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_ and who must do it? He tells you with great Modesty and Discernment in the 27th Page, _The Choice of Hands should be left to him_, and _he would then assign it over to the Women_, because they are softer mouth'd, and are more for _Liquids_ than the Men, as he try'd himself in a very notable Experiment. I wonder a grave, serious Divine, who is so well vers'd in College Learning, should in Compliment to a certain Lady, whose Breeding and Conversation must have given her wonderful Opportunities to refine our Tongue, imagine, that the Two Universities would give up so Essential a Branch of their Privileges to the Ladies, and take from them the Standard of _English_. This puts me in mind of _Fontenelle_'s way of Learning a Language, which he recommends to be by having an Intrigue with some Fair Foreigner; and beginning with the Verb _I Love, You Love_, &c. It is well enough from Him, a _Papist_, or _Layman_, but for a Protestant Divine to erect an Academy of Women to improve our Stile, is very extraordinary and gallant, and little agrees with the cruel Quotation of the Author of _the Tale of a Tub_, p. 163.