all_.

[_Price One Shilling._]

AUGUSTA TRIUMPHANS:

OR, THE

WAY

TO MAKE

LONDON

THE MOST FLOURISHING

CITY IN THE UNIVERSE.

A man who has the public good in view, ought not in the least to be
alarmed at the tribute of ridicule which scoffers constantly pay to
projecting heads. It is the business of a writer, who means well, to go
directly forward, without regard to criticism, but to offer his thoughts
as they occur; and if in twenty schemes he hits but on one to the
purpose, he ought to be excused failing in the nineteen for the
twentieth sake. It is a kind of good action to mean well, and the
intention ought to palliate the failure; but the English, of all people
in the world, show least mercy to schemists, for they treat them in the
vilest manner; whereas other nations give them fair play for their
lives, which is the reason why we are esteemed so bad at invention.

I have but a short time to live, nor would I waste my remaining thread
of life in vain, but having often lamented sundry public abuses, and
many schemes having occurred to my fancy, which to me carried an air of
benefit, I was resolved to commit them to paper before my departure, and
leave, at least, a testimony of my good will to my fellow-creatures.

But of all my reflections, none was more constantly my companion than a
deep sorrow for the present decay of learning among us, and the manifest
corruption of education; we have been a brave and learned people, and
are insensibly dwindling into an effeminate, superficial race. Our young
gentlemen are sent to the universities, it is true, but not under
restraint or correction as formerly; not to study, but to drink; not for
furniture for the head, but a feather for the cap, merely to say they
have been at Oxford or Cambridge, as if the air of those places inspired
knowledge without application. It is true we ought to have those places
in reverence for the many learned men they have sent us; but why must we
go so far for knowledge? Why should a young gentleman be sent raw from
the nursery to live on his own hands, to be liable to a thousand
temptations, and run the risk of being snapped up by sharping jilts,
with which both universities abound, who make our youth of fortune their
prey, and have brought misery into too many good families? Not only the
hazard of their healths from debauches of both kinds, but the waste of
their precious time renders the sending them so far off ve