y curious Enquirer
into those obsolete Tongues, now out of use, and containing
nothing valuable, yet it does by no means follow (as is plain
from what has been said) that we are obliged to derive the
Sense, Construction, or Nature of our present Language from
his Discoveries.

I would beseech my Readers to observe, the Candour and Ingenuity of
these Gentlemen: They tell us, _We might give you various Instances
more of the essential difference between the old _Saxon_ and modern
_English_ Tongue_; and yet have plainly made it appear, that they know
little or nothing of the old _Saxon_. So that it will be hard to say
how they come to know of any such _essential difference, as _MUST_
satisfy any reasonabie Man_; and much more that this _essential
difference_ is so _great, that the _Saxon_ can be no Rule to us,
and that to understand ours, there is no need of knowing the _Saxon_.
_What they say, _that it cannot be a Rule to them_, is true; for
nothing can be a Rule of Direction to any Man, the use whereof he does
not understand; but if to understand the Original and Etymology of the
Words of any Language, be needful towards knowing the Propriety of any
Language, a thing which I have never heard hath yet been denied; then
do these Gentlemen stand self-condemned, there being no less than
four Words, in the Scheme of Declensions they have borrowed from
Dr. _Hickes_, now in use, which are of pure _Saxon_ Original, and
consequently _essential to the modern English_. I need not tell any
English Reader at this Day the meaning of _Smith_, _Word_, _Son_, and
_Good_; but if I tell them that these are Saxon Words, I believe they
will hardly deny them to be _essential to the modern English_, or that
they will conclude that the difference between the old _English_ and
the modern is so great, or the distance of Relation between them so
remote, as that the former deserves not to be remember'd: except by
such Upstarts who having no Title to a laudable Pedigree, are backward
in all due Respect and Veneration towards a noble Ancestry.

Their great Condescension to Dr. _Hickes_ in allowing him to have been
a very curious Inquirer into those _obsolete Tongues, now out of use,
and containing nothing valuable in them_, is a Compliment for which I
believe you, Sir, will give me leave to assure them, that he is not at
all obliged; since if it signifies any thing, it imports, no less than
that he has employ'd a great deal of Time, and a