A true and perfect Copy of the LORD ROOS His Answer to the marquess of Dorchester's LETTER written the 25 of February 1659.  
SIR,  
SUre you were among your Gallypots and clyster-pipes, when you gave your choler so violent a Purge, to the fouling of so much innocent paper, and your own reputation (if you had any, which the wise very much doubt) you had better been drunk & set in Stocks for it, when you sent the Post with a whole packet of cartels to me; in which you have discovered so much vapouring nonsense and railing, that it is wholesomer for your credit, to have it thought the effect of drink, than your own natural talon in perfect mind & memory: for if you understand any thing in your own Trade, you could not but know that the hectic of your own brain is more desperate than the Tertian fits of mine, which are easily cured with a little sleep; but yours is past the remedy of a mortar and braying. But I wonder with what confidence you can accuse me with the discovery of private passages between us, when you are so open yourself, that every man sees through you; or how could I disclose perfectly any thing in your Epistles to my Father and Mother, which was not before very well known to your Tutors and Schoolmasters, whose instructions you used in compiling those voluminous works. Let any man judge, whether I am so likely to divulge secrets as you, who cannot forbear Printing and publishing: Your Labours are now cried in the streets of London, with Ballads on the Rump, and Hewsons' Lamentations; and the Lord of Dorchester's name makes a greater noise in a close Alley then kitchenstuff, or work for a Tinker: and all this by your own industry, who are not ashamed at the same instant to pretend to secrecy, with no less absurdity than you commit, when accusing me for using foul Language, you do out do Billingsgate yourself. But now you begin to vapour, and to tell us you have fought before; so I have heard you have, with your Wife, and Poet, but if you came off with no more honour than when you were beaten by my Lord Grandison, you had better have kept that to your self, if it were possible for you to conceal any thing: but I cannot but laugh at the untoward course you take to render yourself formidable, by bragging of your Fights, when you are terrible only in your medicines: if you had told us how many you had killed that way, and how many you have cut in pieces, besides Calves and Dogs, a right valiant man that has any wit, would tremble to come near you: and if by your threatening to ram your Sword down my throat, you do not mean your Pills, which are a more dangerous weapon, the worst is past, and I am safe enough: for as for your Feats of arms, there is no half quarter of a man that is so wretched, but would venture to give you battle, but you are most unsufferable in your unconscionable engrossing of all Trades: Is it not enough that you are already as many things as any of your own receipts, that you are a Doctor of the civil Law, and a Barister at the Common, a Bencher of grays-inn, a professor of physic and a Fellow of the college; a Mathematician, Caldean, a Schoolman and a piece of a Grammarian, (as your last work can show were it construed) a Philosopher, Poet, Translator, Antisocordist, solicitor, Broker and Usurer; besides a marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron; but you must, like Dr. Suttle, profess quarrelling too, and publish yourself an Hector; of which calling there are so many already, that they can hardly live on by another. Sir, truly there is no conscience in it, considering you have not only, a more sure and safe way of killing men already then they have, but a plentiful Estate besides: So many Trades, & yet have so little conscience to eat the bread out of their mouths; they have great reason to lay it to heart, & I hope some of them will demand reparation of you and make you give them compounding dinners too, as well as you have done to the rest of your Fraternities; and now be your own judge, whether any one man can be bound in honour to Fight with such an Hydra as you are; a Monster of many heads, like the multitude, or the Devil that called himself Legion; such an encounter would be no duel but War, which I never heard that my one man ever made alone; and I must levy Forces ere I can meet you; for if every one of your capacities had but a Second, you would amount to a Brigade, as your Letter does to a Declaration; in which I cannot omit, that in one respect you have dealt very ingeniously, and that is, in publishing to the world, that all your heroical resolutions are built upon your own opinion of my want of courage: this argues you well studied in the dimensions of quarrelling; among which, one of the chiefest shows how to take measure of another mansvalour, by comparing it with your own, to make your approaches accordingly: but as the least mistake betrays you to an infallible beating, so you had fared, and perhaps had had the Honour which you seem to desire, of falling by my Sword, if I had not thought you a thing fitter for any man's contempt then anger.  
Roos.