Page:Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (Elstob 1715).djvu/15

 a laudable Pedigree, are backward in all due Respect and Veneration towards a noble Ancestry.

Their great Condescenfion to Dr. Hickes in allowing him to have been a very curious Inquirer into those obsolete Tongues, now out of use, and containing no- thing valuable in them, is a Compliment for which I believe you, Sir, will give me leave to assure them, that he is not at all obliged, since if it signifies any thing, it imports, no less than that he has employ'd a great deal of Time, and a great deal of Pains, to little purpose. But we must at least borrow so much Assurance from them, as to tell them, that your Friends, who consist of the most learned fort of your own Countrey-men, and of Foreigners, do not think those Tongues so obsolete and out of use, whose Significancy is so apparent in Etymology; nor do they think those Men competent Judges to declare, whether there be any thing contain'd in them valuable or not, who have made it clear, that they know not what is contain'd in them. They wou'd rather assure them, that our greatest Divines, and Lawyers, and Historians are of another Opinion, they wou'd advise them to consult our. Libraries, those of the two Universities, the Cottonian, and my Lord Treasurers; to study your whole Thesaurus, particularly your Dissertatio Epistolaris, to look