avoided publicly to characterife any perfon without long experience. Nonum prematur in annum, is a good rule for all writers, but chiefly for writers of characters; because it may happen to thofe who vent praise or cenfure too precipitately, as it did to an eminent English poet, who celebrated a young nobleman for erecting Dryden's monument upon a promife, which his Lordfhip 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 fpeak of Sir John Vanbrugh, who was a man of wit, and of honour; and of Mr Addifon, whof name deferves all respect from every lover of learning. We cannot deny (and perhaps moft writers of our kind have been in the fame circumftances) that in feveral parts of our lives, and according to the difpofitions we were in, we have written fome things which we may wifh never to have thought on. Some fallies of levity ought to be imputed to youth, (fuppofed 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 these, which we cannot difown, and without our confent, is, I think, a greater injury, than that of afcribing to us. the most ftupid productions, which we can wholly deny. This has been ufually practifed in other countries after a man's deceafe; which in a great meafure accounts for that manifeft inequality found in the works of the best authors; the collectors only confidering, that fo many more sheets raise the price of the book; and the greater fame a writer is in poffeffion of, the more of fuch trash he may bear to have tacked to him. Thus it is appărently the editor's intereft to infert what the author's judgment had rejected; and care is always taken to interperfe 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 ftill worfe: thofe very bookfellers, who have fupported themfelves 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 laf A 2 will 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 fone have fished the very jakes for papers left there by men of wit: but it is no jeft to affirm, that the cabinets of the sick, and the closets of the dead, have been broke open and ranfacked to publish our private letters, and divulged to all mankind the moft fecret fentiments and intercourse of friendship. Nay, these fellows are arrived to that height of impudence, that when an author has publicly disowned a purious piece, they have difputed his own name with him in printed advertisements; which has been practised to Mr Congreve and Mr Prior. We are therefore compelled, in respect to truth, to fubinit to a very great hardship; to own fuch pieces as in our stricter judginents 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 unlikely to reach the future, but unworthy even of the present age; not our ftudies, 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 discredit 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 else has been printed, in which we really had any hand, it is either intolerably mperfect, or loaded with spurious additions; fometimes even with infertions of mens names, which we never meant, and for whom we have an esteem and respect. Even thofe pieces in which we are leaft 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 such as came under our 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 abroad, we have actually deftroyed, to prevent all poffibility of the like treatment. These volumes likewife will contain all the papers wherein we have cafually had any share; particularly those written in conjunction with our friends, Dr Arbuthnot and Mr Gay; and, laftly, all of this fort compofed fingly by either of thofe hands. The reader is therefore defired to do the fame justice to these our friends, as to us; and to be affured, that all the things called our mifcellanies (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 1720; and as many of thefe mifcellanies as have been formerly printed by Benj. Tooke) are abfolutely fpurious, and without our confent impofed upon the public. Twickenham, JONATH. SWIFT. A A 3 A Difcourfe of the CONTESTS and DISSEN. SIONS between the NOBLES and the COMMONS in ATHENS and ROME; with the confequences they had upon both those ftates *. -Si tibi vera videtur, Dede manus; et, fi falfa eft, accingere contra. Lucret. I Written in the year 1701. CHAP. I. Tis agreed, that in all government there is an abfolute unlimited power, which naturally and originally feems to be placed in the whole body, whereever the executive part of it lies. This holds in the body natural; for where-ever we place the begin ning This difcourfe is a kind of remonstrance in behalf of King William and his friends, against the proceedings of the house of Commons; and was published during the recefs of parliament in the fummer of 1701, with a view to engage them in milder meafure when they should meet again. As this time Lewis XIV. was making large ftrides towards univetfal monarchy; plots were carrying on at St Germain's; the Dutrh had acknowledged the Duke of Anjou as King of Spain, and cKing William was made extremely uneafy by the violence with which many of his minifters and chief favourites were purfued by the Commons; the King, to appease their refentment, had made feveral changes in his miniftry, and removed some of his most faithful fervants from places of the highest truft and dignity this expedient, however, had proved ineffectual, and the Commons perfifted in their opposition; they began by impeaching William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, Groom of the Stole; and proceeded to the impeachment of John Somers, Baron So mers of Evesham, First Lord Keeper, afterwards Lord Chancellor ; Edward Ruffel, Earl of Orford, Lord Treasurer of the Navy, and one of the Lords Commiffioners of the Admiralty; and Charles ning of motion, whether from the head, or the heart, or the animal fpirits in general, the body moves and acts by a confent of all its parts. This unlimited power, placed fundamentally in the body of a people, is what the best legiflators of all ages have endeavoured, in their several schemes or inftitutions of government, to depofit in fuch hands as would preferve the people from rapine and oppreffion within, as well as violence from without. Most of them feem to agree in this, that it was a trust too great to be committed to any one man or affembly, and therefore they left the right still in the whole body; but the administration or executive part in the hands of the one, the few, or the many, into which three powers all independent bodies of men seem naturally to divide; for by all I have read of thofe innumerable and petty commonwealths in Italy, Greece, and Sicily, as well as the great ones of Carthage and Rome, it seems to me, that a free people met together, whether by compact, or family-government, as foon as they fall into any acts of civil fociety, do of themselves divide into three powers. The firft is that of some one eminent fpirit, who, having fignalized his valour and fortune in defence of his country, or by the practice of popular arts at home, comes to have great influence on the people, to grow their leader in warlike expeditions, and to prefide, after a fort, in their civil affemblies; and this is grounded upon the principles of nature and common reason, which in all difficulties or dangers, where prudence or courage is required, do rather incite us to fly for counfel or affiftance to a single perfon, than a multitude. The fecond natural divifion of power is of fuch men, who have acquired large poflef Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, one of the Commiffioners of the Treasury, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer. Its general purport is to damp the warmth of the Commons, by fhewing, that the measures they pursued had a direct tendency to bring on the tyranny which they profeffed to oppofe; and the particular cafes of the impeached Lords are parallelled in Athenian characters. Hawkef This whole treatife is full of hiftorical knowledge, and excellent reflections. It is not mixed with any improper fallies of wit, or any light airs of humour; and, in point of ftyle and learning, is equal, if not fuperior, to any of Swift's political works. Or rery. |