An apology for the study of northern antiquities

Charles Peake's Introduction:

The answerers who rushed into print in 1712 against Swift’s Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue were so obviously moved by the spirit of faction that, apart from a few debating points and minor corrections, it is difficult to disentangle their legitimate criticisms from their political prejudices.

As Professor Landa has written in his introduction to Oldmiron’s Reflections on Dr. Swift’s Letter to Harley and Mainwaring’s The British Academy (Augustan Reprint Society, 1948): “It is not as literature that these two answers to Swift are to be judged. They are minor, though interesting, documents in political warfare which cut athwart a significant cultural controversy.”