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crifice half a dozen troublesome ill-natur'd Diftin-
tions to the Peace of Mankind : But first we de-
fire you of all Loves, to lock up that troublesome
Companion call'd Reafon, for one Quarter of a
Year, and if you could but prevail with your selves to
discard your five Senses, the business would be present-
ly at an end. Of these two late Converts above-mentioned,
that have lifted themselves in the Service of the Western
Patriarch, one has published a specions Treatise, to prove
that the Papists and Proteftants are agreed in their No-
tions of a Real Presence; the other pretends, That the
Catholick Doctors, and the Jewish Rabbies, are like-
wise agreed in the busineß of Transubstantiation: Indeed,
after this rate of arguing, they may very easily prove their
Church to be Universal, and if the Gentlemen of that Com-
munion will but get me a Troop of Horse, or any small place
at Court to the Tune of a Thousand Pound a Year, Illen-
gage to prove that the Pagans and They are agreed in most
of the controverted Points, besides which thing, if rightly
confidered, I am confident will bring above three parts of
the Globe into the Pope's Chamber of Dependencies. I
know there are some Malicious Persons in the World, who
are apt to conclude, That this calling in the Gentlemen of
the Circumcifion to the Assistance of the Catholick Caufe,
is a very plain Argument, that they dare not bazard the
Fortune of a Set-Battel upon their own Forces: That
Prince is in no good Circumstances at home, who is obliged
to employ an inveterate Foreigner to support his Dignity;
and we have read (Say they) how the Christians have
taken the Condition of the Holy Land into their confide-
ration, have unanimously fought, and recovered it out of
the hands of Infidels, but we never beard, to this day, that
the Jews retaliated the Kindness, or gave 'em any Thanks
for their Pains. The truth on't is,
ave disposed
to talk, will, in spight of all the World, Say what they
please, tho they are sure to be as troublesome as a Welchman
when the Spirit of Genealogy poffeffes him: But, I pray,

Men that

wby why may not a Man that has kept Rabbi Solomon Iarchi, Ben Sira, Ben Manaffes, and the rest of the Tribe, in Meat, Drink, Washing and Lodging, at his own proper Expence some Twenty Years, be as well allow'd, upon an emergent occafion, to draw them out in Battelarray, to confound us Protestants, as a Neighbour of ours, on the other fide the Water, to call in the Grand Seignior to humble the Emperour.

But I find this Speculation has occasion'd me to digreß farther than I intended: Therefore to return to Mr. Bays, I must make bold to acquaint him, That of all Men in the World be ought not to have interested himself in the Quarrel, whatever his private Sentiments were, since he had so publickly, and so virulently exposed that Party before. If he pretends he took his Copy from Arnobius, who was obliged to write his Learned Treatise Contra Gentes, to Satisfie the Christians, who somewhat doubted the Sincerity of bis Conversion, that he had in good earnest quitted Paganism, much good may it do him. But I am afraid this instance won't do his busineß; for, I suppose, bad Arnobius stood charged with half those scandalous ill things, which Mr. Bays is like to answer for, his admission into the Church had not been purchased at the easie terms of Libelling his old Friends, and facrificing that, which is lighter than the Honesty of a Bawd, the Chastity of a Midwife, the Valour of an Atheist, the Honour of a Pimp, the the Integrity of an Ufurer, even a Poet's Reputation. But I find a Man may bold all the seven deadly Sins in Commendum with a Saintship; and that there is a certain Society of Men in the World, who, to fill up their Numbers against the next Muster, make no scruple at all of entertaining such kind of Proselytes as Romulus picked up when he opened his Afylum.

Mr. Bays in his Life of Plutarch, occafionally difcourfing concerning the Report that Seneca Cuckolded his Patron Claudius, is very forry that Petronius Arbiter was not the Man, because he could better have born it from a Man

