ead._

There is a great deal more of it, all as Easy and Natural as this, in
the true Stile of Mrs. _Abigail_, and just as Amphibuous. It is as much
Poetry as Prose, Pretty and Innocent, according to the Rules of
Criticism; which the Author has taken more care not to break, than the
First Commandment; tho' one wou'd think it was his Business to have been
mindful of it; and if he had left the Smock to be upript by the Butler,
it wou'd have done every whit as well. I cannot help taking notice, that
the Clamour he raises about the Poets of King _Charles_ the Second's
Reign, the only Age of Poetry in _England_, is for their Contractions
and leaving out the _Eds_ and _Eths_, wherein he offends intollerably in
this very Dogrel of his. Who wou'd have said _Smock unript and down it
slipt_, and not _unripped_ and _slipped_; there is a waggery in it much
better than any _Hudibrastick_; for it wou'd have run thus:

_So when I went to put my Purse as God wou'd have it,
my Smock was unripped,_
_And instead of putting it into my Pocket down it slipped._

It will be no Authority with him, that Mr. _Dryden_ commonly contracted
the Syllables that end _in Ed or Eth_. He was a Poet, and tho' certainly
in most cases the sound is sweetned by it, yet it offends those who are
not for losing a Letter, and were they _Frenchmen_, would doubtless be
for pronouncing every one of them, as well as Writing, to the great
strengthning of that Enervate Tongue, which languishes in reading for
want of the _Ez's_ and _Er's_, so barbarously mangled in Pronounciation.
A great Lord, and one who wou'd be worthy of a Place, which is deny'd
him in this Academy, having written against my Lord _Rochester_ in an
_Essay upon Poetry_, Mr. _Wolseley_, attacks the _Essayer_ in a Preface
written on purpose, and printed before _Valentinian_, wherein he has
criticis'd on his Lordship's Poem, and on these two Lines in particular.

_That Author's Name has undeserved Praise,_
_Who pall'd the Appetite he meant to raise._

Where he observes the Advantage the Verse had in the _Ed_, for without
it it must have hobled on Nine Feet instead of Ten. _What does that Ed_,
says he, _in +undeserved+ do there? I know no Business it has, unless it
be to crutch a Lame Verse, and each out a scanty Sense; for the Word
that is now used is Undeserv'd. I shou'd not take notice of such a Thing
as this, but that I have to do with a giver of Rules, and a Magisterial
Corrector of