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TALE OF A TU B,

Written for the univerfal Improvement of

Mankind.

Diu multumque defideratum.

To which are added,

An Account of a BATTLE between the ANCIENT and MODERN BOOKS in St James's Library :

With the AUTHOR'S APOLOGY; and

Explanatory notes, by W. WOTTON, B. D. and

others.

Bafyma cacabafa eanaa, irraumifta diarbada caësta bafobor camelanthi.

-Juvatque novos decerpere flores, Infignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam, Unde prius nulli velarunt tempora mufe.

Iren. lib. I. c. 13.

Lucret.

The AUTHOR'S APOLOGY.

IF good and ill nature equally operated upon

mankind, I might have faved myself the trouble of this apology; for it is manifeft, by the reception the following difcourse hath met with, that thofe who approve it, are a great majority among the men of tafte. Yet there have been two or three treatises written exprefsly against it, befides many others that have flirted at it occafionally, without one fyllable having been ever publifhed in its defence, or even quotation to its advantage, that I can remember; except by the polite author of a late difcourfe between a Deift and a Socinian.

Therefore, fince the book feems calculated to live at least as long as our language and our tafte admit no great alterations, I am content to convey fome apology along with it.

The greateft part of that book was finished about thirteen years fince, 1696; which is eight years before it was published. The author was then young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head. By the afliftance of fome thinking, and much conversation, he had endeavoured to strip himself of as many real prejudices, as he could: I fay real ones; because, under the notion of prejudices, he knew to what dangerous heights fome men have proceeded. Thus prepared, he thought the numerous and

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grofs corruptions in religion and learning might furnish matter for a fatire, that would be ufeful and diverting. He refolved to proceed in a manner that should be altogether new; the world having been already too long naufeated with endlefs repetitions upon every fubject. The abufes in religion he proposed to set forth in the allegory of the coats, and the three brothers; which was to make up the body of the discourse: Thofe in learning he chofe to introduce by way of digreffions. He was then a young gentleman much in the world; and wrote to the tafte of those who were like himfelf: Therefore, in order to allure them, he gave a liberty to his pen, which might not fuit with maturer years, or graver characters; and which he could have eafily corrected with a very few blots, had he been master of his papers for a year or two before their publication.

Not that he would have governed his judgment by the ill-placed cavils of the four, the envious, the ftupid, and the tastelefs; which he mentions with difdain. He acknowledges there are feveral youthful fallies, which, from the grave and the wife, may deferve a rebuke. But he defires to be answerable no farther than he is guilty; and that his faults may not be multiplied by the ignorant, the unnatural, and uncharitable applications of thofe, who have neither candour to fuppofe good meanings, nor palate to diftinguifh true ones. After which, he will forfeit his life, if any one

opinion

opinion can be fairly deduced from that book, which is contrary to religion or morality.

Why should any clergyman of our church be angry to fee the follies of fanaticism and superstition exposed, though in the most ridiculous manner? fince that is perhaps the most probable way to cure them, or at least to hinder them from farther fpreading. Befides, though it was not intended for their perufal, it rallies nothing but what they preach against. It contains nothing to provoke them, by the leaft fcurrility upon their perfons or their functions. It celebrates the church of England, as the most perfect of all others in difcipline and doctrine; it advances no opinion they reject, nor condemns any they receive. If the clergy's refentments lay upon their hands, in my humble opinion, they might have found more proper objects to employ them on. Nondum tibi defuit hoftis; I mean thofe heavy, illiterate fcribblers, proftitute in their reputations, vitious in their lives, and ruined in their fortunes; who, to the fhame of good fenfe as well as piety, are greedily read, merely upon the strength of bold, falfe, impious affertions, mixed with unmannerly reflections upon the priesthood, and openly intended against all religion; in short, full of fuch principles as are kindly received, because they are levelled to remove those terrors, that religion tells men will be the confequence of immoral lives. Nothing like which is to be met with in this difcourfe, though fome of them are pleased

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