confusion; and the Tale of a Tub, the Battle of the Books, and the Fragment, are not included.

"In the edition which is now offered to the publick*, the Tale of a Tub, of which the Dean's corrections sufficiently prove him to have been the author, the Battle of the Books, and the Fragment, make the first volume; the second is Gulliver's Travels; the Miscellanies will be found in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth; and the contents of the other volumes are divided into two classes, as relating to England or Ireland. As to the arrangement of particular pieces in each class, there were only three things that seemed to deserve attention, or that could direct the choice; that the verse and prose should be kept separate; that the posthumous and doubtful pieces should not be mingled with those which the Dean is known to have publishedhimself; and that those tracts which are parts of a regular series, and illustrate each other, should be ranged in succession, without the intervention of other matter: such are the Drapier's Letters, and some other papers published upon the same occasion, which have not only in the Irish edition, but in every other, been so mixed as to misrepresent some facts and obscure others: such also are the tracts on the Sacramental Test, which are now first put together in regular order, as they should always be read by those who would see their whole strength and propriety.

"As to the pieces which have no connexion with each other, some have thought that the serious and

This was Dr. Hawkesworth's arrangement; Mr. Sheridan's will be described hereafter.

the comick should have been put in separate classes; but this is not the method which was taken by the Dean himself, or by Mr. Pope, when they published the Miscellany, in which the transition

From grave to gay, from lively to severe,"

appears frequently to be the effect rather of choice than accident *. However, as the reader will have the whole in his possession, he may pursue either the grave or the gay with very little trouble, and without losing any pleasure or intelligence which he would have gained from a different arrangement.

"Among the Miscellanies is the history of John Bull, a political allegory, which is now farther opened by a short narrative of the facts upon which it is founded, whether supposititious or true, at the foot of the page.

"The notes which have been published with former editions have for the most part been retained, because they were supposed to have been written, if not by the Dean, yet by some friend who knew his particular view in the passage they were intended to illustrate, or the truth of the fact which they as

serted.

"The notes which have been added to this edition contain, among other things, a history of the author's works, which would have made a considerable part of his life; but, as the occasion on which particular pieces were written, and the events which they produced, could not be related in a series, without frequent references and quotations, it was

"Our Miscellany is now quite printed. I am prodigiously pleased with this joint volume, in which methinks we look like friends side by side, serious and merry by turns-diverting others just as we diverted curselves." Pope to Swift, March 8, 1726-7.

thought

thought more eligible to put them together; in the text innumerable passages have been restored, which were evidently corrupt in every other edition, whether printed in England or Ireland.

"Among the notes will be found some remarks on those of another writer; for which no apology can be thought necessary, if it be considered that the same act is justice if the subject is a criminal, which would have been murder if executed on the innocent.

"Lord Orrery has been so far from acting upon the principle on which Mr. Pope framed this petition in his Universal Prayer,

"Teach me

"To hide the faults I see,"

that, where he has not found the appearance of a fault, he has laboured hard to make one.

"Lord Orrery has also supposed the Dean himself to have been the editor of at least six volumes of the Irish edition of his works; but the contrary will incontestibly appear upon a comparison of that edition with this, as well by those passages which were altered under colour of correction, as by those in which accidental imperfections were suffered to

remain.

"The editor of the Irish edition has also taken into his collection several spurious pieces in verse, which the Dean zealously disavowed, and which therefore he would certainly have excluded from any collection printed under his inspection and with his consent. But there is evidence of another kind to prove that the Dean never revised any edition of his works for Faulkner to print; and that on the contrary he was unwilling that Faulkner should print

them

them at all. Faulkner, in an advertisement pubTuned Oct. 15, 1764, calls himself the editor as well as publisher of the Dubila elition; and the Dean has often renounced the undertaking in express ter 113. In his letter to Mr. Pope, dated May 1, 1133, he says, that when the printer applied to him for leave to print his works in Ireland, he told him ke vond give ma leave; and when he printed them withour, he declared it was much to cis discontent ; 1. e same sentiment is also more strongly expressed in a letter now in the hands of the publisher which was written by the Dean to the late Mr. Benjaima Morre, his bookseller in London.“

In 1762, the thirteenth and fourteenth voJunes were added by the late learned and excellent printer Mr. WILLIAM BOWYER; whose advertisement is worth preserving:

"The pleasure Dean Swift's Works have already afforded will be a sufficient apology for communicating to the reader, though somewhat out of season, these additional volumes; who will be less displeased, that they have been so long suppressed, than thankful that they are now at last published. We have no occasion to apologize for the pieces themselves; for, as they have all the internal marks of genuineness, so, by their farther opening the author's private correspondence, they display the goodness of his heart, no less than the never-ceasing sallies of his wit. Ilis answer to "The Rights of the Christian Church" is a remarkable instance of both; which, though unfinished, and but the slight

* See this letter, dated Nov. 11, 1735, in vol. XVIII.

prolusions

prolusions of his strength, show how sincere, how able a champion he was of religion and the church. So soon as these were printed in Dublin, in a new edition of the Dean's works, it was a justice due to them to select them thence, to complete the London edition. Like the author, though they owe their birth to Ireland, they will feel their maturity in England; and each nation will contend which shall receive them with greater ardour.

"We have added, in the last volume, an Index to all the Works; wherein we have ranged the bons mots scattered throughout them under the article SWIFTIANA, by which their brightness is collected, as it were, into a focus, and they are placed in such open day, that they are secured, for the future, from the petty larceny of meaner wits.'

The fifteenth and sixteenth volumes were published in 1765, under the immediate direction of DEANE SWIFT, esq., with this

Preface:

"It may appear somewhat strange to the world, and especially to men of taste and learning, that so many poetical, historical, and other miscellaneous productions of Dr. Swift should have lain dormant such a number of years, after the decease of an author so universally admired in all nations of the globe, which have any share of politeness. However, not to be over and above particular on this occasion; were it of any consequence to relate by what extraordinary means these several papers were rescued from the injuries of time and accidents; or,

* See this thought poetically expressed, vol. VIII. p. 238.

to