ide convolutions of the _Grounds
and Reasons_, the argument by half-truths of the _Discourse of
Free-Thinking_. His last work is free of the curious ambivalence which
marked so many of his earlier pieces, a visible uncertainty which made him
fear repression and yet court it. On the contrary, his last work is in
fact a justification of his rhetorical mode and religious beliefs; it is
an _apologia pro vita sua_ written with all the intensity and decisiveness
that such a justification demands. To be sure, it takes passing shots at
old enemies like Swift, but never with rancor. And while its language is
frequently ironical, its thinking makes an earnest defense of wit as a
weapon of truth. The essay sets forth its author as an _animal ridens_, a
creature that through laughter and affable cynicism worships a universal
God and respects a rational mankind.

Brown University

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[1] _Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal_, No. 98 (22 August 1730).

[2] To Des Maizeaux (5 May 1717): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, ff. 129-130.

[3] To Des Maizeaux (9 February 1716): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 123.

[4] The title page of the _Scheme_ is dated 1726. It was not advertised in
the newspapers or journals of that year--a strange silence for any of
Collins's work. Its first notice appeared in the _Monthly Catalogue: Being
a General Register of Books, Sermons, Plays, Poetry, Pamphlets, &c.
Printed and Publish'd in London, or the Universities, during the Month of
May, 1727_ (see No. 49). Yet we know that the _Scheme_ had been remarked
upon as early as March when on the 10th of that month Samuel Chandler
published his _Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists in their
late Writings against Christianity_. (For the dating of Chandler's work,
see the _Daily Courant_ [10 March 1727].) We know also that the _Scheme_
went to a second edition late in 1727 and was frequently advertised in the
_Daily Post_ between 2 January and 20 January 1728.

[5] For the statement about the _Letter to Dr. Rogers_, see B. M. Sloane
MSS. 4282, f. 220 (15 August 1727). For that on the use of "personal
matters" in controversy, see B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 170 (27 December
1719); cf. _The Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered_ (London, 1726), pp.
422-438.

[6] _The Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion_ was published in
London within the first four days of January 1724; see the advertisement
in the _Daily Post_ (4 Janu