TALE OF A TU B.

Written for the

UNIVERSAL IMPROVEMENT

OF

MANKIND.

Diu multumque defideratum.

To which is added,

An Account of a Battle between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James's Library.

Bafyma cacabafa sanaa, irraumifta diarbada caëota bafobor cameIran. Lib. 1. C, 1$.

lanthi.

-Juvatque movos decerpare flores,

Infignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam,

Unde prius nulli velarunt tempora Mafa. Lucret.

With the Author's Apology;

And Explanatory Notes, by W. Wotton, B. D. and others.

LONDON:

Printed for CHARLES BATHURST, at the Cross-Key

in Fleet Street.

MDCCLXVI,

I

APOLOGY.

F good and ill nature equally operated upon mankind, I might have faved myself the trouble of this apology; for it is manifeft by the reception the following difcourfe hath met with, that thofe, who approve it, are a great majority among the men of tafte: yet there have been two or three treatifes written exprefly against it, besides many others that have flirted at it Occafionally, without one fyllable having been ever publifhed in its defence, or even quotation to its advantage, that I can remember, except by the polite author of a late difcourfe between a Deift and a Socinian.

Therefore, fince the book feems calculated to live at leaft as long as our language, and our taste admit no great alterations, I am content to convey fome apology along with it.

The greatest part of that book was finished about thirteen years fince, 1696, which is eight years before it was published. The author was then young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head. By the affiftance of fome thinking, and much converfation, he had endeavoured to ftrip himself of as many real prejudices as he could; I fay real ones, because, under the notion of prejudices, he knew to what dangerous heights fome men have proceeded. Thus prepared, he thought the numerous and grofs corruptions in religion and learning might furnish matter for a fatyr, that would be useful and diverting. Pe refolved to, proceed in a manner that should be altogether new, the world having been already too long naufeated with endless repetitions upon every fubject. The abufes in religion he propofed to fet forth in the allegory of the coats, and the three brothers, which was to make up

the

the body of the difcourfe: thofe in learning he chose to introduce by way of digreffions. He was then a young gentleman much in the world, and wrote to the tafte of thofe who were like himself; therefore, in order to allure them, he gave a liberty to his pen, which might not fuit with maturer years, or graver characters, and which he could have eafily corrected with a very few blots, had he been mafter of his papers for a year or two before their publication.

Not that he would have governed his judgment by the ill-placed cavils of the four, the envious, the ftupid, and the tastelefs, which he mentions with difdain. He acknowledges there are feveral youthful fallies, which from the grave and the wife may deferve a rebuke. But he defires to be answerable no farther than he is guilty, and that his faults may not be multiplied by the ignorant, the unnatural, and uncharitable applications of thofe, who have neither candour to fuppofe good meanings, nor palate to distinguish true ones. After which, he will forfe't his life, if any one opinion can be fairly deduced from that book, which is contrary to religion or morality.

Why fhould any clergyman of our church be angry to fee the follies of fanaticifm and fuperftition expofed, though in the most ridiculous manner; fince that is, perhaps, the moft probable way to cure them, or, at leaff, to hinder them from farther spreading? Befides, though it was not intended for their perufal, it rallies nothing but what they preach againft. It contains nothing to provoke them by the leaft fcurrility upor. their perfons or their functions. It celebrates the church of England, as the most perfect of all others in difcipline and doctrine; it advances no opinion they reject, nor condemns any they receive. If the clergy's refentments lay upon their hands, in my humble opinion, they might have found more proper objects to employ them on: nondum tibi defuit hoftis; I mean those heavy, illiterate fcribblers, proftitute in their reputations, vicious in their lives, and ruined in their fortunes; who, to the fhame of

good

good fenfe as well as piety, are greedily read, merely upon the ftrength of bold, falfe, impious affertions, mixed with unmannerly reflections upon the priesthood, and openly intended against all religion; in fhort, full of fuch principles as are kindly received, because they are levelled to remove thofe terrors, that religion tells men will be the confequence of immoral lives. Nothing like which is to be met with in this difcourfe, though fome of them are pleased fo freely to cenfure it. And I wish there were no other inftance of what I have too frequently observed, that many of that reverend body are not always very nice in distinguishing between their enemies and their friends.

Had the author's intentions met with a more candid interpretation from fome, whom out of refpect he forbears to name, he might have been encouraged to an examination of books written by fome of thofe authors above described, whofe errors, ignorance, dulnefs, and villany he thinks he could have detected and expofed in such a manner, that the perfons, who are most conceived to be infected by them, would foon lay them afide and be ashamed: but he has now given over those thoughts; fince the weightieft men in the weightieft ftations are pleased to think it a more dangerous point to laugh at thofe corruptions in religion, which they themselves must disapprove, than to endeavour pulling up thofe very foundations wherein all chriftians have agreed.

He thinks it no fair proceeding, that any person should offer determinately to fix a name upon the author of this difcourfe, who hath all along concealed himself from most of his nearest friends: yet feveral have gone a farther step, and pronounced another book † to have been the work of the fame hand with this: which the author

* Alluding to Dr. Sharp the archishop of York's reprefentation of the author.

Letter of enthufiafm, fup-
VOL. I.

pofed to have been written by Col. Hunter: fee Swift's letter to him, in the laft of these voJumes,

G

directly