e of a patron. The supplications of an author never yet
reprieved him a moment from oblivion; and, though greatness has
sometimes sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or
dulness. Having hitherto attempted only the propagation of truth, I will
not at last violate it by the confession of terrours which I do not
feel; having laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now
degrade it by the meanness of dedication.

The seeming vanity with which I have sometimes spoken of myself, would
perhaps require an apology, were it not extenuated by the example of
those who have published essays before me, and by the privilege which
every nameless writer has been hitherto allowed. "A mask," says
Castiglione, "confers a right of acting and speaking with less
restraint, even when the wearer happens to be known." He that is
discovered without his own consent, may claim some indulgence, and
cannot be rigorously called to justify those sallies or frolicks which
his disguise must prove him desirous to conceal.

But I have been cautious lest this offence should be frequently or
grossly committed; for, as one of the philosophers directs us to live
with a friend, as with one that is some time to become an enemy, I have
always thought it the duty of an anonymous author to write, as if he
expected to be hereafter known.

I am willing to flatter myself with hopes, that, by collecting these
papers, I am not preparing, for my future life, either shame or
repentance. That all are happily imagined, or accurately polished, that
the same sentiments have not sometimes recurred, or the same expressions
been too frequently repeated, I have not confidence in my abilities
sufficient to warrant. He that condemns himself to compose on a stated
day, will often bring to his task an attention dissipated, a memory
embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with
anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren
topick, till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of
invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing
hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

Whatever shall be the final sentence of mankind, I have at least
endeavoured to deserve their kindness. I have laboured to refine our
language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial
barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something,
perhaps, I have added