fixth, containing the Examiners, polite Converfation, and fome other tracts, which were foon followed by a feventh volume of letters, and an eighth of pofthumous pieces.

In this collection, although printed in Ireland, the tracts relating to that country, and in particular the Drapier's Letters, are thrown together in great confufion, 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 fufficiently prove him to have been the author, the Battle of the Books, and the Fragment, make the first volume; the fecond is Gulliver's Travels; the Mifcellanies will be found in the third, fourth, fifth, and fixth; and the contents of the other volumes are divided into two claffes, as relating to England or Ireland; as to the arrangement of particular pieces in each clafs, there were only three things that feemed to deferve attention, or that could direct the choice; that the verfe and profe fbould be kept feparate; that the pofthumous and doubtful pieces fhould not be mingled with thofe which the Dean is known to have

A 2

pub

published himself; and that those tracts which are parts of a regular feries, and illuftrate each other, should be ranged in fucceffion without the intervention of other matter: Such are the Drapier's Letters, and fome other papers published upon the fame occafion, which have not only in the Irish edition, but in every other, been fo mixed as to mifreprefent fome facts and obfcure others: Such alfo are the tracts on the Sacramental Teft, which are now first put together in regular order, as they should always be read, by thofe who would fee their whole ftrength and propriety.

As to the pieces which have no connexion with each other, fome have thought that the ferious and the comic fhould have been put in feparate claffes; but this is not the method which was taken by the Dean himself, or by Mr. Pope when they published the mifcellany, in which the tranfition From grave to gay, from lively to fevere, appears frequently to be the effect rather of choice than accident. However, as the

Our mifcellany is now quite printed, I am prodigioufly pleafed with this joint volume in which methinks we

look like friends fide by fide, ferious and merry by turnsdiverting others just as we diverted cutfclves.

Letter of Pope to Swift, March 8, 1967. reader

reader will have the whole in his poffeffion, be may perfue either the grave or the gay with very little trouble, and without lofing any pleasure or intelligence which he would bave gained from a different arrangement.

Among the mifcellanies is the hiftory of John Bull, a political allegory, which is now farther opened by a fhort narrative of the facts upon which it is founded, whether fuppofititious 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 fuppofed to have been written, if not by the Dean, yet by fome friend who knew his particular view in the paffage they were intended to illuftrate, or the truth of the fact which they afferted; however, this has fince appeared not always to have been the cafe; for there is not the least reason to believe that Stella was related to Sir William Temple, or that he was vifited by King William et Moor Park, although both these facts are afferted, one in a note on the letter to Lord Palmerston, Vol. XII. p. 200, the other in a note on a letter to Dr. Sheridan, Vol. XII. p. 227.

A 3

The

The notes which have been added to this edition contain, among other things, an hiftory of the author's works, which would have made a confiderable part of bis life; but as the occafion on which particular pieces were written, and the events which they produced, could not be related in a feries, without frequent references and quotations, it was thought more eligible to put them together; in the text innumerable paffages have been reftored, which were evidently corrupt in every other edition, whether printed in England or Ireland.

Among the notes will be found fome remarks on thofe of another writer, for which no apology can be thought necessary, if it be confidered that the fame act is justice if the fubject is a criminal, which would have been murder if executed on the innocent.

Lord Orrery has been fo far from acting upon the principle on which Mr. Pope framed this petition in his univerfal prayer,

Teach me

To hide the faults I fee.

That where he has not found the appearance of a fault, he has laboured hard to make

one

one, an inftance of which will be found in bis remark upon a maxim of Cadenus to Vaneffa:

a

That Virtue pleas'd by being shown,
Knows nothing which it dares not own.

He taught her, fays his lordship, that vice s foon as it defied frame, was immediately changed into virtue; but the most obvious and natural meaning is juft contrary. That we defire to conceal no act which upon reflection we do not discover to be vicious, becaufe virtue is pleafed in proportion as it is difplayed; and indeed these verses could not be fuppofed an apology for lewdness, if his lordship believed his own affertion, that the dean was, Not to be fwayed by de

"liberate evil.”

Lord Orrery has also fuppofed the dean bimfelf to have been the editor of at least fix volumes of the Irish edition of his works, but the contrary will incontestably appear upon a comparison of that edition with this, as well by thofe passages, which were altered under colour of correction, as by those in which accidental imperfections were suffered to remain. Of these paffages the fol

A 4

lowing