1

"Strange, that the great æra of dissipation, should be the greatest of good letters!

"This was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.*

"A library undigested is a chaos; of little more use to the owner, or to the public, than so many divided parts of instruments: for books, in each class or science, may be considered as component parts of the same instrument; and to put them together properly, very essential to the observer, and to the student.

is

"I have laboured many years in this track, with very little benefit to myself, beyond the satisfaction arising from the consideration of its utility, (myself having been always of the least consequence to myself;) but if the diligent student has been served, and the curious inquirer gratified, the labourer is amply rewarded.

"The expediency and necessity of classing voluminous collections and public libraries, is self-evident; as it is the only mean of pointing out the progress of science and knowledge of every kind, from the origin of printing; to which happy invention we owe the revival and diffusion of letters, to the present time, and of noting the desiderata in each: for to know what is wanting, and may be done, it is highly necessary to be acquainted with what has already been done.

"By such information, those who gather after others' harvests, may be led into the rich fields of Boaz, where the weightiest gleanings are to be found: such as compose through idleness, or boast, inadvertently, known facts for novelties; or designedly utter old for new opinions and discoveries, may find that all they

• Shakspeare.

have to say, has been better said already; and thereby spare themselves much pains, and their readers much trouble: while such as fabricate for bread, contenting themselves with pillaging some two or three known authors, and it may be the very worst they could have chose, may learn, at least, the names of better tools, of which too many of our modern book-makers appear to be entirely ignorant.

"To render the present catalogue more useful to students, collectors, and librarians, is subjoined an index of authors, interpreters and editors; which, though pretty accurate, is not altogether free from mistakes.

"Its general use is too obvious to be insisted upon; but in no one respect more so, than in the discrimination of persons of the same name; from the neglect of which many errors in biography have been committed and to the philosophical reader, considered as a register of minds, will be full as acceptable as an alphabet of arms.

London, April 3, 1786.

}

"S. P."

The Editor of the CENSURA has brought forward this Preface to notice, because it appears to him both curious and just, and to bear a strong relation to the arguments, on which the claims of his own work are built.

ART.

ART. X. A Satyre. Dedicated to his most excellent Majestie. By George Wither, Gentleman.

Rebus in adversis crescit.

London. Printed by Thomas Snodham for George Norton, and are to be sold at the signe of the Red Bull, neare Temple Barre. 1615. Duod. not paged, but about pp. 87.

This satire consists of nearly 1000 lines, and is subscribed by "Your Majestie's most loyal subject, and yet prisoner in the Marshelsey, Geo. Wyther." It is an appeal to the King from his confinement, in consequence of his Satires, entitled "Abuses Stript and Whipt." It begins thus:

"Quid tu, si pereo?

"What once the poet said, I may avow;
"Tis a hard thing, not to write Satyres now;
Since what we speak, abuse reigns so in all,
Spite of our hearts, will be satirical.

Let it not therefore now be deemed strange,

My unsmooth'd lines their rudeness do not change;
Nor be distasteful to my gracious King

That in the cage my old harsh notes I sing,

And rudely make a satyre here unfold,

What others would in neater terms have told.

And why? my friends and means in court are scant; Knowledge of curious phrase and form I want.

I cannot bear 't to run myself in debt,

To hire the groom, to bid the page intreat
Some favour'd follower to vouchsafe his word
To get me a cold comfort from his Lord:

I cannot

I cannot soothe, tho' it my life might savé,
Each favourite, nor crouch to every knave:
I cannot brook delays, as some men do,

With scoffs and scorns, and take 't in kindness too.
For ere I'd bind myself for some slight grace

To one that hath no more worth than his place,
Or by a base mean free myself from trouble,
I rather would endure my penance double :
'Cause to be forc'd to what my name disdains
Is worse to me than tortures racks and chains;
And therefore unto thee I only fly,

To whom there needs no mean but honesty :
To thee, that lov'st not parasite nor minion,
Should, ere I speak, possess thee with opinion;
To thee, that dost what thou wilt undertake,
For love of justice, not the person's sake;
To thee that know'st how vain all fair shews be,"
That flow not from the heart's sincerity;
And can'st, though shadowed in the simplest veil,
Discern both love and truth, and where they fail ;
To thee I do appeal, in whom, Heaven knows,
I next to God my confidence repose!

For can it be thy grace should ever shine,

And not enlighten such a cause as mine?

Can my hopes, fix'd in thee, great King, be dead?

Or thou those satires hate thy Forests* bred?
Where shall my second hopes be founded then,
If ever I have heart to hope again?

Can I suppose a favour may be got
In any place, when thy court yields it not?
Or that I may obtain it in the land,
When I shall be denied it at thy hand?

40

* I presume the poet means the Holt Forest, which I think is near Bentworth in Hampshire, the place of his nativity. See a description of that, country in White's Hist. of Selborne.

And

And if I might, should I so fond on't be,
To take 't of others, when I miss't of thee?
Or if I did, can I have comfort by it,
When I shall think my Sovereign did deny it?
No, were I sure, I to thy hate were born,

The love of half the world beside I'd scorn!

ART. XI. True Copies of certain loose Papers left by the Right Honourable Elizabeth Countesse of Bridgewater, collected and transcribed together here since her death. Anno Dom. 1663.

An 8vo. MS. in the hand of an amanuensis, but with this certificate, written by her husband.

This is one of the few copies of a curious MS. which has descended as an heir-loom in the family of the Editor. Another copy is in the Bridgewater library, and perhaps some others are in the possession of other branches of the family.

But before the Editor proceeds to give extracts, he thinks it prudent, under his peculiar circumstances, to copy the article-the whole article-regarding this lady, from Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies, (Oxf. 1752, 4to. p. 283,) that the reader may have before him an impartial testimony of her merits.

* An instance of a peer prefixing the initial of his Christian name. +From the Earl's third son, Thomas Egerton, of Tatton Park, in Cheshire, whose son William died 1738, and was the Editor's grandfather. "Elizabeth,

VOL. II.