universal body of all arts and sciences, intended wholly for your service and inftruction. Nor do I doubt in the least, but your Highness will peruse it as carefully, 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 studies*. That your Highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, as well as years, and at last outshine all your Royal ancestors, shall be the daily prayer of, December, 1697. SIR, Your Highness's Moft devoted, &c. There are innumerable books printed for the ufe of the Dauphin of France. THE PREFACE, THE wits of the prefent age being fo very numerous and penetrating, it seems, the Grandees of Church and State begin to fall under horrible apprehenfions, lest these Gentlemen, during the intervals of a long peace, fhould find leisure 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 those formidable enquirers, from canvaffing and reasoning 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 increafing, by new levies of wits, all appointed (as there is reafon tq 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 design 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 & cuftom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from Jaying violent hands upon the fhip. This parable was immediately immediately mythologized. The whale was interpreted to be Hobbes's Leviathan; which toffes and plays with all other schemes of religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry, and empty, and noisy, 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 fhip in danger, is eafily understood to be its old antitype the commonwealth. But how to analyse the tub, was a matter of difficulty; when, after long enquiry and debate, the literal meaning was preserved: and it was decreed, that, in order to prevent thefe Leviathans from toffing and sporting with the commonwealth, (which of itfelf is too apt to fluctuate,) they should be diverted from that game by a Tale of a Tub. And my genius being conceived to lie 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 treatife; 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. It 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 island. These are to be disposed into the several schools of this academy, and there pursue those studies to which their genius moft inclines them. The undertaker himself will publifh his proposals with all convenient speed; to which I fhall refer the curious reader reader for a more particular account, mentioning at prefent only a few of the principal fchools. There is first a large pederastic school, with French and Italian masters: there is also the spelling school, a very spacious building; the school of looking-glaffes; the school of fwearing; the school of critics; the school of falivation; the school of hobby-horses; the school of poetry; the school of tops *; the school of spleen; the school of gaming; with many others, too tedious to recount. No perfon to be admitted a member into any of these schools, without an atteftation under two fufficient perfon's hands, certifying him to be a wit. But to return: I am fufficiently inftructed in the principal duty of a Preface, if my genius were capable of 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 some notable distinguishing ftroke, to furprife the reader at the entry, and kindle a wonderful expectation of what is to enfue. Such was that of a most ingenious poet, who, foliciting his brain for fomething new, compared himself to the hangman, and his patron to the patient. This was † infigne, re This, I think, the author fhould have omitted, it being of the very fame nature with the school of hobby-horses; if one may venture to cenfure one who is fo fevere a con furer of others, perhaps with too little distinction. cens, indictum ore alio *. When I went through that neceffary and noble course of study,†I had the happiness to obferve many fuch egregious touches; which I fhall not injure the authors by tranfplanting; because I have remarked, that nothing is fo very tender as a modern piece of wit, which is apt to fuffer fo much in the carriage. Some things are extremely witty to day, or fasting, or in this place, or at eight o'clock, or over a bottle, or spoke by Mr. What d'y'call'm, or in a fummer's morning; any of which, by the smallest tranfpofal or mifapplication, is utterly annihilated. Thus wit has its walks and purlieus; out of which it may not stray the breadth of a hair, upon peril of being loft. The mo• derns have artfully fixed this Mercury, and reduced it to the circumstances of time, place and perfon. Such a jeft there is, that will not país out of Covent-garden; and fuch a one, that is no where intelligible but at Hyde Park corner. Now, though it fometimes tenderly af, fects me, to confider, that all the towardly paffages I fhall deliver, in the following treatife, will grow quite out of date and relish with the firft fhifting of the present fcene; yet I must need subscribe to the justice 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 provision for our's: wherein I fpeak the fentiment of the very neweft, and confequently the most orthodox refiners, as well as my own. However, being extremely folicitous, that every accom * Something extraordinary new, and never hit upon before. + Reading prefaces, &c. plished |