defies them to show one single particular, where the judicious reader will affirm he has been obliged for the smallest hint; giving only allowance for the accidental encountering of a single thought, which he knows may sometimes happen; though he has never yet found it in that discourse, nor has heard it objected by anybody else.