Page:Curious history on several occasions.pdf/8

( 8 ) The taſk I have undertaken Gentlemen, is arduous, and might terrify a coward to go through with it; Yet I am not in the leaſt afraid of furniſhing once a-week, a proper repaſt for a virtuous and well diſpoſed mind, providing I meet with ſuitable encouragement, but without that inſipid dullneſs will ſoon prevail, to avoid which, Claudero propoſes to pipe no longer than your caſh dances to his chanter.

Foreign Mimicks have had the effrontery of late, to perſuade the ſons and Daughters of Edina, that they could neither ſpeak read nor write, and one of them delivered ſeveral rheotricalrhetorical [sic] lectures to crouded audiences, in order to inform us of what he alleged we knew nothing of, though indeed vice verſa; However he gained his point ſo far as to pick up 500l. In this metropolis, and when he was attacked by myſelf in a pamphlet, wherein I endeavoured to counteract him, by challenging the whole itenerant fraternity to read ſome celebrated Scots pieces, he fled with precipitation, and ſcoffingly, though conſiſtent with justice and truth, told he had got 500l, for informing the Scots of what they knew much better than himſelf.

By introducing this ſtory, I mean to perſuade you to keep your own Fiſh guts to your own Sea Maws, and not to deſpiſe a Plumb-Tree for no other or better cauſe, than its being brought forth and nouriſhed in your own Garden.

I am too poſſeſſed, Gentlemen, of a Syllabus of LectruesLectures [sic] on Rhetoric, and could undertake to deliver a very