ulars 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 impor