lness, but never published, in the manner
it is now given. The disposition of the Epistle on the Characters of Men
is quite altered; that on the Characters of Women much enlarged; and the
Epistles on Riches and Taste corrected and improved. To these advantages
of the third volume must be added a great number of fine verses, taken
from the author's manuscript copies of these poems, communicated by him
for this purpose to the editor. These, the author, when he first
published the poems to which they belong, thought proper, for various
reasons, to omit. Some, from the manuscript copy of the Essay on Man,
which tended to discredit fate, and to recommend the moral government of
God, had, by the editor's advice, been restored to their places in the
last edition of that poem.[6] The rest, together with others of the like
sort, from his manuscript copy of the other Ethic Epistles, are here
inserted at the bottom of the page, under the title of Variations.

The fourth volume contains the Satires, with their Prologue,--the
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot; and Epilogue,--the two poems intitled
MDCCXXXVIII. The Prologue and Epilogue are here given with the like
advantages as the Ethic Epistles in the foregoing volume, that is to
say, with the Variations, or additional verses from the author's
manuscripts. The Epilogue to the Satires is likewise inriched with many
and large notes, now first printed from the author's own manuscript.

The fifth volume contains a correcter and completer edition of the
Dunciad than hath been hitherto published, of which, at present, I have
only this further to add, that it was at my request he laid the plan of
a fourth book. I often told him, it was pity so fine a poem should
remain disgraced by the meanness of its subject, the most insignificant
of all dunces,--bad rhymers and malevolent cavillers; that he ought to
raise and ennoble it by pointing his satire against the most pernicious
of all,--minute philosophers and free-thinkers. I imagined, too, it was
for the interests of religion to have it known, that so great a genius
had a due abhorrence of these pests of virtue and society. He came
readily into my opinion; but, at the same time, told me it would create
him many enemies. He was not mistaken, for though the terror of his pen
kept them for some time in respect, yet on his death they rose with
unrestrained fury in numerous coffee-house tales, and Grub Street
libels. The plan of this admirable satire was