petulancy and pertness of spirit; the same train of
superficial reading; the same thread of threadbare quotations: the same
affectation of forming general rules upon false and scanty premises.
And, lastly, the same rapid venom sprinkled over the whole; which, like
the dying impotent bite of a trodden benumbed snake, may be nauseous and
offensive, but cannot be very dangerous.

And, indeed, I am so far from thinking this libel to be born of several
fathers, that it hath been the wonder of several others, as well as
myself; how it was possible for any man, who appeareth to have gone the
common circle of academical education;[2] who hath taken so universal a
liberty, and hath so entirely laid aside all regards, not only of
Christianity, but common truth and justice; one who is dead to all sense
of shame, and seemeth to be past the getting or losing a reputation,
should, with so many advantages, and upon so unlimited a subject, come
out with so poor, so jejune a production. Should we pity or be amazed at
so perverse a talent, which, instead of qualifying an author to give a
new turn to old matter, disposeth him quite contrary to talk in an old
beaten trivial manner upon topics wholly new. To make so many sallies
into pedantry without a call, upon a subject the most alien, and in the
very moments he is declaiming against it, and in an age too, where it is
so violently exploded, especially among those readers he proposeth to
entertain.

[Footnote 2: See note, p. 9, where it will be seen that Tindal was an
Oxford man. [T.S.]]

I know it will be said, that this is only to talk in the common style of
an answerer; but I have not so little policy. If there were any hope of
reputation or merit from such victory, I should be apt like others to
cry up the courage and conduct of an enemy. Whereas to detect the
weakness, the malice, the sophistry, the falsehood, the ignorance of
such a writer, requireth little more than to rank his perfections in
such an order, and place them in such a light, that the commonest reader
may form a judgment of them.

It may still be a wonder how so heavy a book, written upon a subject in
appearance so little instructive or diverting, should survive to three
editions, and consequently find a better reception than is usual with
such bulky spiritless volumes; and this, in an age that pretendeth so
soon to be nauseated with what is tedious and dull. To which I can only
return, that, as burning a book by t