and make as confiderable improvements, as other young Princes have already done, by the many volumes of late years written for a help to their ftudies t.

THAT your Highness may advance in wifdom and virtue, as well as years, and at last outshine all your royal ancestors, shall be the daily prayer of,

SIR,

Your Highnes's

December,

1697.

Moft devoted, &c.

There were innumerable books printed for the ufe of the

Dauphine of France.

THE

PREFACE.

T

HE wits of the prefent age being fo very numerous and penetrating, it feems the grandees of Church and State begin to fall under horrible apprehenfions, left thefe gentlemen, during the intervals of a long peace, should find leifure to pick holes in the weak fides of religion and government. To prevent which, there has been much thought employed of late upon certain projects for taking off the force and edge of thofe formidable inquirers, from canvaffing and reafoning upon fuch delicate points. They have at length fixed upon one, which will require fome time as well as coft to perfect. Mean while the danger hourly increa fing, by new levies of wits, all appointed (as there is reafon to fear) with pen, ink, and paper, which may, at an hour's warning, be drawn out into pamphlets, and other offenfive weapons, ready for immediate execution; it was judged of abfolute neceffity, that fome prefent expedient be thought on, till the main defign can be brought to maturity. To this end, at a grand committee, fome days ago, this important difcovery was made by a certain curious and refined obferver, that feamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the fhip. This parable was immediately mythologised. The whale was interpreted to be Hobbes's Leviathan; which toffes and plays with all fchemes of religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry, and empty, and noify, and wooden, and given to rotation. This is the leviathan from whence the terrible wits of our age are faid to borrow their weapons. The hip in danger is easily understood to be its old antitype the commonwealth. But how to analyse the tub, was a

matter

matter of difficulty; when, after long inquiry and debate, the literal meaning was preferved: and it was decreed, that in order to prevent these leviathans from toffing and fporting with the commonwealth, which of itself is too apt to fluctuate, they should be diverted from that game by a Tale of a Tub. And my genius being conceived to ly not unhappily that way, I had the honour done me to be engaged in the performance.

THIS is the fole defign in publishing the following treatise; which, I hope, will ferve for an interim of fome months to employ thofe unquiet fpirits, till the perfecting of that great work into the fecret of which, it is reasonable the courteous reader fhould have fome little light.

Ir is intended that a large academy be erected, capable of containing nine thousand feven hundred forty and three perfons; which, by modeft computation, is reckoned to be pretty near the current number of wits in this ifland. Thefe are to be difpofed into the several schools of this academy, and there purfue those studies to which their genius moft inclines them. The undertaker himfelf will publish his propofals with all convenient fpeed; to which I fhall refer the curious reader for a more particular account, mentioning at prefent only a few of the principal schools: there is, firft, a large Pæderaftic fchool, with French and Italian masters: there is also the Spelling fchool, a very spacious building: the fchool of Looking glaffes: the fchool of Swearing: the fchool of Critics: the fchool of Salivation: the fchool of Hobbyborfes: the fchool of Poetry: the fchool of Tops *: the fchool of Spleen: the fchool of Gaming: with many others too tedious to recount. No perfon to be admitted member into any of thefe fchools, without an attestation under two fufficient perfons hands, certifying him to be a quit.

BUT to return: I am fufficiently inftructed in the principal duty of a preface, if my genius were capable of arriving

* This, I think, the Author fhould have omitted, it being of the very fame nature with the fchool of hobby-horfes; if one may venture to cenfure one who is fo severe a cenfurer of others, per haps with too little distinction.

arriving at it. Thrice have I forced my imagination to make the tour of my invention, and thrice it has returned empty the latter having been wholly drained by the following treatise. Not fo my more fuccessful brethren the moderns, who will by no means let flip a preface or dedication, without fome notable diftinguishing stroke to furprise the reader at the entry, and kindle a wonderful expectation of what is to enfue. Such was that of a most ingenious poet, who folliciting his brain for fomething new, compared himself to the hangman, and his patron to the patient. This was infigne, recens, indi&um ore alio. When I went thro' that neceffary and noble course of study, I had the happiness to obferve many such egregious touches; which I shall not injure the authors by tranfplanting; because I have remarked, that nothing is so very tender as a modern piece of wit, and which is apt to fuffer fo much in the carriage. Some things are extremely witty; to-day, or fafting, or in this place, or at eight o'clock, or over a bottle, or poke by Mr. Whatd'y'call'm, or in a fummer's morning; any of the which, by the smallest transposal or misapplication, is utterly annihilate. Thus, wit has its walks and purlieus; out of which it may not stray the breadth of an hair, upon peril of being loft. The moderns have artfully fixed this mercury, and reduced it to the circumftances of time, place, and perfon. Such a jeft there is, that will not pafs out of Covent-Garden, and fuch a one, that is no where intelligible but at Hyde-park corner. Now, tho' it fometimes tenderly affects me to confider, that all the towardly paffages I fhall deliver in the following treatise, will grow quite out of date and relish with the firft fhifting of the present scene; yet I must needs subscribe to the juftice of this proceeding; because I cannot imagine why we should be at expence to furnish wit for fucceeding ages, when the former have made no fort of provifion for ours: wherein I fpeak the fentiment of the very neweft, and confequently the most orthodox refiners,

as

+ Hor. Something extraordinary new, and never hit upon before.

[Reading Prefaces. &c.]