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,

"'I _couldn't_ get the things you sent for all _about Town._--I _thôt_ to
_ha'_ come down myself, and then _I'd ha' brôut 'umn;_ but I _han't
don't,_ and I believe I _can't do't,_ that's _pozz.--Tom[3]_ begins to
_gi'mself_ airs_ because _he's_ going with the _plenipo's._--'Tis said,
the _French_ King will _bamboozl us agen,_ which _causes many
speculations_. The _Jacks,_ and others of that _kidney_, are very
_uppish_, and _alert upon't_, as you may see by their _phizz's_.--_Will