civil court of judicature ever pretended to any cognizance of them. Nonsense and dulness are no crimes in foro civili: no man can be questioned for bad verses in Westminster-hall; and amongst the many indictments for battery, not one can be 5 produced for breaking poor Priscian's head, though it is done almost every day. But though immediately, as I have said, these evils do not affect the greater commonwealth; yet as they tend to the utter ruin of the lesser, so they have a remote evil conse10 quence, even on the state itself; which seems by having left them unprovided for, to have remitted them, for the sake of convenience, to the government of laws, and to the superintendence of magistrates of this lesser commonwealth; and never to have foreseen or suspected that dreadful state of 15 anarchy, which at present prevails in this lesser empire; an empire which hath formerly made so great a figure in this kingdom, and that indeed almost within our own memories. It may appear strange, that none of our English historians have spoken clearly and distinctly of this lesser empire; but 20 this may be well accounted for, when we consider that all these histories have been written by two sorts of persons; that is to say, either politicians or lawyers. Now the former of these have had their imaginations so entirely filled with the affairs of the greater empire, that it is no wonder the busi25 ness of the lesser should have totally escaped their observation. And as to the lawyers, they are well known to have been very little acquainted with the commonwealth of literature, and to have always acted and written in defiance to its laws. 30 From these reasons it is very difficult to fix, with certainty, the exact period when this commonwealth first began among us. Indeed, if the originals of all the greater empires upon carth, and even of our own, be wrapped in such obscurity that they elude the enquiries of the most diligent sifters of antiquity, we cannot be surprised that this fate should attend our little empire, opposed as it hath been by the pen of the lawyer, overlooked by the eye of the historian, and never once smelt after by the nose of the antiquarian. 5 In the earliest ages, the literary state seems to have been an ecclesiastical democracy: for the clergy are then said to have had all the learning among them; and the great reverence paid at that time to it by the laity, appears from hence, that whoever could prove in a court of justice that he belonged to this state, 10 by only reading a single verse in the Testament, was vested with the highest privileges, and might do almost what he pleased; even commit murder with impunity. And this privilege was called the benefit of the clergy. This commonwealth, however, can scarce be said to have 15 been in any flourishing state of old time, even among the clergy themselves; inasmuch as we are told, that a rector of a parish going to law with his parishioners about paving the church, quoted this authority from St. Peter, Paveant illi, non paveam ego. Which he construed thus: "They are to pave 20 the church, and not I." And this by a judge, who was likewise an ecclesiastic, was allowed to be very good law. The nobility had clearly no antient connection with this commonwealth, nor would submit to be bound by any of its laws, witness that provision in an old act of parliament; "that 25 a nobleman shall be entitled to the benefit of his clergy (the privilege above-mentioned) even though he cannot read." Nay the whole body of the laity, though they gave such honours to this commonwealth, appear to have been very few of them under its jurisdiction; as appears by a law cited by 30 judge Rolls in his Abridgment, with the reason which he gives for it: "The command of the sheriff, says this writer, to his officer by word of mouth, and without writing, is good; for it may be, that neither the sheriff nor his officer can write or read." But not to dwell on these obscure times, when so very little authentic can be found concerning this commonwealth, let us 5 come at once to the days of Henry the eighth, when no less a revolution happened in the lesser than in the greater empire : for the literary government became absolute together with the political, in the hands of one and the same monarch; who was himself a writer, and dictated not only law but common Io sense too, to all his people; suffering no one to write or speak but according to his own will and pleasure. After this king's demise, the literary commonwealth was again separated from the political; for I do not find that his successor on the greater throne, succeeded him likewise in the 15 lesser. Nor did either of the two queens, as I can learn, pretend to any authority in this empire, in which the salique law hath universally prevailed; for though there have been some considerable subjects of the female sex in the literary commonwealth, I never remember to have read of a queen.. 20 It is not easy to say with any great exactness what form of government was preserved in this commonwealth during the reigns of Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth ; for though there were some great men in those times, none of them seemed to have affected the throne of wit: nay, Shake25 speare, who flourished in the latter end of the last reign, and who seemed so justly qualified to enjoy this crown, never thought of challenging it. In the reign of James I. the literary government was an aristocracy, for I do not chuse to give it the evil name of 30 oligarchy, though it consisted only of four, namely, master William Shakespeare, master Benjamin Johnson, master John Fletcher, and master Francis Beaumont. This quadrumvirate, as they introduced a new form of government, thought proper according to Machiavel's advice, to introduce new names; they therefore called themselves the wits, a name which hath been affected since by the reigning monarchs in this empire. The last of this quadrumvirate enjoyed the government alone during his life; after which the troubles that shortly 5 after ensued, involved this lesser commonwealth in all the confusion and ruin of the greater, nor can anything be found of it with sufficient certainty, till the wits in the reign of Charles the second, after many struggles among themselves for superiority, at last agreed to elect John Dryden to be their 10 king. This King John had a very long reign, though a very unquiet one; for there were several pretenders to the throne of wit in his time, who formed very considerable parties against him, and gave him great uneasiness, of which his successor hath 15 made mention in the following lines: Pride, folly, malice, against Dryden rose, In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaus. Besides which, his finances were in such disorder, that it is affirmed his treasury was more than once entirely empty. He died nevertheless in a good old age, possessed of the kingdom of wit, and was succeeded by king Alexander, surnamed Pope. 20 This prince enjoyed the crown many years, and is thought to have stretched the prerogative much farther than his pred- 25 ecessor: he is said to have been extremely jealous of the affections of his subjects, and to have employed various spies, by whom, if he was informed of the least suggestion against his title, he never failed of branding the accused person with the word dunce on his forehead in broad letters; after which 30 the unhappy culprit was obliged to lay by his pen for ever; for no bookseller would venture to print a word that he wrote. He did indeed put a total restraint on the liberty of the press for no person durst read any thing which was writ without his licence and approbation; and this licence he granted only to four during his reign, namely, to the celebrated Dr. 5 Swift, to the ingenious Dr. Young, to Dr. Arbuthnot, and to one Mr. Gay, four of his principal courtiers and favourites. But without diving any deeper into his character, we must allow that king Alexander had great merit as a writer, and his title to the kingdom of wit was better founded at least than his 10 enemies have pretended. After the demise of king Alexander, the literary state relapsed again into a democracy, or rather indeed into downright anarchy; of which, as well as of the consequences, I shall treat in a future paper. 15 20 25 XIX [THE PURPOSE OF LETTERS] At nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros, et MODERNIZED In former times this tastless, silly town Too fondly prais'd Tom D'Urfey and Tom Brown. The present age seems pretty well agreed in an opinion, that the utmost scope and end of reading is amusement only; and such, indeed, are now the fashionable books, that a reader can propose no more than mere entertainment, and it is sometimes very well for him if he finds even this in his studies. Letters, however, were surely intended for a much more noble and profitable purpose than this. Writers are not, I presume, to be considered as mere jack-puddings, whose business |