thee, more particularly, for thy protection over us the day past; that thy good Spirit has kept us from falling into even the greatest sins, which, by our wicked and corrupt nature, we should greedily have been hurried into; and that, by the guard of thy holy angels, we have been kept safe from any of those evils that might have befallen us, and which many are now groaning under, who rose up in the morning in safety and peace as well as we. But above all, for that great mercy of contriving and effecting our redemption, by the death of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom, of thy great love to mankind, thou didst send into this world, to take upon him our flesh, to teach us thy will, and to bear the guilt of our transgressions, to die for our sins, and to rise again for our justification; and for enabling us to lay hold of that salvation, by the gracious assistances of thy Holy Spirit. Lord, grant that the sense of this wonderful love of thine to us, may effectually encourage us to walk in thy fear, and live to thy glory, that so when we shall put off this mortal state, we may be made partakers of that glory that shall then be revealed, which we beg of thee, for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ, who died to procure it for us, and in whose name and words we do offer up the desires of our souls unto thee, saying, "Our Father," &c. MR. LETTER ΤΟ ARCHI-RABBI SOPHI DIOTREPHES, &c. THE following ludicrous letter, composed in ridicule of the practice of using hard words, which he detested, is ascribed to Swift, in a Dublin collection of his pieces, called "The Drapier's Miscellany :" "A Letter, which was actually sent to a young country clergyman, (who used hard words in his sermon,) in behalf of his poor ignorant congregation, by a gentleman who accidentally heard him." "To the most Deuteronomical Polydoxologist, Pantophilological Linguist, Mr. Archi-Rabbi Sophi Diotrephes, &c. IR,-The unanimous and humillemous desiderations, as well of your parochian, ac hic-et-ubique semipaganian auditors, beg leave submissively to remonstrate, That although by your specious proems and spacious introductions, promising great perspicuity in predication, you endeavour to inveigle our affections, in order to indoctrinate our agricolated intellects; yet, through the caliginous imbecillity of internexed conundrums, tonitruating with obstreperous cadences, you rather obfusiate than illuminate our A-B-C-darian conceptions, so that we generally return not at all edified, but puzzled, confounded, and astonished: We, therefore, for our souls' good, (en bonne esperance that your urbanity will not be exasperated at the presentation of these our cordial desires,) do, from the nadir of our rusticity, almacantarize to the very zenith of your unparalleled sphere of activity, in beseeching your exuberant genius to nutriate our rational appetites with intelligible theology, suited to our plebeian apprehensions, and to recondite your acroamaticall locutions for more scholastic auscultators. For while our first, second, and third selves, together with our domestics, all of Ignoramus's offspring, hear you gigantize in Lycophonian and Pharigenous raptures, in words we never met with in holy writ, as corollaries, ephemeris, and such other heterogeneal language, without delucidation of their original signification, we lose the whole system of your doctrine in admiration of your agemious erudition. Being, therefore, under a panic timidity, lest we should see a restoration of the dialect of Babel, and that some sesquipedalian circumforaneous saltimbanco should mount the rostrum, and, after your example, should, in spagirical bombast, repuzzle the quintessential of our ingeniosities, with more amalgamations, cohabitations, and fexations; we beg you to call to mind St. Austin's saying, Mallem ut reprehendant grammatici, quam non intelligant populi; I had rather that the grammarians should blame, than that the people should not understand me.' "And now, egregious Sir, we supplicate your clemency, not to look upon these lines as derogatory to your most excellent parts and profound science, for we rather admire such superlative acquisitions, which, however, we humbly opine are more proper to be displayed among learned academicians than mechanical and agrestical auditors. And we estimate ourselves abundantly justified, in this our humble application, in the authority of St. Paul, much greater than that of St. Austin, who says, interpreted in plain English, 'If I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.' I Cor. xiv. And thus having copulated our plebeian endeuvours, we exosculate the subumbrations of your subligacles; and sooner shall the surges of the sandiferous sea ignify and evaporate, than the cone of our duty towards you be in the least uncatenate or dissolved; always wishing you health and happiness. "A, B, C, D, &c. "P.S.-To render our petition in this epistle the more acceptable to you, we prevailed with the schoolmaster to draw it up in a style as near as he could to your own." CHARACTER OF DR. SHERIDAN. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1738.* D OCTOR THOMAS SHERIDAN died at Rathfarnham, the 10th of October, 1738, at three of the clock in the afternoon his diseases were a dropsy and asthma. He was doubtless the best instructor of youth in these kingdoms, or, perhaps, in Europe; and as great a master of the Greek and Roman languages. He had a very fruitful invention, and a talent for poetry. His English verses were full of wit and humour, but neither his prose nor verse sufficiently correct: however, he would readily submit to any friend who had a true taste in He has left behind him a very great prose or verse. collection, in several volumes, of stories, humorous, *As Swift advanced in years and infirmities, it became more difficult to please him, or even to soothe his habitual irritation. We have mentioned, in his Life, his unfortunate quarrel with Sheridan, the most sincere, as well as the most officious of his friends and admirers. The present character retains some traces of friendship become cold and broken. The defects of imprudence are more strongly insisted upon than is consistent with the respect due to the memory of a departed friend; nor has the praise that affectionate warmth which the long and revered attachment of the deceased so particularly deserved. |