o be guilty
of the least slip, or seeming blunder, another shall presendy correct
him for it, and then to it they go in a tongue-combat, with all the
fervour, spleen, and eagerness imaginable. May Priscian himself be my
enemy if what I am now going to say be not exactly true. I knew an
old Sophister that was a Grecian, a latinist, a mathematician, a
philosopher, a musician, and all to the utmost perfection, who, after
threescore years' experience in the world, had spent the last twenty of
them only in drudging to conquer the criticisms of grammar, and made
it the chief part of his prayers, that his life might be so long spared
till he had learned how righdy to distinguish betwixt the eight parts of
speech, which no grammarian, whether Greek or Latin, had yet accurately
done. If any chance to have placed that as a conjunction which ought to
have been used as an adverb, it is a sufficient alarm to raise a war
for doing justice to the injured word. And since there have been as many
several grammars, as particular grammarians (nay, more, for Aldus alone
wrote five distinct grammars for his own share), the schoolmaster must
be obliged to consult them all, sparing for no time nor trouble, though
never so great, lest he should be otherwise posed in an unobserved
criticism, and so by an irreparable disgrace lose the reward of all his
toil. It is indifferent to me whether you call this folly or madness,
since you must needs confess that it is by my influence these
school-tyrants, though in never so despicable a condition, are so happy
in their own thoughts, that they would not change fortunes with the most
illustrious Sophi of Persia.

[Illustration: 242]

The Poets, however somewhat less beholden to me, own a professed
dependence on me, being a sort of lawless blades, that by prescription
claim a license to a proverb, while the whole intent of their profession
is only to smooth up and tickle the ears of fools, that by mere toys and
fabulous shams, with which (however ridiculous) they are so bolstered
up in an airy imagination, as to promise themselves an everlasting name,
and promise, by their balderdash, at the same time to celebrate the
never-dying memory of others. To these rapturous wits self-love and
flattery are never-failing attendants; nor do any prove more zealous or
constant devotees to folly.

The Rhetoricians likewise, though they are ambitious of being ranked
among the Philosophers, yet are apparently of my fact