attempted carrying 3) the point in all its heights; and accordingly throughout this divine treatise, have skilfully kneaded up both together with a layer of utile, and a layer of dulce.

to a

When I consider how exceedingly our illustrious moderns have eclipsed the weak glimmering lights of the ancients, and turned them out of the road of all fashionable commerce, degree, that our choice town wits, of most refined accomplishments, are in grave dispute, whether there have been ever any ancients or no 4); in which point we are like to receive wonderful satisfaction from the most useful labours and lucubrations of that worthy modern, Dr. B-tley 5): I say, when I consider all this, I cannot but ') bewail, that no famous modern hath ever yet attempted an universal system in a small portable volume, of all things that are to be known, or believed, or imagined, or practised in life. I am however forced to acknowledge, that such an enterprize was thought on some time ago by a great philosopher of O. Brazil'). The method he proposed, was by a certain curious receipt, a nostrum, which, after his untimely death,

I found among his papers; and do here, out of 3) my great

affection to the modern learned, present them with it; not doubting it may one day encourage some worthy undertaker.

You take fair correct copies, well bound in calf-skin, and ,,lettered at the back, of all modern bodies of arts and sciences ,, whatsoever, and in what language you please. These you distil „in balneo Mariae infusing quintessence of popy q. s. together with three pints) of lethe, to be had from the apothecaries. You cleanse away carefully the sordes and caput mortuum, letting all that is volatile evaporate. You preserve

3) carrying, statt to carry. 4) no steht statt not, nach whether or, ob— oder. 5) B-tley, i. e. Bentley. 6) but in Verbindung mit cannot, deutet auf Nothwendigkeit hin, sie mag entspringen, aus welchem Grunde sie will. I cannot but bewail hiesse demnach: so kann ich nicht umhin zu bedauern, oder: ich muss bedauern. 7) 0. Brazil ist eine fingirte Insel. 8) out of, wofür auch bisweilen (aber selten) out from und bei Dichtern from out steht, zeigt figürlich einen Ursprung und einen Bewegungsgrund

Nösel.

an.

9) pint,

,, only the first running1o), which is again to be distilled seven,, teen times, till what remains will amount to about two drachms. This you keep in a glass vial hermetically sealed, for 11) one and twenty days; then you begin your catholic treatise, taking „, every morning fasting (first shaking the vial) three drops of this elixir, snuffing it strongly up your nose. It will dilate

66

itself about the brain (where there is any) in fourteen minutes, ,, and you immediately perceive in your head an infinite number of abstracts, summaries, 'compendiums, extracts, collections, „medulla's, excerpta quaedam's, storilega's, and the like, all disposed into great order, and reducible upon paper. I must needs own, it was by the assistance of this arcanum that I, though otherwise impar, have adventured upon so daring an attempt; never achieved or undertaken before, but by a certain author, called Homer; in whom, though otherwise a person not without some abilities, and for an ancient, of a tolerable genius, I have discovered many gross errors, which are not to be forgiven his very ashes, if by chance any of them are left. For, whereas we are assured, he designed his work for a compleat body of all knowledge, human, divine, political, and mechanic 12); it is manifest, he hath wholly neglected some, and been very imperfect in the rest. For, first of all, as eminent a cabalist as his disciples would represent him, his account of the opus magnum is extremely poor and deficient; he seems to have read but very superficially either Sendivogus, Behmen, or Anthroposophia theomagica 13). He is also quite mistaken about the sphaera pyroplastica, a neglect not to be atoned for; and, if the reader will admit so severe a censure, vix crederem autorem hunc unquam audivisse ignis vocem. His failings are not less prominent in several parts of the mechanics; for, having read his

- 11) for,

10) running, Fliessen, hier so viel als Abguss. in Beziehung auf Zeitdauer, ist gleichbedeutend mit dem deutschen auf, hindurch, lang. 12) In Xenophon's Conviv. c. IV, 6. heisstes: ἴστε γὰρ δήπου, ὅτι Ὅμηρος ὁ σοφώτατος πεποίηκε σχεδόν περὶ πάντων τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων. — 13) Anthroposophia theomagica, eine Abhandlung, verfasst von einem Welschen Edelmann aus Cambridge; sein Name war vielleicht Vaughan; dies Werk ist ausserordentlich schwülstig geschrieben, wie vielleicht noch nie eins wieder geschrieben worden ist.

