own superfices, without any assistance of mercury from behind. All the other talents of a true critic will not require a particular mention, being included, or easily deducible to these. However, I shall conclude with three maxims, which may serve both as characteristics to distinguish a true modern critic from a pretender, and will be also of admirable use to those worthy spirits who engage in so useful and honourable.

an art.

The first is, that criticism, contrary to all other faculties of the intellect, is ever held the truest and best, when it is the very first result of the critic's mind; as fowlers reckon the first aim for the surest, and seldom fail of missing the mark, if they stay not for a second.

Secondly, the true critics are known by their talent of swarming about the noblest writers; to which they are carried merely by instinct, as a rat to the best cheese, or a wasp to the fairest fruit. So when the king is on horseback, he is sure to be the dirtiest person of the company; and they, who make their court best, are such as bespatter him most.

Lastly, a true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.

Thus much, I think, is sufficient to serve by way of address to my patrons, the true modern critics; and may very well atone for my past silence, as well as that which I am likely to observe for the future. I hope I have deserved so well of their whole body, as to meet with generous and tender usage at their hands. Supported by which expectation I go on boldly to pursue those adventures already begun.

SECTION IV.

A TALE OF A TUB.

I HAVE now, with much pains and study, conducted the reader to a period where he must expect to hear of great revolutions. For, no sooner had our learned brother, so often mentioned, got a warm house of his own over his head, than he began to look big, and take mightily upon him; insomuch that unless the gentle reader, out of his great candour, will please a little to exalt his idea, I am afraid he will benceforth hardly know the hero of the play, when he happens to meet him; his port, his dress, and his mien, being so much altered.

He told his brothers, he would have them to know that he was their elder, and consequently his father's sole heir; nay, a while after, he would not allow them to call him brother, but Mr. Peter; and then he must be styled Father Peter; and sometimes, My Lord Peter. To support this grandeur, which he soon began to consider could not be maintained without a better fonde than what he was born to; after much thought, he cast about at last to turn projector and virtuoso; wherein he so well succeeded, that many famous discoveries, projects, and machines, which bear great vogue and practice at present in the world, are owing entirely to Lord Peter's invention. I will deduce the best account I have been able to collect of the chief amongst them; without considering much the order they came out in; because, I think, authors are not well agreed as to that point.

I hope, when this treatise of mine shall be translated into foreign languages (as I may without vanity affirm that the labour of collecting, the faithfulness in recounting, and the great usefulness of the matter to the public, will amply deserve that justice), that the worthy members of the several academies abroad, especially those of France and Italy, will favourably accept these humble offers for the advancement of universal knowledge. I do also advertise the most reverend fathers the eastern missionaries, that I have purely for their sakes made use of such words and phrases, as will best admit an easy turn into any of the oriental languages, especially the Chinese. And so I proceed with great content of mind, upon reflecting how much emolument this whole globe of earth is like to reap by my labours.

The first undertaking of Lord Peter was, to purchase a large continent,* lately said to have been discovered in terra australis incognita. This tract of land he bought at a very great penny-worth from the discoverers themselves (though some pretended to doubt whether they had ever been there); and then retailed it into several cantons to certain dealers, who carried over colonies, but were all shipwrecked in the voyage. Upon which Lord Peter sold the said continent to other customers again, and again, and again, and again, with the same success.

The second project I shall mention, was his sovereign remedy for the worms, especially those in the spleen. The patient was to eat nothing after supper for three nights. As soon as he went to bed, he was carefully to lie on one side;

That is purgatory.

+ Penance and absolution are played upon, under the notion of a sovereign remedy for the worms, especially in the spleen; which, by observing Peter's prescription, would void insensibly by perspiration, ascending through the brain, &c.-W. WOTTON.

Here the author ridicules the penances of the church of Rome; which may be made as easy as the sinner pleases, provided he will pay for them accordingly.

and when he grew weary, to turn upon the other. He must also duly confine his two eyes to the same object; and by no means break wind at both ends together, without manifest occasion. These prescriptions, diligently observed, the worms would void insensibly by perspiration, ascending through the brain.

A third invention was, the erecting of a whispering-office,* for the public good and ease of all such as are hypochondriacal, or troubled with the colic; as likewise of all eves-droppers, physicians, midwives, small politicians, friends fallen out, repeating poets, lovers, happy or in despair, bawds, privycounsellors, pages, parasites, and buffoons; in short, of all such as are in danger of bursting with too much wind. An ass's head was placed so conveniently that the party affected might easily with his mouth accost either of the animal's ears; which he was to apply close for a certain space, and, by a fugitive faculty, peculiar to the ears of that animal, receive immediate benefit, either by eructation, or expiration, or evomition.

Another very beneficial project of Lord Peter's was, an office of insurance,t for tobacco-pipes, martyrs of the modern zeal; volumes of poetry, shadows, and rivers; that these, nor any of these, shall receive damage by fire. From whence our friendly societies may plainly find themselves to be only transcribers from this original; though the one and the other have been of great benefit to the undertakers, as well as of equal to the public.

Lord Peter was also held the original author of puppets and raree-shews; the great usefulness whereof being so generally known, I shall not enlarge farther upon this particular.

By his whispering office, for the relief of eves-droppers, physicians, bawds and privy-counsellors, he ridicules auricular confession, and the priest who takes it is described by the ass's head.-W. WOTTON.

+ This I take to be the office of indulgences, the gross abuses whereof first gave occasion for the Reformation.

I believe are the monkeries and ridiculous processions, &c., among the Papists.

But another discovery for which he was much renowned, was his famous universal pickle.* For, having remarked how your common pickle,† in use among house-wives, was of no farther benefit than to preserve dead flesh, and certain kind of vegetables; Peter, with great cost, as well as art, had contrived a pickle proper for houses, gardens, towns, men, women, children, and cattle, wherein he could preserve them as sound as insects in amber. Now this pickle, to the taste, the smell, and the sight, appeared exactly the same, with what is in common service for beef and butter, and herrings, and has been often that way applied with great success; but for its many sovereign virtues, was quite a different thing. For Peter would put in a certain quantity of his powder, pimperlin-pimp,‡ after which it never failed of success. The operation was performed by spargefaction,§ in a proper time of the moon. The patient who was to be pickled, if it were a house, would infallibly be preserved from all spiders, rats, and weazels; if the party affected were a dog, he should be exempt from mange, and madness, and hunger. It also infallibly took away all scabs, and lice, and scalded heads from children; never hindering the patient from any duty, either at bed or board.

But of all Peter's rarities, he most valued a certain set of bulls, whose race was by great fortune preserved in a

*Holy water he calls, an universal pickle, to preserve houses, gardens, towns, men, women, children, and cattle; wherein he could preserve them as sound as insects in amber.-W. WOTTEN.

This is easily understood to be holy water, composed of the same ingredients with many other pickles.

And because holy water differs only in consecration from common water, therefore he tells us, that his pickle, by the powder of pimperlin-pimp, receives new virtues, though it differs not in sight nor smell from the common pickles, which preserves beef, and butter, and herrings.-W. WOTTON.

§ Sprinkling.

The Papal bulls are ridiculed by name, so that here we are at no loss to comprehend the author's meaning.-W. WOTTON.

Here the author has kept the name, and means the Pope's bulls, or rather his