there enters a folicitor from Newgate, defiring Lord Peter would please to procure a pardon for a thief that was to be hanged to-morrow. But the two brothers told him, he was a coxcomb, to feek pardons from a fellow who deferved to be hanged much better than his client; and discovered all the method of that imposture, in the fame form I delivered it a while ago; advifing the folicitor to put his friend upon obtaining a pardon from the king *. In the midst of all this clutter and revolution, in comes Peter with a file of dragoons at his heels† ; and gathering from all hands what was in the wind, he and his gang, after feveral millions of fcurrilities and curfes, not very im portant here to repeat, by main force very fairly kicks them both out of doors ‡, and would never let them come under his roof from that day to this.

SECT. V.

A digreffion in the modern kind.

Wheatle of modern authors, should never have

E, whom the world is pleafed to honour with

been able to compafs our great defign of an everlasting remembrance, and never-dying fame, if our endeavours had not been fo highly ferviceable to the general good of mankind. This, O Univerfe, is the adventurous attempt of me thy fecretary;

Quemvis perferre laborem

Suadet, et inducit noctes vigilare ferenas.

To this end, I have fome time fince, with a world of pains and art, diffected the carcafe of human nature, and read many ufeful lectures upon the feveral parts, both containing and contained; till at last it. Smelt fo

Directed penitents not to trust to pardons and abfolutions procured for money; but fent them to implore the mercy of God, from whence alone remiffion is to be obtained.

By Peter's dragoons is meant the civil power, which thofe princes who were bigotted to the Romish fuperftition, employed against the reformers.

The Pope fhuts all who diffent from him out of the church.

strong

ftrong, I could preferve it no longer. Upon which, I have been at a great expence to fit up all the bones with exact contexture, and in due fymmetry; fo that I am ready to fhew a very complete anatomy thereof to all curious gentlemen and others. But, not to digrefs farther in the midst of a digreffion, as I have known fome au-thors inclofe digreffions in one another, like a nest of boxes; I do affirm, that having carefully cut up human nature, I have found a very strange, new, and important difcovery; that the publick good of mankind is per-formed by two ways, inftruction and diverfion. And I have farther proved in my faid feveral readings, (which perhaps the world may one day fee, if I can prevail on any friend to fteal a copy, or on any certain gentleman of my admirers, to be very importunate), that, as mankind is now difpoled, he receives much greater advantage by being diverted than inftructed; his epidemical dif-eales being fatidiofity, amorphy, and ofcitation; whereas, in the prefent univerfal empire of wit and learning, there feems but little matter left for inftruction. However, in compliance with a lefon of great age and authority, I have attempted carrying the point in all its heights; and accordingly, throughout this divine treatife, have fkilfully kneaded up both together, with a layer of utile, and a layer of dulce.

When I confider how exceedingly our illuftrious moderns have eclipfed the weak glimmering lights of the ancients, and turned them out of the road of all fashionable commerce, to a degree, that our choice town-wits, of moft refined accomplishments, are in grave difpute, whether there have been ever any ancients or no *; in which point we are like to receive wonderful fatisfaction from the moft ufeful labours and lucubrations of that worthy modern Dr. Bentley: I fay, when I confider all this, I cannot but bewail, that no famous modern hath ever yet attempted an univerfal fyftem, in a fmall portable volume, of all things that are to be known, or be lieved, or imagined, or practifed in life. I am however

The learned perfon here meant by our author, hath been endeavouring to annihilate fo many ancient writers, that, until he is pleafed to flop his hand, it will be dangerous to affirm, whether there have been any ancients in the world.

forced

forced to acknowledge, that fuch an enterprife was thought on fome time ago, by a great philofopher of O. Brazil *. The method he propofed, was by a certain curious receipt, a noftrum, which, after his untimely death, I found among his papers; and do here, out of my great affection to the modern learned, prefent them with it; not doubting, it may one day encourage fome worthy undertaker.

You take fair correct copies, well bound in calfskin, and lettered at the back, of all modern bodies of arts and feiences whatsoever, and in what language you please. These you diftil in balneo Mariæ, infufing quinteffence of poppy q. f. together with three pints of lethe, to be had from the apothecaries. You cleanfe away carefully the fordes and caput mortuum, letting all that is volatile evaporate. You preferve only the first running, which is again to be distilled Seventeen times, till what remains will amount to about two drams. This you keep in a glass vial hermetically fealed, for one and twenty days; then you begin your catholic treatife, taking every morning fafting, first shaking the vial, three drops of this elixir, fnuffing it ftrongly up your nofe. It will dilate itself about the brain (where there is any) in fourteen minutes, and you immediately perceive in your head an infinite number of abftracts, fummaries, compendiums, extracts, collections, medulla's, excerpta quædam's, florilegia's, and the like, all disposed into great order, and reducible upon paper:

