In the mean time, Sir, methinks you are too good in putting me into ſuch company, and, under the diſguiſe of cenſuring my writings, have paid them a compliment much greater than they deſerve.
But, if you ſincerely deſigned this as a mark of your diſpleaſure, and did it with a cordial intent of ſuppreſſing my book, I am ſtill more ſuprized that you ſhould not expreſs the one and proſecute the other in a different manner; ſince the examples of many ages, and your own learned experience muſt have convinced you, that theſe ends are much more effectually obtained by ſilence and contempt, than by publick cenſures and prohibitions, which (as[1] Biſhop Taylor well obſerves) will always be found to inhance the value of a book, in which there is nothing vicious or immoral: and this, I am ſure, cannot be proved to be the caſe of mine.
Whatever diſſervice therefore you may imagine to have done me in my reputation, you have done a real ſervice to my bookſeller, who is not, I'll aſſure you, at all backward in his acknowledgements of this favour; nay, I ſometimes think him too
- ↑ Vide, Terræ Filius No 17.
