FROM TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 26.  TO THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 28. 1710.

From my own Apartment, September 27.[1]

The following letter has laid before me many great and manifest evils in the world of letters[2] which I had overlooked; but they open to me a very busy scene, and it will require no small care and application to amend errors which are become so universal.  The affectation of politeness is exposed in this epistle with a great deal of wit and discernment; so that whatever discourses I may fall into hereafter upon the subjects the writer treats of, I shall at present lay the matter before the World without the least alteration from the words of my correspondent.

“TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF ESQ;

“SIR,

“There are some abuses among us of great consequence, the reformation of which is properly your province, though, as far as I have been conversant in your papers, you have not yet considered them.  These are, the deplorable ignorance that for some years hath reigned among our English writers, the great depravity of our taste, and the continual corruption of our style.  I say nothing here of those who handle particular sciences, divinity, law, physic, and the like; I mean, the traders in history and politics, and the belles lettres; together with those by whom books are not translated, but (as the common expressions are) ’done out of French, Latin,’ or other language, and ‘made English.’  I cannot but observe to you, that till of late years a Grub-Street book was always bound in sheepskin, with suitable print and paper, the price never above a shilling, and taken off wholly by common tradesmen, or country pedlars, but now they appear in all sizes and shapes, and in all places.  They are handed about from lapfuls in every coffeehouse to persons of quality, are shewn in Westminster-Hall and the Court of Requests.  You may see them gilt, and in royal paper, of five or six hundred pages, and rated accordingly.  I would engage to furnish you with a catalogue of English books published within the compass of seven years past, which at the first hand would cost you a hundred pounds, wherein you shall not be able to find ten lines together of common grammar or common sense.

“These two evils, ignorance and want of taste, have produced a third; I mean, the continual corruption of our English tongue, which, without some timely remedy, will suffer more by the false refinements of twenty years past, than it hath been improved in the foregoing hundred:  And this is what I design chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to your animadversion.

“But instead of giving you a list of the late refinements crept into our language, I here send you the copy of a letter I received some time ago from a most accomplished person in this way of writing, upon which I shall make some remarks.  It is in these terms.

“’SIR,