States, that as those Men are their own Masters, their Mind us’d to this Independence, produces nothing but what has the Marks of that Liberty, which is the Principal Aim of all their Actions.

Now what a Friend the Letter writer, is to Liberty, we may see in the Examiner of the 26th of April, 1711, which, tho’, it may be he did not Write himself, whatever some People say to the contrary, he and his Party have sufficiently own’d to make them accountable for every Word in that and the rest of them. The reason why Publick Injuries are so seldom redress’d is for want of Arbitrary Power, he calls it Discretionary; ’tis true, and if I have wrong’d him, by putting Arbitrary in its Place; I ask his Pardon.—

Having said thus much of his Party in general, I might descend to Particulars, and examine the sufficiency of the Characters of his Academicians, a List of them being handed up and down, in which the Author is not forgot. It is set off with Names that must not be repeated, and amongst the rest are a Doctor or two, two or three Poets and Tell Tales, and that Learned and Facetious Person Mr. D——ny, whose very Name gives unspeakeable Hopes of the Progress of such a Society, in refining our Language, which he and most of his Brethren are so great Masters of, that if twenty of the List will oblige us with as many Lines of Common Sense and Common Grammar, I will be bound to read every thing that shall be publish’d by this Famous Academy, that is to be or under their Auspices, tho’ I had much rather change that Pennance for Ogilby and Blome. To give us the better Idea of his Scheme, he has consulted with very Judicious Persons; we may judge of what truth there is in his Panegyricks, by that of the deceas’d Examiner on himself; where he says, he had written with so much Reputation, and so much to the Confusion of the Whigs, that they themselves have a Value for his Person and Abilities, tho they have an Aversion to his Cause. Of the same size, I doubt not, are the able and judicious Persons he has consulted about his Design, which must be own’d to be very good in it self, and capable of such Improvement as wou’d make it one of the Glories of Her Majesty’s most Glorious Reign. But alas, he will never have the Honour of it. A Noble Lord, on whom he has written Libels and Encomiums, was the first that thought of such a thing, and some Years since nam’d forty Gentlemen to be Members of an Academy, on a Foundation refining on the French of which Number I am very well satisfy’d, not a Man of his most Illustrious Band wou’d ever have been, and that tho’ he is so generous as to promise the Whigs that they shall come in if they will, he must look ’em out better Company, or his Academy will have the Glory of this great Work to themselves. Indeed the way is prepar’d for them to Immortality, two English Grammars having been publish’d within this Twelvemonth, and it remains to him and his Fraternity, to add a Dictionary worthy those Immortal Labours; for which, there are not a Set of Men in England better qualify’d, and so equal to so honourable a Task.

One wou’d think, that towards advancing this Scheme, all the Literati of this Kingdom had sent their Powers to Him. That all the Whigs as well as Tories had entrusted him with their Proxies; for he says I do here in the Name of all the Learned and Polite Persons of the Nation complain, &c. Whereas whatever has been brag’d by him in other Papers of the Nine in Ten, being on his side for the Land and Church Interest, not nine in a thousand will trust him with that of Wit. And I do here in the Name of all the Whigs, protest against all and every thing done or to be done in it, by him or in his Name; being a Person with whom they will have no manner of Dealings, as he very well knows, or they might now have had him Scribbling for them as well as when that Discourse was written of the Contests and Dissentions of the Nobles and Commons in Athens and Rome, wherein it is said, ’tis agreed, that in all Governments there is an absolute unlimited Power which naturally and originally seems to be plac’d in the People in the whole Body; wherever the Executive part lies; again, this unlimited Power plac’d fundamentally in the Body of a People, &c. and that he wrote better then than he has done since is not to be wonder’d at, if there is any truth in what Longinus’s Philosopher says.

It would be a poor Triumph to convict him of an Error in History 1700 Years ago, where he tells us, That Cæsar never attempted this Island; no Conquest was ever attempted till the Time of Claudius, since I do not find that he or his Brethren have any Notion at all that Truth is necessary in History: For they deny what was done Yesterday, as frankly as if it had been in Julius Cæsar’s Time; yet he himself has been sometimes forc’d to confess the Power of Truth, and pay Allegiance to it; as where he says, the great Reason of the Corruption of the Roman Tongue was the changing their Government into Tyranny, which ruined the Study of Eloquence; and because the Whigs shall have a Share in it, he adds, and their calling in the Palatines, their giving several Towns in Germany the Freedom of the City. A very pleasant Reason that; for when the Roman Language was in the height of its Purity in the Augustan Age, the Cities of Asia and Africk were admitted to that Privilege, as much as the Europeans were afterwards; and yet it cannot be pretended the Moors were naturally more Polite than the Germans. It is plain therefore this was a Party Stroke in favour of the Naturalization Act, to shew what Inconveniences it hinders by preventing Foreigners coming among us to debauch our Stile, as may be seen by the prodigious Number of Dutch Words that K. William brought with him into England.

Another Instance of the forc’d Homage he pays to Truth, is his blaming the Slavish Disposition of the Senate and People of Rome, by which the Eloquence of the Age was wholly turn’d into Panegyrick. Now considering how many Pages he has prodigally bestow’d upon it, in the very Letter I am taking cognizance of is it not very odd he should call Panegyrick a Slavish Disposition, and worse still that he should term it the most barren of all Subjects; what if I could prove, that above half of his Three Sheets of Paper are of that kind of Panegyrick, which is so fatal to great Men. The Greeks said, Flatterers were like so many Ravens croaking about them, and that they never lifted a Man up but as the Eagle does the Tortoise, in order to get something by the fall of him.

It is a sad Case, when Men get a habit of saying what they please, not caring whether True or False: Who can without pity see our Letter Writer accuse the Famous La Bruyere, for being accessary to the declining of the French Tongue, by his Affectation; when it is notorious, that La Bruyere is