I must needs own, it was by the affistance of this ar canum, that, though otherwise impar, have adventured upon fo daring an attempt; never atchieved or undertaken before, but by a certain author called Homer; in whom, though otherwife a perfon not without fome abilities, and for an ancient of a tolerable genius, I have discovered many grofs errors, which are not to be forgiven his very ashes, if by chance any of them are left. For whereas we are affured, he defigned his work for a complete body † of all knowledge, human, divine, pa

This is an imaginary island, of kin to that which is called the painters wives ifland, placed in fome unknown part of the ocean, merely at the fancy of the map-maker.

† Homerus omnes res humanas poematis complexus est. Xnoph. in conviv.

litical

litical, and mechanic; it is manifeft, he hath wholly .neglected fome, and been very imperfect in the rest. For, 1 first of all, as eminent a cabalist as his difciples would reprefent him, his account of the opus magnum is extremely 1poor and deficient; he feems to have read but very fuperficially either Sendivogus, Behmen, or Anthropofophia Theomagica *. He is alfo quite mistaken about the fphæra pyroplaftica, a neglect not to be atoned for ; and, if the reader will admit fo fevere a cenfure, vix crederem autorem hunc unquam audiviffe ignis vocem. His failings are not lefs prominent in feveral parts of the mechanies. For, having read his writings with the utmost application ufual among modern wits, I could never yet difcover the leaft direction about the ftructure of that useful inftrument, a fave-all. For want of which, if the moderns had not lent their affiftance, we might yet have wandered in the dark. But I have still behind, a fault far more notorious to tax this author with; I mean, his grofs ignorance in the common laws of this realm, and in the doctrine, as well as difcipline of the church of EngJand: A defect indeed, for which both he and all the ancients stand moft juftly cenfured by my worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Wotton, Batchelor of Divinity, in his incomparable treatife of ancient and modern learning; a book never to be fufficiently valued, whether we confider the happy turns and flowings of the author's wit, the great ufefulness of his fublime difcoveries upon the fubject of flies and spittle, or the laborious eloquence of his ftyle. And I cannot forbear doing that author the juftice of my public acknowledgments, for the great helps and liftings I had out of his incomparable piece, while I was penning this treatise.

But, befides thefe omiffions in Homer, already men

A treatife written about fifty years ago, by a Welsh gentleman of Cambridge. His name, as I remember, was Vaughan; as appears by the answer to it written by the learned Dr. Henry Moor. It is a piece of the moft unintelligible fuftian, that perhaps was ever publifhed in any language.

Mr. Wotton, (to whom our author never gives any quar ter), in his comparifon of ancient and modern learning, numbers divinity, law, &c. among those parts of knowledge wherein we excel the ancients.

tioned,

tioned, the curious reader will alfo obferve feveral defects in that author's writings, for which he is not altogether fo accountable. For whereas every branch of knowledge has received fuch wonderful acquirements fince his age, especially within thefe laft three years, or thereabouts; it is almost impoffible, he could be so very perfect in modern difcoveries, as his advocates pretend. We freely acknowledge him to be the inventor of the: compass, of gun-powder, and the circulation of the blood.. But I challenge any of his admirers, to fhew me in all: his writings a complete account of the spleen. Does he not alfo leave us wholly to feek in the art of political, wagering? What can be more defective and unfatisfactory than his long differtation upon tea?: And, as to his method of falivation without mercury, fo much celebrated ! of late, it is to my own knowledge and experience, a thing very little to be relied on.

It was to fupply fuch momentous defects, that I have been prevailed on, after long folicitation, to take pen in hand; and I dare venture to promife, the judicious reader fhall find nothing neglected here, that can be of ufe upon any emergency of life. I am confident to have included and exhausted all that human imagination can rife or fall to. Particularly, I recommend to the perufal: of the learned, certain difcoveries that are wholly untouched by others; whereof I fhall only mention, among a great many more, My new help for fmatterers; or, The art of being deep-learned, and fhallow-read :-A curious, invention about moufe-traps :-An univerfal rule of reafon; or, Every man his own carver; together with a most use ful engine for catching of owls. All which the judicious: reader will find largely treated on in the feveral parts of this difcourfe.

I hold myself obliged to give as much light as is poffible, into the beauties and excellencies of what I am writing; because it is become the fashion and humour moft applauded among the first authors of this polite and learned age, when they would correct the ill-nature of critical, or inform the ignorance of courteous readers. Befides, there have been feveral famous pieces lately published, both in verfe and profe; wherein, if the writers had not been pleased, out of their great humanity į

and