the Publick would not receive them ill; at
least all those whom Faction and Prejudice have not render'd Insensible
of Truth and Reason, and to such, a Man must be well set to work that
writes a Task suitable to the Integrity and Ability of +Abel+ and his
Brethren, among whom I am very unwilling to reckon our Author._

REFLECTIONS

on

Dr. _Swift_'s Letter,

about

Refining the ENGLISH TONGUE.

I should be guilty of the greatest Folly in the World, if I should go
about to give a Character of Persons of whom I have no manner of
Knowledge. To speak well or ill of 'em wou'd be equally Ridiculous and
Dangerous: For it must be all Invention, and I might then abuse a Man
both in my Praise and Dispraise. It is thus with me with Respect to the
Author of the Letter lately publish'd about our Language, and to his
Patron. I know neither of them, and if I say a Word more than
themselves, or the World have said of them, I must have recourse to
Fiction, which I cannot think of without abhorrence, where Reputation is
concern'd.

That good old Church Martyr the Earl of _Strafford_ was of Opinion,
_Common Fame_ was enough to hang a Man, as in the Case of the Duke of
_Buckingham_, when he was impeach'd by the Commons for Male Practices in
his Ministry; and there were no better Grounds for accusing him, than
that every Body said so. I am quite of another Mind, and let the World
say what they will of any one, I am for condemning no body but whom the
Law Condemns, and therefore in these Reflections I shall not consider so
much how to please the Spleen of one Party, as how to expose the
Arrogance of another, who would lord it over us in every Thing, and not
only force their Principles upon us, but their Language, wherein they
endeavour to ape their good Friends the _French_, who for these three or
fourscore Years have been attempting to make their Tongue as Imperious
as their Power.

This most Ingenious Writer has so great a Value for his own Judgment in
Matters of Stile, that he has put his Name to his Letter, and a Name
greater than his own, as if he meant to Bully us into his Methods for
pinning down our Language and making it as Criminal to admit Foreign
Words as Foreign Trades, tho' our Tongue may be enrich'd by the one, as
much as our Traffick by the other. [Sidenote: _Page 28._] He would have
it _corrected, enlarg'd and ascertain'd