Another :

To obferve what trash the prefs fwarms with, &c.

Another:

Sir, It is merely in obedience to your commands, that I venture into the public; for who, upon a lefs confideration, would be of a party with fuch a rabble of fcribblers? &c.

Now, I have two words in my own defence against this objection. First, I am far from granting the number of writers a nuisance to our nation, having ftrenuously maintained the contrary in feveral parts of the following difcourfe. Secondly, I do not well understand the justice of this proceeding; because I obferve many of these polite prefaces to be not only from the fame hand, but from those who are most voluminous in their feveral productions. Upon which I fhall tell the reader a fhort tale.

A mountebank, in Leicefter-fields, had drawn a huge affembly about him. Among the rest, a fat unwieldy fellow, half stifled in the prefs, would be every fit crying out, Lord! what a filthy croud is here? Pray, good people, give way a little. Blefs me! what a devil has raked this rabble together! Zds, what fqueezing is this! Honeft friend, remove your elbow. At laft, a weaver, that ftood next him, could hold no longer: A plague confound you (said he) for an overgrown floven; and who, in the devil's name, I wonder, helps to make up the croud half fo much as yourself? Don't you confider, with a

рох, that you take up more room with that carcafe than any five here? Is not the place as free for us as for you? Bring your own guts to a reasonable compass, and be d—n'd; and then I'll engage we shall have room enough for us all.

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that, where I am not understood, it fhall be concluded, that fomething very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or fentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain fomething extraordinary, either of wit, or fublime.

As for the liberty I have thought fit to take of praifing myself, upon fome occasions or none; I am fure it will need no excufe, if a multitude of great examples be allowed fufficient authority. For it is here to be noted, that praife was originally a penfion paid by the world: But the moderns, finding the trouble and charge too great in collecting it, have lately bought out the feefimple; fince which time, the right of prefentation is wholly in ourselves. For this reafon it is, that when an author makes his own elogy, he ufes a certain form to declare and infift upon his title, which is commonly in these or the like words, I speak without vanity: Which I think plainly fhews it to be a matter of right and justice. Now, I do here once for all declare, that in every encounter of this nature, through the following VOL. I.

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treatife,

treatife, the form aforefaid is implied; which I mention, to fave the trouble of repeating it on fo many occafions.

It is a great eafe to my confcience, that I have written fo elaborate and useful a difcourfe, without one grain of fatire intermixed; which is the fole point wherein I have taken leave to diffent from the famous originals of our age and country. I have obferved fome fatirifts, to use the public much at the rate that pedants do a naughty boy ready horsed for discipline: First, expoftulate the cafe, then plead the neceffity of the rod, from great provocations, and conclude every period with a lafh. Now, if I know any thing of mankind, these gentlemen might very well spare their reproof and correction: For there is not, through all nature, another fo callous and infenfible a member as the world's pofteriors, whether you apply to it the toe or the birch. Befides, most of our late fatirifts seem to lie under a fort of mistake, that becaufe nettles have the prerogative to fting, therefore all other weeds must do fo too. I make not this comparison out of the least defign to detract from thefe worthy writers: For it is well known among mythologifts, that weeds have the pre-eminence over all other vegetables; and therefore the firft monarch of this ifland, whofe tafte and judgment were fo acute and refined, did very wifely root the roses from the collar of the order, and plant the thiftles in their ftead, as the nobler flower of the two. For

which reafon it is conjectured by profounder antiquaries, that the fatirical itch, fo prevalent in this part of our island, was firft brought among us from beyond the Tweed. Here may it long flourish and abound. May it furvive, and neglect the scorn of the world, with as much eafe and contempt as the world is infenfible to the lafhes of it. May their own dulnefs, or that of their party, be no difcouragement for the authors to proceed; but let them remember, it is with wits as with razors, which are never fo apt to cut those they are employed on, as when they have loft their edge. Befides, those whose teeth are too rotten to bite, are best of all others qualified to revenge that defect with their breath.

I am not, like other men, to envy or undervalue the talents I cannot reach; for which reafon, I muft needs bear a true honour to this large eminent fect of our British writers. And I hope, this little panegyric will not be offensive to their ears, fince it has the advantage of being only defigned for themselves. Indeed, Nature herself has taken order, that fame and honour fhould be purchased at a better pennyworth by fatire, than by any other productions of the brain; the world being fooneft provoked to praife by lafes, as men are to love. There is a problem in an ancient author, why dedications, and other bundles of flattery, run all upon ftale mufty topics, without the finallest tincture of any thing new; not only to the torment and naufeating of the Chriftian

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Christian reader, but, if not fuddenly prevented, to the universal spreading of that peftilent disease, the lethargy, in this ifland: Whereas there is very little fatire, which has not fomething in it untouched before. The defects of the former are ufually imputed to the want of invention among those who are dealers in that kind; but, I think, with a great deal of injustice; the solution being eafy and natural. For the materials of panegyric, being very few in number, have been long fince exhaufted. For as health is but one thing, and has been always the fame; whereas difeafes are by thoufands, befides new and daily additions: So all the virtues that have been ever in mankind, are to be counted upon a few fingers; but his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. Now, the utmost a poor poet can do, is to get by heart a list of the cardinal virtues, and deal them with his utmoft liberality to his hero or his patron. He may ring the changes as far as it will go, and vary his phrafe till he has talked round: But the reader quickly finds it is all pork*, with a little variety of fauce. For there is no inventing terms of art beyond our ideas; and when our ideas are exhaufted, terms of art must be so too.

But though the matter for panegyric were as fruitful as the topics of fatire, yet would it not be hard to find out a fufficient reafon, why the latter will be always better received than the first.

*Plutarch.

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