tune, the law punishes the offender with the lofs of his ears but has inflicted no adequate penalty for fuch, as prejudice another's reputation in doing the fame thing in print; though all and every individual book, fo fold under a falfe name, are manifeftly fo many feveral and multiplied forgeries.

Indeed we hoped, that the good nature, or at leaft the good judgment of the world, would have cleared us from the imputation of fuch things, as had been thus charged upon us by the malice of enemies, the want of judgment of friends, the unconcern of indifferent perfons, and the confident affertions of bookfellers.

We are ashamed to find fo ill a taste prevail, as to make it a neceffary work to do this justice to ourselves. It is very poffible for any author to write below himself; either his fubject not proving fo fruitful, or fitted for him, as he at first imagined; or his health, or his humour, or the prefent difpofition of his mind, unqualifying him at that juncture: However, if he poffeffed any diftinguishing marks of ftyle, or peculiarity of thinking, there would remain in his leaft fuccefsful wri tings fome few tokens, whereby perfons of tafte might difcover him.

But, fince it hath otherwife fallen out, we think we have fufficiently paid for our want of prudence, and determine for the future to be lefs communicative: Or rather, having done with fuch amufements, we are refolved to give up what we cannot fairly difown, to

the feverity of critics, the malice of perfonal enemies, and the indulgence of friends.

We are forry for the fatire interfperfed in fome of these pieces upon a few people, from whom the highest provocations have been received, and who by their conduct fince have fhewn, that they have not yet forgiven us the wrong they did. It is a very unlucky circumftance to be obliged to retaliate the injuries of fuch authors, whofe works are fo foon forgotten, that we are in danger already of appearing the first aggreffors. It is to be lamented, that Virgil let pafs a line, which told pofterity he had two enemies called Bavius and Mævius. The wifeft way is not once to name them, but (as the madman advised the gentleman, who told him he wore a fword to kill his enemies) to let them alone and they will die of themselves. And according to this rule we have acted throughout all those wri tings, which we defigned for the press: but in thefe, the publication whereof was not ow ing to our folly, but that of others, the omiffion of the names was not in our power. At the worst, we can only give them that liberty now for fomething, which they have fo many years exercised for nothing, of railing and fcribling against us. And it is fome com mendation, that we have not done it all this while, but avoided publicly to characterife any perfon without long experience. Nonum prematur in annum is a good rule for all writers of characters; because it may happen to thofe, who vent praise or cenfure too precipiB 2

tately,

rately, as it did to an eminent English poet, who celebrated a young nobleman for erecting Dryden's monument upon a promise, which his lordship forgot, till it was done by another.

In regard to two perfons only we wish our raillery, though ever fo tender, or refentment, though ever fo juft, had not been indulged. We speak of Sir John Vanbrugh, who was a man of wit, and of honour; and of Mr. Addison, whose name deferves all refpect from every lover of learning.

We cannot deny (and perhaps most writers of our kind have been in the fame circumstances) that in several parts of our lives, and according to the difpofitions we were in, we have written fome things, which we may wish never to have thought on. Some fallies of levity ought to be imputed to youth, supposed in charity, as it was in truth, to be the time in which we wrote them ;) others to the gaiety of our minds at certain junctures common to all men. The publishing of thefe, which we cannot difown, and without our confent, is, I think, a greater injury, than that of afcribing to us the most stupid productions, which we can wholly deny.

This has been usually practifed in other countries after a man's deceafe; which in a great measure accounts for that manifest inequality found in the works of the best authors; the collectors only confidering, that fo many more fheets raise the price of the book; and the greater fame a writer is in poffeffion of, the more of such trash he may bear to have tacked

I

to him. Thus it is apparently the editor's intereft to infert what the author's judgment had rejected; and care is always taken to interfperfe thefe additions in fuch a manner, that scarce any book of confequence can be bought, without purchafing fomething unworthy of the author along with it.

But in our own country it is still worse : Those very booksellers, who have fupported themselves upon an author's fame while he lived, have done their utmost after his death to leffen it by fuch practices: Even a man's Jaft will is not fecure from being expofed in print; whereby his most particular regards, and even his dying tenderneffes are laid open. It has been humorously faid, that fome have fifhed the very jakes for papers left there by men of wit: But it is no jeft to affirm, that the cabinets of the fick, and the clofets of the dead, have been broke open and ranfacked to publish our private letters, and divulge to all mankind the most fecret fentiments and intercourfe of friendship. Nay, thefe fellows are arrived to that height of impudence, that, when an author has publicly difowned a fpurious piece, they have difputed his own name with him in printed advertisements; which has been practifed to Mr. Congreve and Mr. Prior.

We are therefore compelled, in respect to truth, to fubmit to a very great hardship; to own fuch pieces, as in our stricter judgments we would have fuppreffed for ever: We are obliged to confefs, that this whole collection, in a manner, confifts of what we not only thought

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thought unlikely to reach the future, but unworthy even of the prefent age; not our fitudies, but our follies; not our works, but our idleneffes.

Some comfort however it is, that all of them are innocent, and most of them, flight as they are, had yet a moral tendency; either to foften the virulence of parties against each other; or to laugh out of countenance fome vice or folly of the time; or to difcredit the impofitions of quacks and falfe pretenders to fcience; or to humble the arrogance of the ill-natured and envious; in a word, to leffen the vanity, and promote the good humour of

mankind.

Such as they are, we muft in truth confefs, they are ours, and others fhould in juftice believe, they are all that are ours. If any thing elfe has been printed, in which we really had any hand, it is either intolerably imperfect, or loaded with fpurious additions; fometimes even with infertions of mens names, which we never meant, and for whom we have an esteem and respect. Even those pieces, in which we are least injured, have never before been printed from the true copies, or with any tolerable degree of correctness. We declare, that this collection contains every piece, which in the idleft humour we have written; not only fuch, as came under our review or correction; but many others, which however unfinished, are not now in our power to fupprefs. Whatsoever was in our own poffeffion at the publishing hereof, or of which no copy was

gone