"Pone Tigellinum, tædd lucebis in illa

Quá stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant."

And from this motive, in his very outset, he announces his in tention of exposing the vices principally of those whose bodies the Earth had covered.

"Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur Cinis, atque Latinâ.”

Concealment also enables an author, either to escape the hisses, or eventually to come forward, to receive the plaudits of his audience. Moreover on the principle of "ignotum pro magnifico," a degree of mysterious, nay awful importance is attached to a spirited publication, whose author is unknown. Busy conjecture has ample scope allowed her; the sleepless eye of suspicion glances around; "Nec conspicit usquam

Auctorem."

Could Belshazzar be cited to appear, he would confess that the hand which wrote upon the wall, derived its most appalling terrors from its want of a body. I have watched the pro. gress of one or two anonymous works, which it appeared afterwards were written by obscure individuals. I have heard them ascribed to some one having authority; and have been told in a whisper that they proceeded from one as formidable from his power, as respectable from his rank; qualified for his high office by native genius, and acquired erudition; well kerned in years, ripe in judgement, and rich in experience, that fruit of slowest growth, and costliest cultivation.

The very obscurity which enshrouds an anonymous work, awakens our attention; because it increases the difficulty of fully discovering that very object which it magnifies. The sun appears larger through a mist, and the shadow is usually greater than the substance. If I am not deceived, the "Magni nominis Umbra" contributed more to the popularity of Junius, than the name of any individual, however esteemed, of a Fox, or a Chatham. Perhaps few things have issued from the Press, which excited at the time, a greater sensation than the notes

to the Pursuits of Literature. To so respectable a reception they were fully entitled, both from their matter and their style, of which it could not be said "materiem superabat opus." But their imposing solemnity excited less attention, and their authoritative egotism more disgust, the moment the author was known. The last advantage I shall enumerate, though not the least, is this; Even witling Scribblers, pedantic Coxcombs, and disappointed Poetasters, a formidable Phalanx, can bear, to praise an anonymous publication; because Mr. Any-body is Mr. Nobody, and he happens to be the only gentleman whom brother-authors will admit to be as wise as themselves. Under the above circumstances, and many more, which the Critics,, who fully appreciate the blessings of sleeping in a sound skin, might inform us of, the question unavoidably obtrudes itself.How came I to pursue a contrary course? I have a short an swer-In despite of all these prudent considerations I have affixed my name," Adsum qui feci," because for every thing anonymous, except Charity, I have a rooted contempt, and insuperable aversion.

Of what is before them, the public will judge :

"Fugit irrevocabile verbum."

On what is to follow, they are not so competent to decide. I have promised two more books; they are already in a state of forwardness, and my portfolio reports progress. The main subject will be more closely followed up than in the first book. But in what manner I have treated it, and in what points' of view I have considered it, it is quite impossible for any one to predict. Suffice it to say, that Hypocrisy is not confined to the church. It is a copious subject, a fruitful theme; a tree of tallest growth, whose ambitious head aspires even unto Heaven; of deepest root, whose ramifications penetrate through the most secret caverns of the earth, even unto Tartarus; She extends her branches over seas and over continents; and with their broad and ample foliage she overshadows the nations.

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Hypocrisy is indeed a subject which can only fail with the generation of men; and this enables me to say→

"Quicquid agunt homines, nostri farrago.libelli."

Of the two books that are forth coming, I shall premise one thing. It is my fixed and settled determination neither personally, nor allusively, by remote inference, or direct application, to attack the character, or wound the feelings of any one living being whatever. Motives very different from fear, have operated with me, in forming this resolution. The mere Braggadocio may succeed in bullying half the world; but the other half will as certainly bully him. Even in my first book, where I have hot been quite so scrupulous, it is known to one or two, that I have rejected what some might think the best passages of the Satire. If I have made this sacrifice to fear, then I exhibit a contradictory union of what, perhaps, never was united-Cowardice and Temerity; since enough is already inserted to insure me the anathemas of booksellers, critics, poetasters, and politicians. But every reader of taste and candour, (and such alone am I ambitious to please) will listen more attentively to the still small voice within his own breast, than to the hue and cry from without.

"Hac novimus esse nihil?"

It may be that I have not sprinkled my pages sufficiently with Cayenne, to keep the worm out of them. I care not for that. Sugar will preserve, as well as salt; and I shall ever deem it a more grateful task to praise an honest Man, than to lasha knave.

In my historical allusions I hope I shall not be compared to those who had rather say a witty thing, than a true one. "Qui modo aliquid argute vel acute dicere videantur, plerumque ve◄ rumne sit, an falsum, propemodum non curant.” To the wit I do not pretend, and I would wish not to incur the falshood. Whenever I have dissected the dead, I have done it, as the Anatomist, for the benefit of the living. My library indeed is not copious, and my books of reference far from numerous; neither

are the streets of the town where I reside thronged with walking Lexicons. Not that we are always to expect the greatest learning from those who possess the greatest libraries. It was well said of Hobbes, "Ingentem librorum supellectilem qua superbiunt Bibliothecæ non magni fecit; auctores versabat paxcos, sed tamen optimos." It is not unusual in conversation, to say. "I should never have suspected Mr. Such-a-one of wri ting that Book; he appears never to study." Such persons forget that reflection, thought, and contemplation form the very essence of study; and that these may be exercised in the fields, better than in libraries. Some authors are praised by every body, and read by nobody; and it is with books, as with companions, the best knowledge is that which teaches us which to avoid; and in both cases much valuable time is lost, before we discover that it has been thrown away upon those who are worse than useless.

I would give the devourers of books, the Helluones librorum, some such advice as this:-cease to read, begin to think; shut your eyes, open your understandings; quit your libraries, retire into yourselves; let repletion end, that digestion may begin.

"Claudite jam rivos, sat prata biberunt.” Perhaps no one thing so completely hebetates the powers of the understanding, as constant reading without reflection. Such bave been well described by Milton, to be

"Deep read in books, but shallow in themselves."

A great Scholar who prided himself on his ignorance of Meu, and vast knowledge of books, once received, from a plain unlettered man, this humiliating rebuke: "The Lord double your learning, and then you will be twice the fool you are at present !"

ADDENDA.

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ANECDOTES

TO THE PRECEDING PARTS OF THE POEM

ILLUSTRATIVE and EXPLANATORY.

Page 7.-" Words are the fickle daughters of the Earth.”

NOTHING is more common than fine words, and nothing more scarce than fine conceptions. Great capitalists in words, but mere bankrupts in ideas, modern Poetasters do not seem to understand that all eloquence resides far less in the expression, than in the thought. Many of Shakspeare's finest passages are monosyllabic. While no poet better understood the superiority of the moral sublime to the natural, or knew better how to increase the effect of each by joining them together; yet, when he most astonishes us by the awful sublimity of the thought, then it is that he often charms us most by the ar less simplicity of the expression. Let him who would fully understand the difficulty of writing like Shakspeare, attempt to imitate him,

"Speret idem, sudet multum, frustraque laboret,

Ausus idem."

In confirmation of what has been advanced above, it this mo.

Pp