part of the Bible are in Saxon, so are the Laws and Ecclesiastical Canons, and Charters of most of our Saxon Kings; these one wou’d think might deserve their Credit.  But they have not had Learning or Industry enough to fit them for such Acquaintance, and are forc’d therefore to take up their Refuge with those Triflers, whose only Pretence to Wit, is to despise their Betters.  This Censure will not, I imagine, be thought harsh, by any candid Reader, since their own Discovery has sufficiently declared their Ignorance:  and their Boldness, to determine things whereof they are so ignorant, has so justly fix’d upon them the Charge of Impudence.  For otherwise they must needs have been ashamed to proceed in manner following.

We might give you various Instances more of the essential difference between the old Saxon and modern English Tongue, but these must satisfy any reasonable Man, that it is so great, that the Saxon can be no Rule to us; and that to understand ours, there is no need of knowing the Saxon:  And tho’ Dr. Hickes must be allow’d to have been a very curious Enquirer into those obsolete Tongues, now out of use, and containing nothing valuable, yet it does by no means follow (as is plain from what has been said) that we are obliged to derive the Sense, Construction, or Nature of our present Language from his Discoveries.

I would beseech my Readers to observe, the Candour and Ingenuity of these Gentlemen:  They tell us, We might give you various Instances more of the essential difference between the old Saxon_ and modern English Tongue_; and yet have plainly made it appear, that they know little or nothing of the old Saxon.  So that it will be hard to say how they come to know of any such essential difference, as MUST_ satisfy any reasonabie Man_; and much more that this essential difference is so great, that the Saxon_ can be no Rule to us, and that to understand ours, there is no need of knowing the Saxon. What they say, that it cannot be a Rule to them_, is true; for nothing can be a Rule of Direction to any Man, the use whereof he does not understand; but if to understand the Original and Etymology of the Words of any Language, be needful towards knowing the Propriety of any Language, a thing which I have never heard hath yet been denied; then do these Gentlemen stand self-condemned, there being no less than four Words, in the Scheme of Declensions they have borrowed from Dr. Hickes, now in use, which are of pure Saxon Original, and consequently essential to the modern English.  I need not tell any English Reader at this Day the meaning of Smith, Word, Son, and Good; but if I tell them that these are Saxon Words, I believe they will hardly deny them to be essential to the modern English, or that they will conclude that the difference between the old English and the modern is so great, or the distance of Relation between them so remote, as that the former deserves not to be remember’d:  except by such Upstarts who having no Title to a laudable Pedigree, are backward in all due Respect and Veneration towards a noble Ancestry.