C

writings with the utmost application usual among modern wits, I could never yet discover the least direction about the structure' of that useful instrument, a save-all 14). For want of which, if the moderns had not lent their assistance, 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 gross ignorance in the common laws of this realm, and in the doctrine as well as discipline of the church of England: a defect indeed, for which both he and all the ancients stand most justly censured by iny worthy and ingenious friend Mr. W-tt-n, Bachelor of Divinity, in his incomparable treatise of ancient and modern learning: a book never to be sufficiently valued, whether we consider the happy turns and flowings of the author's wit, the great usefulness of his sublime discoveries upon the subject of flies and spittle, or the laborious eloquence of his style. And I cannot forbear 15) doing that author the justice of my public acknowledgments, for the great helps and liftings I had out of this incomparable piece, while I was penning this treatise.

But, besides these omissions in Homer already mentioned, the curious reader will also observe several defects in that author's writings, for which he is not altogether so accountable. For whereas every branch of knowledge has received such wonderful acquirements since his age, especially within these last three years, or thereabouts, it is almost impossible, he could be so very perfect in modern discoveries as his advocates pretend. We freely acknowledge him to be the inventor of the compass, of gunpowder, and the circulation of the blood. But I challenge any of his admirers, to shew me in all his writings a compleat account of the spleen. Does he not also leave us wholly to seek in the art of political wagering? What can be more defective and unsatisfactory than his long dissertation upon tea? And as to his method of salivation without mercury, so much celebrated of late, it is to my own knowledge and experience, a thing very little to be relied on.

It was to supply such momentous defects, that I have been

14) save-all, der Lichterknecht, das Profitchen. not forbear, ich kann nicht umhin,

prevailed on, after long solicitation, to take pen in hand; and I dare venture to promise, the judicious reader shall find nothing neglected here, that can be of use upon any emergency of life. I am confident to have included and exhausted all that human imagination can rise or fall to. Particularly, I recommend to the perusal of the learned, certain discoveries that are wholly untouched by others; whereof I shall only mention among a great many more, my new help of smatterers; or, the art of being deep learned, and shallow read; A curious invention about mouse - traps; An universal rule of Reason: or, Every man his own carver; together with a most useful engine for catching of owls. All which the judicious reader will find largely treated on in the several parts of this discourse.

I hold myself obliged to give as much light as is possible, into the beauties and excellencies of what I am writing; because it is become the fashion and humour most 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. Besides, there have been several famous pieces lately published, both in verse and prose, wherein, if the writers had not been pleased, out of their great humanity and affection to the public, to give us a nice detail of the sublime and the admirable they contain, it is a thousand to one, whether we should ever have discovered one grain of either. For my own particular, I cannot deny, that whatever I have said upon this occasion, had been more proper in a preface, and more agreeable to the mode, which usually directs it there. But I here think fit to lay hold on that great and honourable privilege of being the last writer; I claim an absolute authority in right, as the freshest modern, which gives me a despotic power over all authors before me. In the strength of which title, I do utterly disapprove and declare against that pernicious custom, of making the preface a bill of fare to the book. For I have always looked upon it as a high point of indiscretion in monster-mongers, and other retailers of strange sights, to hang out a fair large picture over the door, drawn after the life, with a most eloquent description underneath. This hath saved me many a threepence; for my curiosity was fully satisfied, and I never offered to go in,

though often invited by the urging and attending orator, with his last moving and standing piece of rhetoric,,, Sir, upon my ,, word, we are just going to begin." Such is exactly the fate, at this time, of Prefaces, Epistles, Advertisements, Introductions, Prolegomenas, Apparatus's, To the Readers. This expedient was admirable at first. Our great Dryden has long carried it as far as it would go, and with incredible success. He hath often said to me in confidence, that the world would have never suspected him to be so great a poet, if he had not assured them so frequently in his prefaces, that it was impossible they could either doubt or forget it. Perhaps it may be so: however, I much fear, his instructions have edified out of their place, and taught men to grow wiser in certain points, where he never intended they should 16): for it is lamentable to behold with what a lazy scorn many of the yawning readers in our age do now a- -days twirl over 17) forty or fifty pages of preface and dedication (which is the usual modern stint), as if it were so much Latin. Though it must be also allowed, on the other hand, that a very considerable number are known to proceed critics and wits, by reading nothing else; into which two factions, I think, all present readers may justly be divided Now, for myself, I profess to be of the former sort: and therefore, having the modern inclination to expatiate upon the beauty of my own productions, and display the bright parts of my discourse, I thought best to do it in the body of the work; where, as it now lies, it makes a very considerable addition to the bulk 18) of the volume; a circumstance by no means to be neglected by a skilful writer.

Having thus paid my due deference and acknowledgment to an established custom of our newest authors, by a long digression unsought for, and an universal censure unprovoked; by forcing into the light, with much pains and dexterity, my own excel-` lencies, and other men's default, with great justice to myself, and candour to them; I now happily resume my subject, to the infinite satisfaction both of the reader and the author.