4, 1759.

This sequel of Clarendon's history, at last happily published, is an
accession to English literature equally agreeable to the admirers of
elegance and the lovers of truth; many doubtful facts may now be
ascertained, and many questions, after long debate, may be determined by
decisive authority. He that records transactions in which himself was
engaged, has not only an opportunity of knowing innumerable particulars
which escape spectators, but has his natural powers exalted by that
ardour which always rises at the remembrance of our own importance, and
by which every man is enabled to relate his own actions better than
another's.

The difficulties through which this work has struggled into light, and
the delays with which our hopes have been long mocked, naturally lead
the mind to the consideration of the common fate of posthumous
compositions.

He who sees himself surrounded by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly
feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded
that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who
cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are
proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his
choice by zeal for his reputation.

With hopes like these, to the executors of Swift was committed the
history of the last years of queen Anne, and to those of Pope, the works
which remained unprinted in his closet. The performances of Pope were
burnt by those whom he had, perhaps, selected from all mankind as most
likely to publish them; and the history had likewise perished, had not a
straggling transcript fallen into busy hands.

The papers left in the closet of Pieresc supplied his heirs with a whole
winter's fuel; and many of the labours of the learned Bishop Lloyd were
consumed in the kitchen of his descendants.

Some works, indeed, have escaped total destruction, but yet have had
reason to lament the fate of orphans exposed to the frauds of unfaithful
guardians. How Hale would have borne the mutilations which his Pleas of
the Crown have suffered from the editor, they who know his character
will easily conceive[1].

The original copy of Burnet's history, though promised to some publick
library[2], has been never given; and who then can prove the fidelity of
the publication, when the authenticity of Clarendon's history, though
printed with the sanction of one of the first universities of the world,
had not an u