and I think whoever reads Hudibras, cannot BUT LEER. I have coT ONE more, who travestied Virgil, though not equal to the former.

After the Restoration, poets became very numerous; the chief, whose fame is louder than a MILLTONE, must never be forgot. And here I must observe, that poets in those days loved retirement so much, that sometimes they lived in dens. One of them in a DRY-DEN: another called his den his village, or DEN-HAM; and I am informed that the sorry fellow, who is now laureat, affects to USE-DENS still: but, to return from this digression, we were then famous for tragedy and comedy; the author of Venice Preserved is seldom o'r AWAY; yet he who wrote the Rival Queens, before he lost his senses, sometimes talked MAD-LEE. Another, who was of this kingdom, went into England, because it is more SOUTHERN; and he wrote tolerably well. I say nothing of the Satirist, with his old dam' verses. for comedy, the Plain Dealer, w'ICH EARLY Came into credit, is allowed on all hands an excellent piece he had a dull contemporary, who sometimes showed humour; but his colouring was bad, and he could not SHADE-WELL. Sir George, in my opinion, outdid them all, and was sharp at EITHER-EDGE. The duke is also excellent, who took a BOOK IN GAME, and turned it into ridicule, under the name of The Rehearsal. It is, indeed, no wonder to find poetry thrive under the reign of that prince; when by one of his great favourites, who was likewise an excellent poet, there was a DORE-SET open for all men of wit. Perhaps you WILL-MUTT'er, that I have left out the Earl of Rochester; but I never was one of his admirers.

As

Upon the Revolution, poetry seemed to decline; however, I shall PRY O'R as many poets as I can re

member. Mr Montague affected to be a patron of wit, and his house was the poets HALL-I-FAX for several years, which one of them used to STEP-NIGH every day. Another of them, who was my old acquaintance, succeeded well in comedy, but failed when he began to CON-GRAVE subjects. The rest came in a ROW.

The author of the Dispensary had written nothing else valuable, and therefore is too small in the GARTH. But may not a man be allowed to ADD IS OWN friend to the number? I mean the author of Cato.

To mention those who are now alive, would be endless; I will therefore only venture to lay down one maxim, that a good poet, if he designs to TICKLE the world, must be GAY and YOUNG; but, if he proposes to give us rational pleasure, he must be as grave as a POPE,

I am, sir,

Yours, &c.

gations of both parties, do declare, adjudge, decree, and determine, That the said Mrs Long, notwithstanding any privileges she may claim as aforesaid as a Lady of the Toast, shall, without essoin or demur, in two hours after the publishing of this our decree, make all advances to the said doctor, that he shall demand; and that the said advances shall not be made to the said doctor as un homme sans consequence, but purely upon account of his great merit. And we do hereby strictly forbid the said Mrs Vanhomrigh, and her fair daughter Hessy, to aid, abet, comfort, or encourage, her the said Mrs Long in her disobedience for the future. And, in consideration of the said Mrs Long's being a Toast, we think it just and reasonable, that the said doctor should permit her, in all companies, to give herself the reputation of being one of his acquaintance; which no other lady shall presume to do, upon any pretence whatsoever, without his especial leave and licence first had and obtained.

By especial command, G. V. HOMRIGH. †

*

* In the course of his Journal, Swift expresses himself very wrothfully against those who took the freedom of claiming his acquaintance on slight grounds, particularly against the Countess of Bellamont, and an old crooked Scotch lady of quality.

+ The signature of Mrs Van Homrigh, mother of Vanessa.

DISCOURSE

TO PROVE

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE.

SHOWING, FROM VARIOUS INSTANCES, THAT HEBREW, GREEK, AND LATIN, WERE DERIVED FROM THE

ENGLISH.

DURING the reign of parties for about forty years past, it is a melancholy consideration to observe how philology has been neglected, which was before the darling employment of the greatest authors, from the restoration of learning in Europe. Neither do I remember it to have been cultivated, since the revolution, by any one person, with great success, except our illustrious modern star, Doctor Richard Bentley, with whom the republic of learning must expire, as mathematics did with Sir Isaac Newton. My ambition has been gradually attempting, from my early youth, to be the holder of a rush-light before that great luminary; which, at least, might be of some little use during those short intervals, while he was snuffing his candle, or peeping with it under a bushel.

My present attempt is to assert the antiquity of our English tongue; which, as I shall undertake to prove by invincible arguments, has varied very little for these two thousand six hundred and thirty-four

years past. And my proofs will be drawn from etymology; wherein I shall use my readers much fairer than Pezro, Skinner, Verstegan, Camden, and many other superficial pretenders, have done; for I will put no force upon the words, nor desire any more favour than to allow for the usual accidents of corruption, or the avoiding a cacophonia.

I think I can make it manifest to all impartial readers, that our language, as we now speak it, was originally the same with those of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, however corrupted in succeeding times by a mixture of barbarisms. I shall only produce at present two instances among a thousand from the Latin tongue. Cloaca, which they interpret a necessary-house, is altogether an English word; the last letter a being, by the mistake of some scribe, transferred from the beginning to the end of the word. In the primitive orthography, it is called a cloac, which had the same signification; and still continues so at Edinburgh in Scotland, where a man in a cloac, or cloak, of large circumference and length, carrying a convenient vessel under it, calls out, as he goes through the streets, "Wha has need of me?" Whatever customer calls, the vessel is placed in the corner of the street; the cloac, or a cloak, surrounds and covers him; and thus he is eased with decency and secrecy.

The second instance is yet more remarkable. The Latin word turpis signifies nasty, or filthy. Now this word turpis is a plain composition of two English words: only, by a syncope, the last letter of the first syllable, which is d, is taken out of the middle, to prevent the jarring of three consonants together: and these two English words express the most unseemly excrements that belong to man.

But although I could produce many other ex