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a Man of his Character (for you must know, Petronius Arbiter was a Poet, and consequently the fitter Person for fuch a busineß) and he can conceive nothing in the World, next to an Elephant upon Stilts, so awkard in the pursuit of an Amour as a Philosopher in a Gown. The truth on't is, Divines and Philosophers never had a good word from Mr. Bays fince his Mother bound up his Head for him. Here was the finest opportunity imaginable for a Philofopher to have made his Market. The old Gentleman gone abroad to smoke a Pipe among his Tenants, the Lady conSenting, the happy hour of Affignation come, the Chambermaid upon Duty at the Door, the Sheets perfumed, the Curtains drawn, the trusty Brandy-bottle at the Bedshead: Nothing in the World, one would have thought, could have defeated and spoiled so promising, so hopeful an Intrigue. But O the Fates! just in the Critical Minute appears Mr. Bays, forbids the Banes, turns the Philofopher, with his Breeches dangling about his Heels, down Stairs; and in that surly Humour nothing would serve bis turn, but a Poet only must Cuckold the Emperour. Now to apply this Story to Mr. Bays; as he seems concerned for his Friend Petronius, that he had not the good fortune to be engaged in the Affair we were now discourfing of, so I am sorry with all my Heart, that since Mr. Bays's Stars so order'd the matter, as to condemn him to the drudgery of Writing everlastingly, that instead of barren Controverfie (which is not a Province so capable of being cultivated by a Poet as other Provinces are) be bad either set himself upon reforming the Anthems of his own Church, which exceedingly want such a charitable Hand as his to Revise 'em; or employ'd bis Talent in Spiritual Madrigals to good Saint Wilgefortis, or Apollonia, (who might perhaps have remembred him for it in a fit of the Tooth-ach) or lastly,

Since he is read in Cares,

And bends beneath the weight of Fifty Years :

that in this Old Age be had chofen out for himself some peaceful Province in Acrostick Land: I make bold bere to use his own Expression in Mac Flecno, if it is bis, I say; for Mr. Shadwell in the Preface before his Translation of the Tenth Satyr in Juvenal, has been lately pleas'd to acquaint the World, that he publickly disown'd the Writing of it, with as folemn Imprecations as his Friend the Spanish Fryar did the Cavalier Lorenzo.

* See the Pre

For to deal honestly with Mr. Bays, however, in his other Composures, he has obliged the World with the Delicacy of Language, and the Agreeablenß of his Fancy; yet in his last Effay we only find such noble kind of Discourse between the Hind and Panther, as passes between the two judicious Grave-makers in Hamlet. In short, we meet nothing but a dull heap of infipid Stuff, so lamentably Ridiculous, that one could not in Conscience desire to have an Adversary write worse : So that whatever Advantages his Soul has made by the exchange of his Religion, (though I wonder in my Heart how that queafie Stomach of of bis, which about * Four Years ago could bardly digest the Apostles Creed, should now be able to digest not only that, and Athanafius's Creed, but a more unpalatable one of Pope Pius's making) his Muse I am sure is sensibly the worse. Were I his Confeffor, who am only bis Adviser, I should prescribe him no other Penance for every Transgression, than to make me a Copy of fuch miserable Doggerel toties quoties, which I believe would be Mortification enough for him; and the reading of them, I'm sure would be sufficient Penance to my self. But after all, perhaps Mr. Bays writ for the Irish Nation, and then he's to be excused, for he that writes to please the relish of that Noble Kingdom, must do the same by his Wit and Language, as Valerius Poplicola did with his House, even level it to the ground.

face before the Religio Laici.

I met the other day a certain Passage in Monfieur Montaign's Essays, which I little imagin'd to have found in an Author of bis Gravity; he is pleased to be angry with Carvers and Statuaries, for making the Nudities of their Images so large : For (Says be) the Ladies who form an Idea of the abilities of Mankind by fuch exterior RepreSentations, must certainly find themselves extreamly disappointed, when they come to consult the Originals. This So Strange a Passage, as I said before, one wou'd scarce expect to meet in Montaign; and indeed, with respect to the Memory of so great a Man, it is extravagant enough in all Confcience. But Mr. Bays in his Preface, before the

* Printed by Tonson, 1685.

Second Part of the late * Miscellanies, has as much out-done this, and any thing that was ever faid in the World, as a He

roe of his own begetting, Almanzor by Name, bas exceeded all the Bullies before him. On one fide of the Page, be appears with extraordinary Zeal for the Immortality of the Soul. What confidering Person (Says he) who observes how Fools and Knaves batten in the World, while Men of Merit and Integrity (meaning himself I suppose) starve and are despised, can suppose that there are not Allowances to be made in another? That is, because Mr. Bays missed of his Eaton-Preferment, be was humbly content to expect bis Reward elsewhere; and truly, 1 am so much of his Opinion, as to think he is to expect it in another World : On the other fide of the Leaf, as if his Petronius Arbiter had got the better of his Thomas à Kempis, he makes you a very formal Apology for Translating a certain lusci ous Part of Lucretius (he could not find in his Heart, be tells you, to give it a worse Name) though some People are apt to believe it ought only to keep company with Culpepper's Midwife, or the English Translation of Aloyfia Sigea. If Mr. Bays would have been rul'd by me, that very moment when he fell from the bigbest Step of Jacob's Ladder, and, from a grave Contemplation of Eternity, could on the sudden condescend and truckle to the Patronage of downright Obscenity; be should not have made so Small