This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

A Humble Attempt at Scurrility - 31

they then became mask’d Ruffians, resembling the one Mr. H—s observed to come behind his Friend. But what Affinity there is between the DON’s challenging the Merchants to Battle if they did not confess that Dulcinea was the most beautiful Damsel in the World, and Mr. H—s’s threatning the mask’d Ruffian that if he did confess his own Name, or shew his Face, he would grind him to Powder, is what I have not yet been able to discover; and I am apprehensive, that if the “whole World was to stand still” till Doom’s-day in the Afternoon, the whole World would not even then comprehend a Whit more of the Matter than myself. — I was also for a long Time puzzled to find the correspondent Part of the Simile belonging to “common Trollop,” when luckily for me, a worthy Friend suggested that it must certainly be “sound Drubbing;” for that our Author having some Time ago taken it into his Head to treat a virtuous young Woman at Frankford, as if she had been really a common Trollop, she snatch’d up a Broomstick and gave him such a terrible ”sound Drubbing,” that he has not since been able to separate the Ideas. How this may be, I can’t say, but I think the Solution ingenious, and that it has an Air of Probability.

BUT should our Author not have properly fitted the several Parts of his Simile, great Allowance ought to be made for a Man who has been so long observing in the Dark, that his very Understanding has become darken’d. On this Account I can readily excuse his saying, That “as his Quarrel with Mr. H—s’s Friend was of a publick Nature, he would treat him accordingly;” which, to be sure, he has accordingly done by keeping himself private. The same Consideration too prompts me to readily pass over several of his Grammatical Errors without Censure, particularly where he tells us, that “if any Person of Character who is known to be capable of writing an Advertisement, will, to save Trouble, mention what Part of the Answer stands in need of further Proof, THEY will find the Satisfaction THEY desire.” Besides I do

Contents of this annotation:

In reply to an attack on Benjamin Franklin by John Hughes. Attributed to Isaac Hunt in the Dictionary of American biography. Ascribed to the press of Anthony Armbruster by Evans. "Prologue to the coffee-house politician, or The justice caught in his own trap."--p. vii-viii. "Thirteen descriptions of the great A. drawn from the life by that celebrated master D---d J--s D-ve, poet laureat to the Pr---ry Party."--p. 38-42. Signatures: [A]? B-E? F_ (F2 verso blank). "Errata."--p. [43].