mediately started up, whose memory if he had not kept alive by his replies, it would now be utterly unknown, that he was ever answered at all. There is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvell's answer to Parker[1], with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago; so the Earl of Orrery's remarks will be read with delight, when the dissertation he exposes will neither be sought nor found[2]: but these are no enterprises for common hands, nor to be hoped for above once or twice in an age. Men would be more cautious of losing their time in such an undertaking, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually, requires more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgement, than were employed in the writing of it. And the author assures those gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out much more than he left, and if his papers had not been a long lime out of his possession, they must have still undergone more severe corrections: and do they think such a building is to be battered with dirt-pellets, however envenomed the mouths may be that discharge them? He has seen the productions but of two answerers, one of
- ↑ Parker, afterwards bishop of Oxford, wrote many treatises against the dissenters, with insolence and contempt, says Burnet, that enraged them beyond measure; for which he was chastised by Andrew Marvell, under-secretary to Milton, in a little book called the Rehearsal transprosed.
- ↑ Boyle's remarks upon Bentley's dissertation on the epistles of Phalaris.
