many) he hopes they will be found errors of the understanding, not of the heart: They are the firft-fruits of his leisure and retirement; and as the mind of a man in that fituation will naturally bring the past scenes of active life under its examination and review, it will surely be confidered as a pardonable zeal for being yet ferviceable to mankind, if he gives his experience and obfervations to the world, when he has no further expectations from it on the score of fame or fortune. These are the real motives for the publication of these Papers, and this the Author's true ftate of mind: To ferve the cause of morality and religion is his first ambition; to point out fome useful leffons for amending the education and manners of young people of either sex, and to mark the evil habits and unfocial humours of men, with a view to their reformation, are the general objects of his undertaking. He has formed his mind to be contented with the consciousness of these honest endeavours, and with a very moderate share of fuccefs: He has ample reason notwithstanding to be more than fatisfied, with the reception thefe Papers have already had in their probationary excurfion; and it is not from any disguft, taken up in a vain conceit of his own merits, that he has more than once observed

upon

upon the frauds and follies of popularity, or that he now repeats his opinion, that it is the worst

guide a public man can follow, who wishes not to go out of the track of honely; for at the fame time that he has feen men force their way in the world by effrontery, and heard others applauded for their talents, whofe only recommendation has been their ingenuity in wickednefs, he can recollect very few indeed, who have fucceeded, either in fame or fortune, under the disadvantages of modesty and merit.

To fuch readers, as fhall have taken up these Effays with a candid difpofition to be pleafed, he will not fcruple to exprefs a hope that they have not been altogether disappointed; for though he has been unaffifted in compofing them, he has endeavoured to open a variety of refources, fenfible that he had many different palates to provide for. The fubject of politics, however, will never be one of these resources; a fubject which he has neither the will nor the capacity to meddle with. There is yet another topic, which he has been no lefs ftudious to avoid, which is perfonality; and though he profeffes to give occafional delineations of living manners, and not to make men in his closet (as some Essayifts have done) he does not mean to point at individuals; for as this is a practice

which

which he has ever rigidly abstained from when he mixed in the world, he fhould hold himself without the excufe, even of temptation, if he was now to take it up, when he has withdrawn himfelf from the world.

In the Effays (which he has prefumed to call Literary, becaufe he cannot ftrike upon any appofite title of an humbler fort) he has ftudied to render himself intelligible to readers of all defcriptions, and the deep-read scholar will not faftidiously pronounce them fhallow, only because he can fathom them with ease; for that would be to wrong both himself and their author, who, if there is any vanity in a pedantic margin of references, certainly refifted that vanity, and as certainly had it at his choice to have loaded his page with as great a parade of authorities, as any of his brother writers upon claffical fubjects have oftentatiously displayed. But if any learned critic, now or hereafter, fhall find occafion to charge these Essays on the score of falfe authority or actual error, their author will moft thankfully meet the investigation; and the fair Reviewer fhall find that he has either candour to adopt correction, or materials enough in referve to maintain every warrantable affertion.

The Moralift and the Divine, it is hoped, will

I

here

here find nothing to except againft; it is not likely fuch an offence should be committed by one, who has rested all his hope in that Revelation, on which his faith is founded; whom nothing could ever divert from his aim of turning even the gayeft fubjects to moral purposes, and who reprobates the jeft, which provokes a laugh at the expence of a blush.

The Effays of a critical fort are no lefs addreffed to the moral objects of compofition, than to those which they have more profeffedly in view: They are not undertaken for the invidious purpose of developing errors, and ftripping the laurels of departed poets, but fimply for the uses of the living. The fpecimens already given, and thofe which are intended to follow in the further profecution of the work, are propofed as difquifitions of instruction rather than of subtlety; and if they shall be found more particularly to apply to dramatic compofitions, it is because their author looks up to the stage, as the great arbiter of more important delights, than thofe only which concern the taste and talents of the nation; it is because he fees with ferious regret the buffoonery and low abuse of humour to which it is finking, and apprehends for the confequences fuch an influx of folly may lead to. It will be rea

dily

dily granted there are but two modes of combating this abasement of the drama with any probability of fuccefs: One of these modes is, by an expofition of fome one or other of the productions in queftion, which are fupposed to contribute to its degradation; the other is, by inviting the attention of the public to an examination of better models, in which the standard works of our early dramatifts abound. If the latter mode therefore fhould be adopted in these Effays, and the former altogether omitted, none of their readers will regret the preference that has been given upon fuch an alternative.

If the ladies of wit and talents do not take offence at fome of these Effays, it will be a test of the truth of their pretenfions, when they difcern that the raillery, pointed only at affectation and false character, has no concern with them. There is nothing in which this nation has more right to pride itself, than the genius of its women; they have only to add a little more attention to their domeftic virtues, and their fame will fly over the face of the globe. If I had ever known a good match broken off on the part of the man, because a young lady had too much modefty and discretion, or was too ftrictly educated in the duties of a good wife, I hope I understand myfelf too well to obtrude

my