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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 such 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 several parts of the following difcourfe. Secondly, I do not well understand the juftice of this proceeding; because I obferve many of thefe polite prefaces to be not only from the fame hand, but from those who are most voluminous in their feveral productions. Upon which 1 fhall tell the reader a fhort tale.

A mountebank, in Leicester-fields, had drawn a huge affembly about him. Among the reft, a fat unweildy fellow, half-ftifled 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! Z-ds, what squeezing is this! Honeft friend, remove your elbow. At last, a weaver, that ftood next him, could hold no longer : A plague confound you (aid he) for an overgrown floven; and who, in the devil's name, I wonder, helps to make up the croud half so much as yourself? Don't you confider, with a pox, 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 reafonable compafs, and be d-n'd; and then I'll engage we ‹ fhall 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 ufeful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or fentence is printed in a different character, fhall be judged to contain fomething extraordinary ether of wit or fublime."

As for the liberty I have thought fit to take of prai fing myself upon fome occafions 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,

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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 fee-fimple; 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 thefe or the like words, I speak without vanity which I think plainly fhews it to be a matter of right and juftice. Now, I do here once for all declare, that in every encounter of this nature, through the following treatise, 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 publick much at the rate that pedants do a naughty boy ready horfed for difcipline: first, expoftulate the cafe, then plead the neceffity of the rod, from great provocations, and conclude every period with a Jafh. Now, if I know any thing of mankind, these gentlemen might very well fpare their reproof and correction: for there is not, through all nature, another fo callous and infenfible a member as the world's posteriors, whether you apply to it the toe or the birch. Befides, most of our late fatirifts feem to lie under a fort of mistake, that becaufe nettles have the prerogative to fting, therefore all other weeds muft do fo too. I make not this comparifon out of the leaft defign to de tract from thefe worthy writers: for it is well known among mythologifts, that weeds have the preheminence over all other vegetables; and therefore the first monarch of this ifland, whofe tafte and judgment were fo acute and refined, did very wifely root out the roles from the collar of the order, and plant the thifles 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 first brought among us from beyond the Tweed. Here may it long flourish and abound. May it furvive and neglec

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the fcorn of the world, with as much ease and contempt, as the world is infenfible to the lafhes of it. May their own dulness, 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 thofe they are employed on, as when they have loft their edge. Befides, thofe whofe teeth are too rotten to bite, are beft, 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 reason I muft needs bear a true honour to this large eminent fect of our Britifh writers. And I hope, this little panegyric will not be offenfive to their ears, fince it has the advantage of being only defigned for themfelves. Indeed, Nature herself has taken order, that famé and honour should be purchased at a better pennyworth by fatire, than by any other productions of the brain; the world being fooneft provoked to praise by lashes, as men are to love. There is a problem in an ancient author, why dedications, and other bundles of flattery, run all upon stale mufty topics, without the fmallelt tincture of any thing new; not only to the torment and naufeating of the Chriftian reader, but, if not fuddenly prevented, to the univerfal fpreading of that peftilent difeafe, the lethargy, in this island: 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 thofe who are dealers in that kind; but, I think, with a great deal of injuftice; the folution being eafy and natural. For the materials of panegyric, being very few in number, have been long fince exhausted. For as health is but one thing, and has been always the fame whereas diseases are by thousands, befides new and daily additions: fo 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 lift of the cardi nal virtues, and deal them with his utmost 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

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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 exhaust, ed, terms of art must be fo 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. For this being beftowed only upon one, or a few perfons at a time, is fure to raife envy, and confequently ill words, from the rest, who have no share in the bleffing. But fatire, being levelled at all, is never refented for an offence by any; fince every individual perfon makes bold to understand it of others, and very wifely removes his particular part of the burden upon the fhoulders of the world, which are broad enough, and able to bear it. To this pur pose, I have fometimes. reflected upon the difference be tween Athens and England with respect. to the point before us. In the Attic commonwealth †, it was the pri vilege and birthright of every citizen and poet, to rail aloud, and in public, or to expose upon the stage by name, any perfon they pleafed, though. of the greatelt figure, whether a Creon, an Hyperbolus, an Alcibiades, or a Demofthenes.. But, on the other fide, the leaft reflecting word let fall against the people in general, was immediately caught up, and revenged upon the authors, however confiderable for their quality or their merits. Whereas in England it is just the reverfe of all this. Here, you may fecurely difplay your utmost rhetoric againft mankind, in the face of the world; tell them, That all are gone aftray; that there is none that doth good, no not one that we live in the very dregs of times that knavery and atheifm are epidemic as the pox; that honesty is fled with Aftrea; with any other common places, equally new and eloquent, which are furnished by the fplendida bilis. And when you have done, the whole audience, far from being offended, fhall return you thanks, as a deliverer of precious and ufeful truths Nay farther, it is but to venture your lungs, and you may preach in Covent-garden against foppery and for

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nication, and something else; against pride, and diffimulation, and bribery, at White-hall: you may expofe rapine and injuftice in the inns of court chapel; and in a city pulpit, be as fierce as you pleafe againft avarice, hypocrify, and extortion. It is but a ball bandied to and fro, and every man carries a racket about him to strike it from himself among the reft of the company. But, on the other fide, whoever fhould mistake the nature of things fo far, as to drop but a fingle hint in public, how fuch a one ftarved half the fleet, and half-poisoned the reft; how fuch a one, from a true principle of love and honour, pays no debts but for wenches and play; how fuch a one has got a clap, and runs out of his eftate; how Paris, bribed by Juno and Venus*, loth to offend either party, flept out the whole cause on the bench; or, how fuch an orator makes long speeches in the fenate with much thought, little fenfe, and to no purpose: whoever, I fay, fhould venture to be thus particular, must expect to be imprisoned for fcandalum magnatum; to have challenges fent him; to be fued for defamation; and to be brought before the bar of the house.

But I forget that I am expatiating on a fubject wherein I have no concern, having neither a talent nor an inclination for fatire ! On the other fide, I am fo entirely fatisfied with the whole prefent procedure of human things, that I have been fome years preparing materials towards A panegyric upon the world; to which I intended to add a fecond part, intitled, A modeft defence of the proceedings of the rabble in all ages. Both these I had thoughts to publish, by way of appendix to the following treatife; but, finding my common-place book fill much flower than I had reafon to expect, I have chofen to defer them to another occafion. Besides, I have been unhappily prevented in that defign by a certain domestic misfortune: in the particulars whereof, though it would be very feasonable, and much in the modern way, to inform the gentle reader, and would also

* Juno and Venus, are money and a mistress; very powerful bribes to a judge, if fcandal fays true. I remember fuch reflections were caft about that time, but I cannot fix the perfon intended here.

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