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A common soldier bears no such envy to his general as to his sergeant or corporal; nor does an eminent writer meet with so great jealousy in common hackney scriblers, as in authors, that more nearly approach him. It may, indeed, be thought, that the greater the disproportion is, the greater must be the uneasiness from the comparison.
Though this one Text were able to convert ye, Ye needy Tribe of Scriblers to the Party; Yet there are more advantages than these, For write, invent, and make what Plots you please, The wicked Party keep your Witnesses; Like frugal Cuckold-makers you beget Brats that secur'd by others fires shall sit.
For my own part, I would never trust a Man that I thought was capable of giving these secret Wounds, and cannot but think that he would hurt the Person, whose Reputation he thus assaults, in his Body or in his Fortune, could he do it with the same Security. There is indeed something very barbarous and inhuman in the ordinary Scriblers of Lampoons.
Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary Postulatums of these infamous Scriblers, upon which they proceed as upon first Principles granted by all Men, though in their Hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these Foundations of Scurrility, it is no wonder that their Superstructure is every way answerable to them.
To transplant and make him ours, is not only a valuable acquisition to us, but a just censure of the critical impertinence of those French scriblers, who have taken pains to make little cavils and exceptions, to lessen the reputation of this great man, whom nature hath made too big to confine himself to the exactness of a studied stile.
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