empty tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship. This parable was immediately. mythologized. The whale was interpreted to be Hobbe's Leviathan; which tosses 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 said to borrow their weapons. The ship in danger, is easily understood to be its old antetype the commonwealth. But how to analyze the tub, was a matter of difficulty; when, after a long inquiry and debate, the literal meaning was preserved and it was decreed, that, in order to prevent these Leviathans from tossing and sporting with the commonwealth (which of itself 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, had the honor done me to be engaged in the performance.

I

This is the sole design in publishing the following treatise ; which I hope will serve for an interim of some months to employ those unquiet spirits, till the perfecting of that great work, into the secret of which, it is reasonable the courteous reader should have some little light.

It is intended, that a large academy be erected, capable of containing nine thousand seven hundred forty and three persons; which, by modest 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 most inclines them.

The undertaker himself will publish his proposals with all convenient speed; to which I shall refer the curious reader for a more particular account, mentioning at present only a few of the principal schools. 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-glasses; the school of swearing; the school of critics; the school of salivation; 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 person to be admitted a member into any of these schools, without an attestation under two sufficient person's hands, certifying him to be a wit.

But to return: I am sufficiently instructed 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 so my more successful brethren the moderns, who will by no means let slip a preface or dedication, without some notable distinguishing stroke, to surprise the reader at the entry, and kindle a wonderful expectation of what is to ensue. Such was that of a most ingenious poet, who, soliciting his brain for something new, compared himself to the hangman, and his patron to the patient. This was finsigne, recens, indictum

*This, I think, the author should have ommitted, it being of the very same nature with the school of hobby-horses; if one may venture to censure one who is sc severe a censurer of others, perhaps with too little distinction.

St Hor.]

ore alio.*
When I went through that necessary and noble
course of study,† I had the happiness to observe many such
egregious touches; which I shall not injure the authors by
transplanting; because I have remarked, that nothing is so
very tender as a modern piece of wit, which is apt to suffer
so 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 on a summer's
morning; any of which, by the smallest transposal or misap-
plication, 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 lost. The moderns have artfully fixed
this Mercury, and reduced it to the circumstances of time,
place, and person. Such a jest there is, that will not pass
out of Covent-garden; and such an one, that is nowhere
intelligible but at Hyde-Park corner. Now, though it some-
times tenderly affects me, to consider, that all the towardly
passages I shall deliver, in the following treatise, will grow
quite out of date and relish with the first shifting of the pres-
ent scene; yet I must need subscribe to the justice of this
proceeding; because I cannot imagine why we should be at
expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former
have made no sort of provision for ours: wherein I speak the
sentiment of the very newest, and consequently the most
orthodox refiners, as well as my own. However, being ex-
tremely solicitous, that every accomplished person, who has
got into the taste of wit, calculated for this present month of

* Something extraordinary, new, and never hit upon before.
+ Reading prefaces, &c.

August, 1697, should descend to the very bottom of all the sublime throughout this treatise, I hold it fit to lay down this general maxim, Whatever reader desires to have a thorough comprehension of an author's thoughts, cannot take a better method, than by putting himself into the circumstances and postures of life that the writer was in upon every important passage, as it flowed from his pen; for this will introduce a parity and strict correspondence of ideas between the reader and the author. Now, to assist the diligent reader in so delicate an affair, as far as brevity will permit, I have recollected, that the shrewdest pieces of this treatise were conceived in bed, in a garret. At other times for a reason best known to myself, I thought fit to sharpen my invention with hunger; and, in general, the whole work was begun, continued, and ended, under a long course of physic, and a great want of money. Now I do affirm, it will be absolutely impossible for the candid peruser to go along with me in a great many bright passages, unless, upon the several difficulties emergent, he will please to capacitate and prepare himself by these directions. And this I lay down as my principal postulatum.

Because I have professed to be a most devoted servant of all moderns, I apprehend some curious wit may object against me, for proceeding thus far in a Preface, without declaiming, according to the custom, against the multitude of writers whereof the whole multitude of writers most reasonably complain. I am just come from perusing some hundreds of prefaces, wherein the authors do at the very beginning address the gentle reader concerning this enormous grievance. Of

these I have preserved a few examples, and shall set them down, as near as my memory has been able to retain them.

One begins thus-" For a man to set up for a writer when the press swarms with," &c.

Another :—“The tax upon paper does not lessen the number of scribblers, who daily pester," &c.

Another :- "When every little would-be-wit takes pen in hand, it is in vain to enter the lists," &c.

Another:-"To observe what trash the press swarms with," &c.

Another Sir, it is merely in obedience to your commands that I venture into the public; for who, upon a less consideration, would be of a party with such a rabble of scribblers ?" &c.

Now, I have two words in my own defence against this objection. First, I am far from granting the number of writers a nuisance to our nation; having strenuously maintained the contrary in several parts of the following discourse. Secondly, I do not well understand the justice of this proceeding; because I observe many of these polite prefaces to be not only from the same hand, but from those who are most voluminous in their several productions. Upon which I shall tell the reader a short tale.

"A mountebank in Leicester-fields had drawn a large assembly about him. Among the rest, a fat unwieldy fellow, half stifled in the press, would be very fit crying out-'Lord, what a filthy crowd is here! Pray good people give way a little. Bless me! what a devil has raked this rabble together! Z--ds, what squeezing is this! Honest friend, remove your