the feverity of critics, the malice of perfonal enemies, and the indulgence of friends. We are forry for the fatire intersperfed in fome of these pieces upon a few people, from whom the higheft 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 sword 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 writings, which we defigned for the press: but in thefe, the publication whereof was not owing 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 commendation, that we have not done it all this while, but avoided publicly to characterise 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 praife or cenfure too precipi B 2 tately, stmt eine Erglish poet, Sewani I Kung nocman for erecting E & FUTURE or a promile, which his to doce by another. We petions only we with our sigt er der, or refentBif, had not been in2 bed at Sir Film Vanbrugh, *N*** Tm a wr, and ef honour; and * The Time deferves all re609 Nam, geen jower of learning. W2 cmare Dere and perhaps moft writers 2. have been in the fame circumbuena parts of our lives, and serung & the Bbctions we were in, we have ever some things, which we may wish Sever to love thought on. Some fallies of le* Aghv de mured to youth, fuppofed in ** was truth, to be the time in which we wrote them ;) others to the gaiety et our minès a certain unctures common to 4. men. The pabling of thefe, which we czna član, and without our confent, is, I think, a greater injury, than that of ascribing to us the most frupid productions, which we can wholly deny. This has been ufually practised in other countries after a man's decease; which in a great measure accounts for that manifeft inequality found in the works of the best authors; the collectors only confidering, that fo many more Ifheets raife 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 te 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 fcarce any book of confequence can be bought, without purchafing fomething unworthy of the author along with it. But in our own country it is ftill worse : Thofe very bookfellers, 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 laft will is not fecure from being expofed in print; whereby his mot 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 closets of the dead, have been broke open and ranfacked to publish our private letters, and divulge to all mankind the moft fecret fentiments and intercourfe of friendship. Nay, these fellows are arrived to that height of impudence, that, when an author has publicly difowned a spurious Fece, 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 refpect to truth, to fubinit 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 B 3 thought unlikely to reach the future, but unworthy even of the prefent age; not our studies, 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 must 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 efteem and refpect. Even those pieces, in which we are least injured, have never before been printed from the true copies, or with any tolerable degree of correctnefs. 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 gone abroad, we have actually destroyed, to prevent all poffibility of the like treatment. Thefe volumes likewife will contain all the papers, wherein we have cafually had any fhare; particularly those written in conjunction with our friends, Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Gay; and laftly, all this fort compofed fingly by either of thofe hands. The reader is therefore defired to do the fame juftice to these our friends, as to us; and to be affured that all the things, called our miscellanies (except the works of Alexander Pope, published by B. Lintot, in quarto, and folio, in 1717; thofe of Mr. Gay by J. Tonfon, in quarto, in 1726; and as many of these miscellanies as have been formerly printed by Benj. Tooke) are absolutely spurious, and without our confent imposed upon the public. Twickenham, JONAT. SWIFT. THE |