ey had read with attention, which they ought to
have done before they attempted to give a character of the Book, they
must have known that the whole account of that lady (which is but one
page) is not mine, but borrowed with due acknowledgment from the
_General Dictionary_. They are likewise pleased to inform the world
that I have been rather too industrious in the undertaking, having
introduced several women who hardly deserved a place in the work. I did
not do this for want of materials; neither did I do it rashly, without
advising with others of superior judgment in those affairs, of which
number Mr. Professor Ward was one. But those pragmatical Censors seem to
have but little acquaintance with those studies, or otherwise they might
have observed that all our general Biographers, as Leland, Bale, Pits,
Wood, and Tanner, have trod the very same steps; and have given an
account of all the authors they could meet with, good and bad, just as
they found them: and yet, I have never heard of anyone that had courage
or ill-nature enough, to endeavour to expose them for it. While I was
ruminating on these affairs, three or four letters came to my hands, and
perceiving one of them come from my worthy friend the Dean of Exeter, I
eagerly broke it open, and was perfectly astonished to find myself
charged with _party zeal_ in my book; and that from thence the most
candid reader might conclude the author to be both a Church and State
Tory. But after having thoroughly considered all the passages objected
to, and not finding the least tincture of either Whig or Tory principles
contained in them, I began to cheer up my drooping spirits, in hopes
that I might possibly out-live my supposed crime; but, alas! to my still
greater confusion! when I opened my next letter from a Tory
acquaintance, I was like one thunderstruck at the contents of it. He
discharges his passionate but ill-grounded resentment upon me most
furiously. He tells me, he did not imagine Magdalen College could have
produced such a rank Whig. He reproaches me with want of due esteem for
the Stuart Family, to whom he says I have shewn a deadly hatred, and he
gives me, as he imagines, three flagrant instances of it. 1. That I have
unseasonably and maliciously printed a letter of Queen Elizabeth's, in
order to blacken the memory of Mary Queen of Scots, and that too, at a
time when her character began to shine as bright as the Sun. 2dly. That
I have endeavoured to make her mem