CONTENT S. INTRODUCTION-On Epistolary Writing. EPISTOLA AD AUGUSTUM: With an English DISSERTATION III. On Poetical Imitation. DEAR SIR, HAV AVING reviewed thefe Sheets with fome care, I beg leave to put them into your hands, as a testimony of the respect I bear you; and, for the time that fuch things may have the fortune to live, as a monument of our friendship. You fee, by the turn of this address, you have nothing to fear from that offenfive adulation, which has fo much dishonoured Letters. You and I have lived together on other terms. And I fhould be ashamed to offer you even fuch a trifle as this, in a manner that would give you a right to think meanly of its author. Your extreme delicacy allows me to fay nothing of my obligations, which otherwise would demand my warmest acknowledgments. For your conftant favour has followed me in all ways, in which you could contrive to exprefs it. And indeed I have never known any man more fenfible to the good offices of his friends, and even to their good intentions, or more difpofed, by every proper method, to acknowledge them. But you much over-rate the little fervices, which it has been in my power to render to you. I had the honour 1 |