book; and why fome of them were left, he knows not: had the publication been trusted to him, he would have made feveral corrections of paffages, against which nothing hath been ever objected. He would likewife have altered a few of thofe, that seem with any reason to be excepted againft; but, to deal freely, the greatest number he should have left untouched, as never fufpecting it poffible any wrong interpretations could be made of them.

The author obferves, at the end of the book there is a discourse, called, a fragment; which he more wondered to fee in print, than all the reft; having been a moft imperfect sketch, with the addition of a few loose hints, which he once lent a gentleman, who had defigned a discourse on fomewhat the fame fubject; he never thought of it afterwards; and it was a fufficient furprize to fee it pieced up together, wholly out of the method and scheme he had intended, for it was the ground-work of a much larger discourse; and he was forry to observe the materials fo foolishly employed.

There is one farther objection made by

thofe

those who have anfwered this book, as well as by fome others, that Peter is frequently made to repeat oaths and curses. Every reader obferves, it was neceffary to know that Peter did fwear and curse. The oaths are not printed out, but only fuppofed; and the idea of an oath is not immoral, like the idea of a prophane or immodeft fpeech. A man may laugh at the popish folly of curfiug people to hell, and imagine them fwearing, without any crime; but lewd words, or dangerous opinions, though printed by halves, fill the reader's mind with ill ideas; and of these the author cannot be accufed. For the judicious reader will find, that the fevereft ftrokes of fatyr, in his book, are levelled against the modern cuftom of employing wit upon those topics, of which there is a remarkable inftance in the 156, 157th pages, as well as in feveral others, though perhaps once or twice expreffed in too free a manner, excufable only for the reasons already alledged. Some overtures have been made by a third hand to the bookfeller for the author's altering those paffages, which he thought might require.

it:

it but it seems the bookfeller will not hear of any fuch thing, being apprehenfive it might spoil the fale of the book.

The author cannot conclude this apology without making this one reflection; that, as wit is the noblest and most useful gift of human nature, fo humour is the most agreeable; and where these two enter far into the compofition of any work, they will render it always acceptable to the world. Now, the great part of those who have no fhare or tafte of either, but by their pride, pedantry, and ill manners lay themselves bare to the lashes of both, think the blow is weak, because they are infenfible; and where wit hath any mixture of raillery, it is but calling it banter, and the work is done. This polite word of theirs was firft borrowed from the bullies in White-Friers, then fell among the footmen, and at laft retired to the pedants, by whom it is applied as properly to the productions of wit, as if I fhould apply it to Sir Ifaac Newton's mathematics: but, if this bantering, as they call it, be fo defpifeable a thing, whence comes it to país they have such a perpetual itch to

wards

wards it themselves? to inftance only in the answerer already mentioned: it is grievous to fee him in fome of his writings at every turn going out of his way to be waggish, to tell us of a cow that pricked up her tail; and, in his anfwer to this difcourfe he says, it is all a farce and a ladle; with other paffages equally fhining. One may fay of these impedimenta literarum, that wit owes them a fhame; and they cannot take wiser counsel, than to keep out of harm's way, or at least not to come till they are fure they are called.

To conclude; with those allowances above required this book fhould be read: after which, the author conceives, few things will remain, which may not be excused in a young writer. He wrote only to the men of wit and tafte; and he thinks he is not mistaken in his accounts, when he fays they have been all of his fide, enough to give him the vanity of telling his name, wherein the world, with all its wife conjectures, is yet very much in the dark; which circumftance is no difagreeable amusement either to the public or himself.

The

The author is informed, that the bookfeller has prevailed on feveral gentlemen to write fome explanatory notes; for the goodness of which he is not to answer, having never feen any of them, nor intending it till they appear in print; when it is not unlikely he may have the pleasure to find twenty meanings, which never entered into his imagination.

June 3, 1709.

SING

POSTSCRIPT.

INCE the writing of this, which was about a year ago, a proftitute bookseller hath published a foolish paper, under the name of Notes on the Tale of a tub, with Some account of the author; and with an infolence, which I fuppofe is punishable by law, hath prefumed to affign certain names. It will be enough for the author to affure the world, that the writer of that paper is utterly wrong in all his conjectures upon that affair. The author farther afferts, that the whole work is intirely of one hand, which every reader of judgment will easily discover; the gentle

man,