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As we are a very numerous Family, and well allied, no Wonder that many of us are employed in eminent Posts of Honour and Profit; and fometimes, perhaps, in the Management and Direction of Affairs of the greateft Confequence, both in Church and State. Now, as all of us happen to be in a different Way of Thinking from your Lordship, all the World fees you have contracted an incurable Averfion to the whole Family. Whenever you take it in your Head to be displeased with the Management of public Affairs, upon every Sufpicion of political Misconduct, the Cry is immediately raised upon us all; the Guilt of every minifterial Blunder is charged upon fome or other of our Kindred; though I will take upon me, to answer for every individual Perfon concerned in fuch Counfels or Tranfactions, that they fhall feparately and jointly depose, upon their corporal Oath, that they have no more Relation to the Family than your Lordship. This is very hard! but what is ftill harder, your Lordship is said to take this Liberty in the most auguft Affembly in the World; where, it is well known, we have not, at prefent, fo much as one Friend or Relation to undertake our Cause, or fpeak one Word in our Juftification.

As this must be thought a great Hardship upon fo many innocent Sufferers, I humbly intreat your Lordfhip's Indulgence, whilft I am endeavouring to do Juftice to the most numerous Family in the Univerfe; and which is, by Blood or Marriage, related to the most illuftrious Houses in Europe.

The Antiquity of our Family (an Article that has given Distinction and Precedency to many a worthlefs Litter, who had no other fingle good Quality to

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recommend them) may, I humbly prefume, with more than equal Juftice, be pleaded by us, who have been, in all Ages, diftinguished by the most eminent and meritorious Services, and been rewarded accordingly.. I know it has been suggested by our Enemies, that we are but of Yesterday; that we were the Aborigines of a certain neighbouring Kingdom, tranfplanted into this and other Countries, all over the Globe, by mere Neceffity, to pick up a comfortable Subfiftence abroad, which we could not find at home. This is so gross a Calumny as could only proceed from downright Ignorance, or Malice, or both; fince every one that has the least Acquaintance with History, muft know the contrary. It appears, by the concurrent Teftimonies of the most antient and faithful Hiftorians, that we have made fhining and illuftrious Figures in every Age and Nation under Heaven; and even in our own, in which we are more immediately concerned, we have had Princes, Peers, Prelates, and Privy-Counsellors; not to mention Baronets, Simple Knights, 'Squires, and Juftices of the Peace, innumerable.

We are informed by Hiftory, that one of our Family was a Conjurer, (an Honour that many an illuftrious House cannot boaft of) with this particular Circumftance, that his Name was Simon, and he always went by the Name of Simon the Conjurer. But as he seems to have been but a poor Performer, and came to an untimely End, by an unsuccessful Experiment, even in his own Profeffion, we are not very vain of our Relation; and as he is faid to have lived a great while ago, and there has not been one in the Family ever fince, we have taken a great deal of Pains,

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Pains, both in Private and Public, to perfuade the World, that there never was any fuch Perfon. I mean any fuch Character; and that all the Pretend ers to that Sort of Knowledge are Quacks and Impoftors, and ought rather to be punished for Cheats, than Affociates with evil Spirits, who have fomething elfe to do, than to be at the Call of every beggarly Rafcal, or doating old Woman, that pleases to employ them: Whereas, if they had Leifure or Inclination to trouble themselves with our dirty Affairs, they might be admitted into Cabinets and Drawingrooms, might have a Seat in ******, or the Direction of ****** , upon giving proper Security for their true and faithful Attachment, and due Attention to the Interefts of their Patrons. But to return.

Though at prefent we lie under great and popular Difcouragements, by the unreasonable and ungrateful Oppofition of fome that shall be nameless, who affect to forget that they owe their present Portion of Wealth and Power to the fuperfine Policy of the Wrongheads, their Predeceffors; yet we are not without reasonable Hopes of retrieving, one Day, the Honour and Figure of the Family, and contributing as much to the Glory and Profperity of the present or rifing Generation, as our Predeceffors have done to the past. To enter into a Detail of the many Services we have been doing to the Public, would be an endless and needlefs Task: I fhall rather choose to lay before your Lordship, a fhort View of feveral wonderful Improvements and Refinements we have made, in the three great Articles of Learning, Religion, and Politics, by which we ftand eminently dif tinguished

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tinguished from the reft of Mankind; and from which we may one Day promise ourselves fuch a Superiority of Rank and Character, as is due to fuch fuperior Merit, and the Services, we are every Day doing to our native Country.

The Figure we made, and the Rank we sustained, in the learned World, for above a thousand Years, is too well known to admit of a Difpute; our Enemies themselves confefs it, and, by a prepofterous Kind of Vanity, upbraid us with it. It is well known, that during that long Space of Time, we had the intire Government and Direction of much the greater Part of the Universities, Churches, Schools, and learned Societies in Europe; and filled most of the Profeffors Chairs in every Faculty. This is fo notorious, that we have ever fince, by univerfal Consent, obtained the distinguishing Title of the Schoolmen. And the Divinity and Philosophy of those Schools of ours, were the Light and Glory of thofe happy Ages. We were the fole Authors of those immenfe Treafures of Learning, which, fince the Invention of Printing, have made fuch a pompous and voluminous Appearance in the Libraries of the Learned, under the illuftrious Titles of Summa, Sententia, Loci Communes, Diatriba, Commentaria, Thefauri, Collectanea, Queftiones, &c, which, by the barbarous Pride and Ignorance of the Moderns, are brought into fo great Contempt, that nothing but public Libraries, fecured by Locks, and Bolts, and Chains, can preferve them from the worse than Gothic Fury of Paftry-cooks, Bandbox-makers, Grocers, and Chandlers. This was in a great measure owing to the malicious Oppofition we met with, about two CentuB 3

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ries ago, from that bitter Enemy to all profound Erudition, Erafmus; who, with fome other evilminded Perfons in that and our own Country, raised fuch a Cry and Perfecution against us, as had well nigh ended in the Destruction of our whole Family; notwithstanding all which, though we were often obliged to shift our Quarters, in order to escape the Fury of our Perfecutors, we ftill continued to hold up our Heads, and make a tolerable Figure in fome Parts of the World or other; from whence we have been able, from time to time, to fend Authors and Profeffors to fome of the most eminent Societies in Europe. And thefe are they that have enriched the learned World with many voluminous Inquiries, acute Conjectures, and profound Discoveries, in every Branch of Science, and Article of Learning.

Very few of us indeed have pretended to be Authors of particular Systems, founded upon Principles, and regularly digefted into Conclufions; yet have we not been wanting in our best Endeavours, to improve and illustrate several Articles of Knowledge, which others have, through Pride or Ignorance, overlooked or defpifed. How many curious and learned Differtations, for inftance, have we publifhed, De Nummulis, Veftibus, Vafibus, Fibulis, Cochlearibus, Salinis, Urnis, Balneis, Sepulchris, &c. Romanis, to the great Comfort and Edification of all true Lovers of Antiquity, and the clearer Elucidation of the most valuable Writers of that Age and Nation? and convinced the learned World, that the venerable Ruft of one of those precious Relics was of more Value to a true Virtuofo, than the moft exact Knowledge of the