Their great Condescension to Dr. Hickes in allowing him to have been a very curious Inquirer into those obsolete Tongues, now out of use, and containing nothing valuable in them, is a Compliment for which I believe you, Sir, will give me leave to assure them, that he is not at all obliged; since if it signifies any thing, it imports, no less than that he has employ’d a great deal of Time, and a great deal of Pains, to little purpose.  But we must at least borrow so much Assurance from them, as to tell them, that your Friends, who consist of the most learned sort of your own Countrey-men, and of Foreigners, do not think those Tongues so obsolete and out of use, whose Significancy is so apparent in Etymology; nor do they think those Men competent Judges to declare, whether there be any thing contained in them valuable or not, who have made it clear, that they know not what is contain’d in them.  They would rather assure them, that our greatest Divines[A], and Lawyers[B], and Historians[C] are of another Opinion, they wou’d advise them to consult our Libraries, those of the two Universities, the Cottonian, and my Lord Treasurers; to study your whole Thesaurus, particularly your Dissertatio Epistolaris, to look into Mr. Wanleys large and accurate Catalogue of Saxon Manuscripts, and so with Modesty gain a Title to the Applause of having confest their former Ignorance, and reforming their Judgment.  I believe I may farther take leave to assure them, that the Doctor is as little concerned for their Inference, which they think so plain from what has been said, that they are not obliged to derive the Sense, Construction, or Nature of our present Language from his Discoveries.  He desires them not to derive the Sense and Construction of which they speak, in any other manner, than that in which the Nature of the things themselves makes them appear; and so far as they are his Discoveries only, intrudes them on no Man.  He is very willing they should be let alone by those, who have not Skill to use them to their own Advantage, and with Gratitude.

   [Footnote A:  Archbishops Parker, Laud, Usher, Bishop
    Stillingfleet, the present Bishops of Worcester, Bath
    and Wells, Carlisle, St. Asaph, St. Davids, Lincoln,
    Rochester, with many other Divines of the first Rank.]

   [Footnote B:  The Lord Chief Justice Cook, Mr. Lombard,
    Selden, Whitlock, Lord Chief Justice Hales, and Parker,
    Mr. Fortescue of the Temple, and others.]

   [Footnote C:  Leland, who writes in a Latin Style in Prose and
    Verse, as polite and accurate as can be boasted of by any of
    our modern Wits. Jocelin, Spelman, both Father and Son,
    Cambden, Whelock, Gibson, and many more of all Ranks and
    Qualities, whose Names deserve well to be mention’d with Respect,
    were there room for it in this place.]