who are dealers in that kind: but, I think, with a great deal of injustice; the solution being easy and natural. For, the materials of panegyric, being very few in number, have been long fince exhausted: for, as health is but one thing, and has been always the fame, whereas difeases are by thousands, besides new and daily additions : fo all the virtues, that have been ever in mankind, are to be counted upon a few fingers; but his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. Now, the utmost a poor poet can do, is to get by heart a lift of the cardinal virtues, and deal them with his utmost liberality to his hero or his patron. He may ring the changes as far as it will go, and vary his phrase till he has talked round: but the reader quickly finds it is all pork*, with a little variety of fauce. For there is no inventing terms of art beyond our ideas; and when ideas are exhaufted, terms of art must be so too. But, though the matter for panegyric were as fruitful as the topics of satire, yet would it not be hard to find out a sufficient reason, why the latter will be always better received than the firft. For, this being bestowed only upon one or a few perfons at a time, is fure to raise envy, and consequently ill words, from the relt, who have no share in the bleffing. But fatire, being levelled at all, is never refented for an offence by any; fince every individual perfon makes bold to understand it of others, and very wifely removes his particular part of the burden upon the fhoulders of the world, which are broad enough, and able to bear it. To this purpose, I have fometimes reflected upon the difference between [*Plutarch.] Athens 1 Athens and England, with respect to the point before US. In the Attic commonwealth", it was the privilege and birthright of every citizen and poet, to rail aloud and in public, or to expofe upon the ftage by name, any perfon they pleased, though of the greatest figure, whether a Creon, an Hyperbolus, an Alcibiades, or a Demofthenes. But, on the other fide, the leaft reflecting word, let fall against the people in general, was immediately caught up, and revenged upon the authors, however confiderable for their quality or their merits. Whereas, in England, it is just the reverfe of all this. Here, you may fecurely difplay your utmost rhetoric againft mankind, in the face of the world; tell them, "That all are gone aftray; that there is none that “doth good, no not one; that we live in the very dregs "of time; that knavery and atheism are epidemic as "the pox; that honefty is fled with Aftrea;" with any other common-places equally new and eloquent, which are furnished by the splendida bilis +. And when you have done, the whole audience, far from being offended, shall return you thanks, as a deliverer of precious and useful truths. Nay, farther, it is but to venture your lungs, and you may preach in Covent-Garden againft foppery and fornication, and fomething else! against pride, and diffimulation, and bribery, at Whitehall: you may expofe rapine and injuftice in the Inns of court chapel; and in a city pulpit be as fierce as you please, against avarice, hypocrify, and extortion. It is but a ball bandied to and fro, and every man carries a E 3 racket [* *Vid. Xenoph.] racket about him to ftrike it from himself among the reft of the company. But, on the other fide, whoever fhould mistake the nature of things fo far, as to drop but a fingle hint in public, how such a one starved half the fleet, and half poisoned the reft; how such a one, from a true principle of love and honour, pays no debts, but for wenches and play; how fuch a one has got a clap, and runs out of his estate; how Paris, bribed by Juno and Venus (*), loth to offend either party, slept out the whole caufe on the bench; or, how fuch an orator makes long speeches in the fenate with much thought, little fenfe, and to no purpose: whoever, I fay, should venture to be thus particular, must expect to be imprisoned for fcandalum magnatum; to have challenges fent him; to be fued for defamation, and to be brought before the bar of the house. But I forget that I am expatiating on a subject wherein I have no concern, having neither a talent nor an inclination for fatire! On the other fide, I am so entire ly fatisfied with the whole prefent procedure of humaṇ things, that I have been for some years preparing materials towards a panegyric upon the world; to which I intended to add a fecond part intitled, A Modeft Defence of the Proceedings of the Rabble in all Ages. Both these I had thoughts to publish, by way of appendix to the following treatife; but, finding my common- -place book fill much flower than I had reason to expect, I have Juno and Venus are money and a mistress; very powerful bribes to a judge, if scandal fays true. I remember fuck reflections were caft about that time; but I cannot fix the perfon intended here. shofer chofen to defer them to another occafion, Befides, I have been unhappily prevented in that defign, by a certain domeftic misfortune: in the particulars whereof, though it would be very seasonable, and much in the modern way, to inform the gentle reader, and would also be of great affiftance towards extending this Preface into the fize now in vogue, which by rule, ought to be large, in proportion as the subsequent volume is small; yet I fhall now dismiss our impatient reader from any further attendance at the porch; and, having duly prepared his mind by a Preliminary Difcourfe, fhall gladly introduce him to the fublime myfteries that enfue. Treatifes wrote by the fame Author, most of them mentioned in the following Difcourfes; which will be fpeedily published. A Character of the Present set of Wits in this Island. A Panegyrical Effay upon the Number THREE. A Differtation upon the Principal Productions of Grub-street. Lectures upon a Diffection of Human Nature. A Panegyric upon the World. An Analytical Difcourfe upon Zeal, Hiftori theo phyfiologically confidered. A General History of Ears. A Modeft Defence of the Proceedings of the Rabble in all Ages. A Defcription of the Kingdom of Abfur.lities. A Voyage into England, by a Person of Quality in Terra Australis Incognita, tramlated from the original. A Critical Effay upon the Art of Canting, philofophically, phyfically, and mufically confidered. |