The Virginia Gazette

Ecce iterum Crispinus; et mihi idem vocandus

Ad partes.

Juvenal.

To Mr. Parks,

Feb. 2, 1736-7.

SIR,

HERE is no Tribe of Mortals so incorrigible, as your Moral-Writers. The Person with whom I am at present engaged, is not only to be reckoned among these, but has long since been absolutely dead; and his Corps only, for these Five or Six Months past, has talked about, to the great Nuisance of the Publick.

I am sensible, that I have undertaken a very difficult Task; and that I have both Branches of the Greek Pro- verb literally against me, which places Curing of the Dead, and Correcting of the inveterate Fool, in the same Rank of Impossibility. However I hope, the candid Reader will not be displeas'd with me, for endeavouring to revenge his Loss of Time and Patience, in reading the wretched Compositions of the Monitor.

Sequere naturam is a Lesson of great Antiquity; which has received an additional Strength and Authority, from the Approbation and Applause of all the Ages, through which it has passed. Mr. Congreve, I think, has been very happy to this Purpose, in his excellent Epistle to Lord Cobham; from which I beg Leave to transcribe the following Lines:

Baboons and Apes ridiculous we find;

For what? For ill resembling Human-Kind.

None are, for being what they are, in Fault,

But for not being, what they would be thought.

Now, Sir, the Monitor is, in Truth, a very simple ignorant Creature; and had he been contented to move in his own Sphere as such, I declare, I would never have molested him. But when he assumes the awful Character of a moral Writer and Teacher of Mankind, and pub- lishes to our serious and attentive Perusal such Things, as in the common Prattle-Prattle of the World could only hope for Pardon from the extreme Good-Nature of the Company; he then loses the Innocency and Harmless- ness of his Character, as a Simpleton; falls into that Class of Baboons and Coxcombs, which Mr. Congreve has above noted; and is, upon all Accounts, a proper Subject for Satirical Animadversion.

There was published, in your GAZETTE of last Friday, a certain unmeaning, shapeless Monster, called a Monitor; and as far as I could penetrate into its Design,
(for it was very mysterious,) it was intended as an Answer to my last. He has really performed in that Piece, what I never expected to have seen: For he has surpassed the Silliness and Inanity of all his former Productions. He was always a great Dealer in that Figure of the Bathos, called Nothingness; but this last Essay is such an entire Blank, as neither demands, or deserves any Answer. Others to some faint Meaning make Pretence; But -- never deviates into Sense. Dryden. I have consulted all my Acquaintance upon the Drift and Meaning of that Piece, but have not yet been able to find any Person, who pretends to have a Key to it. If it would not therefore be too great a Hardship on the innocent Reader, by increasing the Bulk of his Writings, I would advise him to add a Comment to his next; or what would be more commodious and easy, to get some Friend to translate his Works into English, before he sends them to the Press. And whoever will be at the Pains of reading his first Sentence, will find, how necessary such Method is. For, like Bayes in the Rehearsal, he opens the Scene with a Whisper. But his Coup de Maitre, and Ne plus ultra, is the consummate Impudence, with which he insinuates, or even plainly accuses me of Stealing what I write. I am not conscious of having taken the least Hint in the Song, from any Writer, ancient, or modern; and if he can produce one, I will freely acknowledge myself a Plagiary. They all resulted naturally from Reading his Works; and I doubt not, but such new and unheard of Nonsense, of his, will still supply me with new Thoughts. But what gives me the greatest Surprize is, that He should be the Author of such an Accusation, who has stolen whole Pieces, without acknowledging from whence they are taken; and in Proof of this, I shall only instance in the Spider, which he has slyly purloined from a Song-Book. As to his Prose, I sincerely believe it to be all his own: For if he can produce one Precedent for such miserable Stuff, I have nothing farther to say; but, according to the Practice of the Law, will leave him the free Liberty of doing wrong, because it may be proved, that some have done so before. And now, Sir, I cannot conceive any reasonable Objection to what I have done; except it be, that I am guilty of a most unmanly and cowardly Action, in attacking such a contemptible Mortal, so entirely defenceless and unarmed. I must own, it is something like assaulting a Woman; and can only protest in my Vindication, that had he been as inoffensive, as he is weak and helpless, he might still have crept through Life, with the rest of his Brother Simpletons, unnoticed and forgot. I am, Sir, Your Humble Servant, Zoilus. SONG.