he could have detected and exposed in such a manner, that the persons, who are most conceived to be affected by them, would soon lay them aside and be ashamed: but he has now given over those thoughts; since the weightiest men, in the weightiest stations, are pleased to think it a more dangerous point, to laugh at those corruptions in religion, which they themselves must disapprove, than to endeavour pulling up those very foundations, wherein all Christians have agreed.

He thinks it no fair proceeding, that any person should offer determinately to fix a name upon the author of this discourse, who hath all along concealed himself from most of his nearest friends: yet several have gone a step farther, and pronounced another book to have been the work of the same hand with this, which the author directly affirms to be a thorough mistake;* he having yet never so much as read that discourse: a plain instance how little truth there often is in general surmises, or in conjectures drawn from a similitude of style, or way of thinking.

Had the author written a book to expose the abuses in Law, or in Physic, he believes the learned professors in either faculty would have been so far from resenting it, as to have given him thanks for his pains: especially if he had made an honourable reservation for the true practice of either science: but Religion, they tell us, ought not to be ridiculed; and they tell us truth: yet surely the corruptions in it may; for we are taught by the tritest maxim in the world, that Religion being the best of things, its corruptions are likely to be the worst.

* The celebrated Letter on Enthusiasm, published in 1708. It had been submitted by Lord Shaftesbury, to the revisal of Lord Somers, and others; but appeared anonymously.

There is one thing which the judicious reader cannot but have observed, that some of those passages in this discourse, which appear most liable to objection, are what they call parodies, where the author personates the style and manner of other writers, whom he has a mind to expose. I shall produce one instance of a passage in which Dryden, L'Estrange, and some others I shall not name, are levelled at, who, having spent their lives in faction, and apostacies, and all manner of vice, pretended to be sufferers for loyalty and religion. So Dryden tells us, in one of his prefaces, of his merits and sufferings, and thanks God that he possesses his soul in patience;* in other places he talks at the same rate; and L'Estrange often uses the like style; and I believe the reader may find more persons to give that passage an application: but this is enough to direct those, who may have overlooked the author's intention.

* In the Tale of a Tub, Dryden is repeatedly mentioned with great disrespect, not only as a translator and original author, but a mean-spirited sycophant of the great. The passage here alluded to occurs in the Essay on Satire, which Dryden prefaced to his version of Juvenal." More libels have been written against me, than almost any man now living; and I had reason on my side, to have defended my own innocence. I speak not of my poetry, which I have wholly given up to the critics: let them use it as they please posterity, perhaps, may be more favourable to me; for interest and passion will lie buried in another age, and partiality and prejudice be forgotten. I speak of my morals, which have been sufficiently aspersed: that only sort of reputation ought to be dear to every honest man, and is to me. But let the world witness for me, that I have been often wanting to myself in that particular; I have seldom answered any scurrilous lampoon, when it was in my power to have exposed my enemies: and, being naturally vindicative, have suffered in silence, and possessed my soul in quiet."

The recollection of his contemned Odes still rankled in Swift's bosom, though Dryden died four years before publication of the Tale of a Tub.

3

There are three or four other passages, which prejudiced or ignorant readers have drawn by great force to hint at ill meanings; as if they glanced at some tenets in religion. In answer to all which, the author solemnly protests, he is entirely innocent; and never had it once in his thoughts, that any thing he said would in the least be capable of such interpretations, which he will engage to deduce full as fairly from the most innocent book in the world. And it will be obvious to every reader, that this was not any part of his scheme or design, the abuses he notes being such as all church-of-England men agree in; nor was it proper for his subject to meddle with other points, than such as have been perpetually controverted since the Reformation.

To instance only in that passage about the three wooden machines, mentioned in the introduction in the original manuscript there was a description of a fourth, which those, who had the papers in their power, blotted out, as having something in it of satire, that I suppose they thought was too particular; and therefore they were forced to change it to the number three, whence some have endeavoured to squeeze out a dangerous meaning, that was never thought on. And indeed the conceit was half spoiled by changing the numbers; that of four being much more cabalistic, and therefore better exposing the pretended virtue of numbers, a superstition there intended to be ridiculed. *

* It is difficult to form a guess what the fourth machine may have been, by which the quaternion was completed, and the author saved from the accusation of intending to ridicule one of the most solemn parts of our creed. But the fancies of mystical authors, in favour of particular numbers, were as capricious as those of the fancies of lucky numbers in the lottery: "Not only the

Another thing to be observed is, that there generally runs an irony through the thread of the whole book, which the man of taste will observe and distinguish; and which will render some objections, that have been made, very weak and insignificant.

This Apology being chiefly intended for the satisfaction of future readers, it may be thought unnecessary to take any notice of such treatises as have been written against the ensuing discourse, which are already sunk into waste paper and oblivion, after the usual fate of common answerers to books which are allowed to have any merit: they are indeed like annuals, that grow about a young tree, and seem to vie with it for a summer, but fall and die with the leaves in autumn, and are

number of 7 and 9, from considerations abstruse, have been extolled by most; but all, or most of the other digits, have been as mystically applauded; for the number of one and three have not been only admired by the heathens, but, from adorable grounds, the unity of God, and mystery of the Trinity, admired by many Christians. The number of four stands much admired, not only in the quaternity of the elements, which are the principles of bodies, but in the letters of the name of God, which, in the Greek, Arabian, Persian, Hebrew, and Scythian, consisteth of that 1.umber; and was so venerable among the Pythagoreans, that they swore by the number four. That of six hath found many leaves in its favour, not only for the days of the creation, but its natural consideration, as being a perfect number, and the first that is compleated by its parts; thatis, the sixth, the half, and the third, 1. 2. 3. which, drawn in a summe, make six. The number of ten hath been as highly extolled, as containing even, odd, long and plain, quadrate and cubical numbers; and Aristotle observed with admiration, that barbarians as well as Greeks did use a numeration into ten, which, being so general, was not to be judged casual, but to have a foundation in nature. So that not only 7 and 9, but all the rest, have their elogies, as may be observed at large in Rhodiginus, and in several writers since: every one extolling a number according to his subject, and as it advantaged the present discourse in hand."-BROWN's Vulgar Errors, Lond. 1650, p. 178.

never heard of more. When Dr Eachard writ his book about the contempt of the clergy, numbers of these answerers immediately started up, whose memory if he had not kept alive by his replies, it would now be utterly unknown that he was ever answered at all. There is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvell's answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago; so the earl of Orrery's remarks will be read with delight, when the dissertation he exposes will neither be sought nor found: † but these are no enterprises for common hands, nor to be hoped for above once or twice in an age. Men would be more cautious of losing their time in such an undertaking, if they did but consider, that, to answer a book effectually, requires more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgment, than were employed in the writing of it. And the author assures those gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out much more than he left, and if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must have still undergone more severe corrections: and do they think such a building is to be battered with

* Parker, afterwards bishop of Oxford, wrote many treatises against the dissenters, with insolence and contempt, says Burnet, that enraged them beyond measure; for which he was chastised by Andrew Marvell, under-secretary to Milton, in a little book called the Rehearsal transprosed.

† Boyle's Remarks, upon Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris.