To M. DE ST. EVREMOND. SHALT thou, fad Servant of my darker Days, Bewail that Fortune fairer Hours difplays? Go, Witness of the wandering Life I led, And cease those Tears, for Thee more justly shed. See the long Series of my Sufferings o'er! Avoid the Storm, pursue, partake the Shore, Declining Years should still in Silence clofe, And hide their human Weakness in Repose. Shall I in Life's, in Beauty's Bloom retire? Grown old in Courts, fhall EVREMOND expire? Far from thofe Courts, tho' every Call divine! Yet, Reason, Senfe and Fortitude are thine. Are these unheard? In Habit's powerful Reign Does Reason wield her little Arms in vain? Yet fhalt thou yield to my fuperior Sway: Thy Queen commands thee; EVREMOND, obey. Sick of the World, the quits the painful Scene, And calls Thee thence, if yet the calls, thy Queen. Mr. DE ST. EVREMOND. O, fill my Sovereign, whose unrival'd Sway, 'Tis yet my Pride, my Pleasure to obey. I come I fly-No! Death that Duty ends, Deprived of Thee, the laft, the best of Friends! LETTER LETTER XIV. ST. EVREMOND to WALler. HERE are two Sets of Men against whom TH a Writer of any other Country than their own ftands but an ill Chance of preferving his Reputation. These are Dutch Authors and Dutch Bookfellers. They divide you, Body, and Soul, between them. The former fteal your Works: the latter your Name. The Authors publish your Writings as their own Productions: The Bookfellers publish the Productions of others as yours. They treat you like the Pirates of Algiers. You no fooner fall into their Hands, than they strip you naked, and set you to hard Labour. I speak of their Cruelty by Experience. An honest Bookfeller of Rotterdam has not only published several of my Pieces in the Names of his Day-labouring Authors, but has fet me to work on Subjects, of which I am at least as ignorant as the People that wrote in my Name. He has made me Author of a Treatife on the Longitude, though there are not above two Stars in the Sky that I know by Name. I ftand on the Title-Page of Chymical Aphorifms, though I do do not know an Alembic from a Dark-lantern. I am Author of a Treatise against the Antinomians, of whom I know as much as I do of the Antediluvians: But what is moft provoking, he has introduced me in the Character of FieldMarthal of France, and has made me write a Narrative of a Battle, in which I was forced to run away. This is certainly worfe Treatment than that which made Diagoras turn Atheist. We are told, that when a Plagiary had stolen and fathered his Book, he would no longer believe there were any Gods, because they did not punish the Thief with a Thunderbolt. For my own Part, I do not find that the Impunity of thefe Caitiffs has made any Alteration in my Faith. All I am afraid of is, that the Devil has too much Sense to let Bookfellers come into his Dominions; for as he has the Character of a Genius, it would not be long before they gave him the Fool's Cap of an Author. I am very confident that my honeft Friend at Rotterdam, were he to carry on Trade in his Kingdoms, would have no manner of Scruple to make him Author of a Treatife on Original Sin. This Publication would foon be followed by a Differtation on the medical Effects of Brimftone, Auctore |