Pliny writ his letters for the public : so did Seneca, so did Balzac, Voiture, &c., &c. : Tully did
not: and therefore these give us more pleasure than any which have come down to us from an.
tiquity. When we read them we pry into a secret which was intended to be kept from us.
That is a pleasure. We see Cato, and Brutus, and Pompey, and others, such as they really were,
and not such as the gaping multitude of their own age took them to be, or as historians and poets
have represented them to ours. That is another pleasure.-Bolingbroké to Swift.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS,

NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET.

13

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

SHELDON FUND
JULY 10, 1940

TO ELIZABETH AND ROBIN,

THE FAIRY PRATTLER, AND STILL MEEK BOY OF

THE LETTERS,

AND THROUGH YOU EQUALLY TO YOUR YOUNGER BROTHERS

AND SISTERS,