hourly to the heap. Now the utmost a poor poet can do, is to get by heart a lift of the cardinal virtues, and deal them with his utmost liberality to his hero or his patron: he may ring the changes as far as it will go, and vary his phrafe 'till he has talked round: but the reader quickly finds it is all pork, with a little variety of fauce. For there is no inventing terms of art beyond our ideas; and, when our ideas are exhausted, terms of art must be fo too.

But, though the matter for panegyric were as fruitful as the topics of fatyr, yet would it not be hard to find out a fufficient reason, why the latter will be always better received than the firft. For, this being bestowed only upon one, or a few perfons at a time, is fure to raise envy, and consequently ill words from the reft, who have no fhare in the bleffing: but fatyr, being levelled at all, is never refented for an offence by any, fince every individual perfon makes bold to understand it of others, and very wifely removes his particular part of the burthen

upon the fhoulders of the world, which are broad enough, and able to bear it, To this purpose, I have fometimes reflected upon the difference between Athens and England with respect to the point before us. In the Attic commonwealth it was the privilege and birth-right of every citizen and poet to rail aloud, and in public, or to expose upon the stage, by name, any person they pleased, though of the greateft figure, whether a Creon, an Hyperbolus, an Alcibiades, or a Demof thenes: but, on the other fide, the leaft reflecting word let fall against the people in general, was immediately caught up, and revenged upon the authors, however confiderable for their quality or their merits. Whereas in England it is just the reverse of all this. Here, you may fecurely display your utmost rhetoric against mankind, in the face of the world; tell them, “That all are gone aftray; that "there is none that doth good, no not one; "that we live in the very dregs of time; "that knavery and atheism are epidemic as the pox; that honefty is fled with Al

b Vid. Xen.

"træa ;"

"træa ;" with any other common places, equally new and eloquent, which are furnifhed by the fplendida bilis. And when you have done, the whole audience, far from being offended, fhall return you thanks, as a deliverer of precious and useful truths. Nay farther; it is but to venture your lungs, and you may preach in Covent-Garden against foppery and fornication, and fomething elfe: against pride, and diffimulation, and bribery, at White-Hall: you may expofe rapine and injustice in the inns of court chapel: and in a city pulpit, be as fierce as you please againft avarice, hypocrify, and extortion. 'Tis but a ball bandied to and fro, and every man carries a racket about him to ftrike it from himself among the rest of the company. But, on the other side, whoever fhould miftake the nature of things fo far, as to drop but a fingle hint in public, how fuch a one ftarved half the fleet, and half poisoned the reft: how fuch a one, from a true principle of love and honour, pays no debts but for wenches and play: how fuch a one has got a clap,

and runs out of his eftate; how Paris, bribed by Juno and Venus, loth to offend either party, flept out the whole cause on the bench: or, how fuch an orator makes long speeches in the fenate with much thought, little sense, and to no purpose; whoever, I fay, fhould venture to be thus particular, must expect to be imprisoned for fcandalum magnatum; to have challenges fent him; to be fued for defamation; and to be brought before the bar of the house.

But I forget that I am expatiating on a fubject, wherein I have no concern, having neither a talent nor an inclination for fatyr! on the other fide, I am so in tirely fatisfied with the whole prefent procedure of human things, that I have been fome years preparing materials towards A panegyric upon the world; to which I intended to add a fecond part, entitled, A modeft defence of the proceedings of the rabble in all ages. Both these I had thoughts to publish, by way of appendix to the

following treatise; but finding my common-place book fill much flower than I had reason to expect, I have chosen to defer them to another occafion. Befides, I have been unhappily prevented in that design by a certain domeftic misfortune, in the particulars whereof, tho' it would be very seasonable, and much in the modern way, to inform the gentle reader, and would also be of great affistance towards extending this preface into the fize now in vogue, which by rule ought to be large in proportion as the subsequent volume is Small; yet I fhall now difmifs our impatient reader from any farther attendance at the porch; and, having duly prepared his mind by a preliminary discourse, shall gladly introduce him to the fublime myfteries, that enfue.

A TALE