dized the Whole according to my firft Intention. But as I have only affumed the Title of Miscellaneous Works, there was no Occafion to be so very fcrupulous on this Head. Befides, we find in most of our modern Poets, who have ranged their Works into Books, that they have their Sylva, Mifcellanea, Poefies diverses, as well as their Odes, Satires, Epistles, Elegies, and Epigrams. The Pieces of Profe, at the End of the fecond Volume, were most of them written without any Deliberation, while I belonged to an ingenious Society, of which every Member was to bring fome Compofition, in his Turn, that might serve for Part of an Evening's Amusement. There is only one of them, The Effay in Defence of Priest-craft, that can seem to require any Thing to be faid of it in particular. Of this I would obferve, that it was occafioned by my reading, in Conjunction with some Friends, a Discourse, wherein the Prieftly Authority was magnified in a very extraordinary, and, as we all thought, a very ridiculous Manner. My Expectations from this Piece are fomewhat fingular; for the Perfons whose Anger I am moft apprehensive of, are the very Men I have endeavoured to defend. I fhould be forry, heartily forry, to have my Irony interpreted in a more general Senfe than I meant it; for as I would no. offend any one worthy Perfon, much lefs would I a whole Order of Men, for the virtuous Part of which I have the highest Veneration. But great Abuses cannot be too often, nor too freely expofed; and if I touch none but Those who are guilty of them, their Refentment shall not make me uneafy. Nor am I at all concern'd about the Effect of those fatirical Strokes in fome of my Poems, and the Remarks on them, which feem to have a more particular Meaning; because I apprehend, that no Man will be fo weak as to apply them to himself, unless he is confcious of the Offence, for which BALAAM is ftigmatized. The Notes, with which the Bulk of thefe Volumes is confiderably enlarged, are what come laft under Confideration. They confift of fome Variety, and on that Account, I would hope, may add a little to the Entertainment. If all of them are not found to be equally pertinent, let it be confidered, that it was not poffible they fhould be fo; and that the Method of putting them into every full Page, which is obferved throughout in the Poetry, was fometimes the Occafion of making them more numerous than might otherwise have been neceffary. This, I fear, will be thought a feeble Excufe; but it is fuch an one as I am now obliged to make, for want of reflecting at first on what would be the Confequence of fuch a Method. It is beft to acknowledge a Truth, which every one is like to discover: And for this fame Reason I own, that the Character of a third Perfon, affumed by the Annotator, was only to give him an Opportunity of acting the Critick, the Droll, the Philofopher, or the fimple Hiftorian, as Occafion required, with more unguarded Freedom. It has long been my Opinion, that if every one who publishes Verfes was to give a Commentary on them at the fame Time, it would occafion Poetry to be more univerfally read. I perufe BOILEAU with a great deal more Pleafure, even in the Places where I before understood him, when with the Text I confult the Annotations at Bottom; which, tho' not written by himself, were compiled in his Life-time, and under his Direction. There is a great deal of Odds, I muft own, between the Neceffity of fuch Notes to a critical and moral Satirift, full of Learning and Sentiment, full of Allufions to Perfons and Facts not publickly known, and which are in Danger of being utterly loft; and to a Writer of fuch little detach'd Pieces, as thefe Volumes confift of, whofe greatest Merit lies more in their Turn and Manner, than in their intrinfic Contents. But what I would intimate is, that every Thing of this Kind partakes fomething of the Nature of a Secret, which infinuates itself into the Reader's Breast, and creates a Sort of mutual Confidence and Familiarity between him and his Author. Even the inferting a Scrap of Hiftory, or a Piece of antient Mythology, when alluded to, tho' it communicates nothing new to learned Readers, may yet fave them the Trouble of reflecting, or perhaps of turning again to what they have before read: And as to the Unlearned, it obviates the only grand Objection they have against Books of this Kind, by removing those Difficulties, which, for want of a little Knowledge of Antiquity, are perpetually ftopping them in the Progrefs of their Reading. Thus have I fpun out my Preface into a Sort of Differtation on the feveral Species of Poetry and Profe of which my Mifcellanies confift; and by fo do 'ing have laid myself open to a pretty severe Examina- tion. After giving my Readers fo much Advantage over me, no one certainly can think it impertinent, if I add a Word or two more in my own Behalf. I have declared in feveral Notes, that the Poems they relate to were before printed in a small Volume, about five or fix Years ago: And in the Preface to that Volume I endeavoured to fhew, that the Pieces it contained, for several Reasons there enumerated, muft of Ne- ceffity want many of thofe Advantages, which a Mif- cellany, composed on Purpose to be published, might have had. Now as I intended, in the prefent Volumes, to make a complete Collection of all the Verses that I had ever preserved, I could not fairly omit any Thing, to which I had before put my Name in that other Collection: And therefore the Apology there made, ought still to ftand good fo far as it is here concern- ed; which will be fhewn in the Table of Contents, where the Titles of all thofe juvenile Performances will appear without any Mark prefix'd. Not but that I have altered and amended feveral Things, and parti- As to the Pieces that are introduced with an Afterisk, and which are now firft collected together, most of them first printed, tho' in general they may have less need of an Apology than their Predeceffors, yet as they are all far fhort of the Ideas on which they were con- ceived, I affure the Reader, that I fhall be much more FIRST VOLUME. REEDOM and the Muse: An Irregular Ode *Of Tragedy; and the Comparison of public and pri- vate Characters. To Mr. Lillo 81 *To Mr. Hogarth: On his Modern Midnight Con- |