PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.

Now they that like it may: the rest may chuse.

Je veux à face descouverte qu'on sçache que je fay le fol. Et pourquoy ne me le sera-t-il permis, si le grand Solon dans Athenes, ne douta de le faire pour apporter un grand bien à sa Republique? La Republique dont j'ay charge, est ce petit monde que Dieu a estably en moy; pour la conservation duquel je ne scay meilleur moyen que de tromper mes afflictions par quelques honnestes jeux d'esprit; appellez-les bouffonneries si ainsi le voulez.

If you are so bold as to venture a blowing-up, look closely to it! for the plot lies deadly deep, and 'twill be between your legs before you be aware of it.—But of all things have a care of putting it in your pocket, for fear it takes fire, or runs away with your breeches. And if you can shun it, read it not when you are alone; or at least not late in the evening; for the venom is strongest about midnight, and seizes most violently upon the head when the party is by himself. I shall not tell you one line of what is in it; and therefore consider well what you do, and look to yourself. But if you be resolved to meddle, be sure have a care of catching cold, and keep to a moderate diet; for there is danger and jeopardy in it besides.

—For those faults of barbarism, Doric dialect, extemporanean stile, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toyes and fopperies, confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantasticall, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry:—I confess all; ('tis partly affected;) thou canst not think worse of me than I do of myself. 'Tis not worth the reading! I yield it. I desire thee not to lose time in perusing so vain a subject. I should be peradventure loth myself to read him or thee so writing; 'tis not operæ pretium. All I say is this, that I have precedents for it.

A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions; these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of the occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

If the world like it not, so much the worse for them.

If the particulars seem too large or to be over tediously insisted upon, consider in how many impertinent and trifling discourses and actions the best of us do consume far more hours than the perusal of this requires minutes, and yet think it no tediousness: and let them call to mind how many volumes this age imprints and reads which are foolish if not wicked. Let them be persuaded likewise, that I have not written this for those who have no need thereof, or to shew my own wit or compendiousness but to instruct the ignorant; to whom I should more often speak in vain, if I did not otherwhile by repetitions and circumlocutions, stir up their affections, and beat into their understandings the knowledge and feeling of those things which I deliver. Yea, let them know that I know those expressions will be both pleasing and profitable to some which they imagine to be needless and superabundant; and that I had rather twenty nice critics should censure me for a word here and there superfluous than that one of those other should want that which might explain my meanings to their capacities, and so make frustrate all my labour to those who have most need of it, and for whom it was chiefly intended.

POSTSCRIPT.

There was a certain Pisander whose name has been preserved in one of the proverbial sayings of the Greeks, because he lived in continual fear of seeing his own ghost. How often have I seen mine while arranging these volumes for publication, and carrying them through the press!

Twenty years have elapsed since the intention of composing them was conceived, and the composition commenced, in what manner and in what mood the reader will presently be made acquainted. The vicissitudes which in the course of those years have befallen every country in Europe are known to every one; and the changes, which, during such an interval, must have occurred in a private family, there are few who may not, from their own sad experience, readily apprehend.

Circumstances which when they were touched upon in these volumes were of present importance, and excited a lively interest, belong now to the history of the past. They who were then the great performers upon the theatre of public life have fretted their hour and disappeared from the stage. Many who were living and flourishing when their names were here sportively or severely introduced, are gone to their account. The domestic circle which the introduction describes has in the ordinary course of things been broken up; some of its members are widely separated from others, and some have been laid to rest. The reader may well believe that certain passages which were written with most joyousness of heart, have been rendered purely painful to the writer by time and change: and that some of his sweetest thoughts come to him in chewing the cud, like wormwood and gall.—But it is a wholesome bitterness.

He has neither expunged nor altered any thing on any of these accounts. It would be weakness to do this on the score of his own remembrances, and in the case of allusions to public affairs and to public men it would be folly. The Almanack of the current year will be an old one as soon as next year begins.

It is the writer's determination to remain unknown; and they who may suppose that

they have discovered him, will deceive themselves. A Welsh Triad says that the three unconcealable traits of a person by which he shall be known, are the glance of his eye, the pronunciation of his speech, and the mode of his self-motion;—in briefer English, his look, his voice, and his gait. There are no such characteristics by which an author can be identified. He must be a desperate mannerist who can be detected by his style, and a poor proficient in his art if he cannot at any time so vary it, as to put the critic upon a false scent. Indeed every day's experience shews that they who assume credit to themselves, and demand it from others for their discrimination in such things, are continually and ridiculously mistaken.

On that side the author is safe; he has a sure reliance upon the honour as well as the discretion of the very few to whom he is naturally or necessarily known; and if the various authors to whom the Book will be ascribed by report, should derive any gratification from the perusal, he requests of them in return that they will favour his purpose by allowing such reports to pass uncontradicted.

CONTENTS.