Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/272

198 But to bring the Examiner near to the picture, if perhaps it may have some little resemblance to himself. Has he observed the rules of "civility," in writing the most scurrilous and virulent book that the age has yet seen? Has he kept to the measures of "decency," in raking up so many tales and hearsays, that a man of honour would scorn to repeat? Has he distinguished the "character of him he wrote against," in abusing and vilifying upon the falsest surmises a man in Holy Orders, a Doctor in Divinity, a domestic servant to one of the greatest of Kings, and the first that was employed to preach the Lecture established by the great Mr Boyle, a relation of the Examiner's? If these be against all rules of civility, and decency, and distinction of characters, then I suppose his first and surest mark of a pedant, will be thought to hit himself.

2. "A second mark is to use a Greek or Latin word, when there is an English one that signifies the very same thing." Now if this be one of his marks, himself is a pedant by his own confession: for in this very sentence of his, signify is a Latin word, and there's an English one that means the very same thing. We shall do the Examiner therefore no injury in