The testimony of Bacon overbalances ten thousand Encyclopedists, and all their servile transcribers. To cover them with confusion, I finish with citing two of the most celebrated names, that have ever graced any of the various sects, known by the common appellation of protestants--I mean the great Grotius and Leibnitz. The latter maintained a constant correspondence with Jesuits, even with the missioners in China. His letters, which yet exist, prove that he was, and that he gloried in being, their friend; that he rejoiced in their successes, and was grieved by their afflictions and sufferings. The Latin text, which I would wish to transcribe from the learned Grotius, is rather long, and it would be enervated by translation. (See Grotius Hist. 1. iii, p. 273. edit. Amstelod. an. 1658.) Here he employs the nervous style of Tacitus, to describe the origin of the Jesuits, the purity of their morals, their zeal to propagate {303} Christianity, to instruct youth, the respect which they had justly acquired, their disinterestedness, their prudence in commanding, their fidelity in obeying, their moderation in all their dealings, their progress and increase, &c. &c. "_Mores inculpatos, bonas artes, magna in vulgum auctoritas ob vitæ sanctimoniam_.--_Sapienter imperant, fideliter parent.--Novissimi omnium, sectas priores fama vicere, hoc ipso cæteris invisi.--Medii foedum inter obsequium et tristem arrogantiam, nec fugiunt hominum vitia, nec sequuntur_, &c." You may hear once more from CLERICUS. * * * * * {304} LETTER IV. _Ecce iterum Crispinus, et est mihi sæpe vocandus_ _In partes._ JUV. Sat. 4. What! Laicus once more! And is he not then prostrate on the ground, gagged and muzzled beyond the possibility of barking? His ignorance, his falsehoods, his sophistry, have been sufficiently branded; yet, spider-like, Destroy his slander and his fibs--in vain, The creature's at its dirty work again. POPE. Undoubtedly he never deserved, and never would have received even a first answer, if it had not been apparent, that his venal pen was guided and paid by mischief-makers of deeper views: and hence arises the necessity of noticing this fourth effusion, to disable the retailers of {305} his falsehoods from vainly boasting, that slander unanswered is acknowledged truth. I write not to Laicus, but to his prompters, and to his readers, if there be any left.