been unassisted in composing them, he has endeavoured to open a variety of resources, sensible that he had many different palates to provide for. The subject of politics, however, will never be one of these resources; a subject which he has neither the will nor the capacity to meddle with. There is yet another topic, which he has been no less studious to avoid, which is personality; and though he professes to give occasional delineations of living manners, and not to make men in his closet (as some Essayists have done) he does not mean to point at individuals; for as this is a practice which he has ever rigidly abstained from when he mixed in the world, he should hold himself without the excuse, even of temptation, if he was now to take it up, when he has withdrawn himself from the world. In the Essays (which he has presumed to call Literary, because he cannot strike upon any apposite title of an humbler sort) he has studied to render himself intelligible to readers of all descriptions, and the deep-read scholar will not fastidiously pronounce them shallow, only because he can fathom them with ease; for that would be to wrong both himself and their author, who, if there is any vanity in a pedantic margin of references, certainly resisted that vanity, and as certainly had it at his choice to have loaded his page with as great a parade of authorities, as any of his brother writers upon classical subjects have ostentatiously displayed. But if any learned critic, now or hereafter, shall find occasion to charge these Essays on the score of false authority or actual error, their author will most thankfully meet the investigation; and the fair reviewer shall find that he has either candour to adopt correction, or materials enough in reserve to maintain every warrantable assertion. The Moralist and the Divine, it is hoped, will here find nothing to except against; it is not likely such an offence should be committed by one, who has rested all his hope in that Revelation, on which his faith is founded; whom nothing could ever divert from his aim of turning even the gayest subjects to moral purposes, and who reprobates the jest, which provokes a laugh at the expence of a blush. The Essays of a critical sort are no less addressed to the moral objects of composition, than to those which they have more professedly in view : they are not undertaken for the invidious purpose of developing errors, and stripping the laurels of departed poets, but simply for the uses of the living. The specimens already given, and those which are intended to follow in the further prosecution of the work, are proposed as disquisitions of instruction rather than of subtlety; and if they shall be found more particularly to apply to dramatic composition, it is because their author looks up to the stage, as the great arbiter of more important delights, than those only which concern the taste and talents of the nation; it is because he sees with serious regret the buffoonery and low abuse of humour to which it is sinking, and apprehends for the consequences such an influx of folly may lead to. It will be readily granted there are but two modes of combating this abasement of the drama with any probability of success one of these modes is, by an exposition of some one or other of the productions in question, which are supposed to contribute to its degradation; the other is, by inviting the attention of the public to an examination of better models, in which the standard works of our early dramatists abound. If the latter mode therefore should be adopted in these Essays, and the former altogether omitted, none of their readers will regret the preference that has been given upon such an alternative. If the ladies of wit and talents do not take offence at some of these Essays, it will be a test of the truth of their pretensions, when they discern that the raillery, pointed only at affectation and false character, has no concern with them. There is nothing in which this nation has more right to pride itself, than the genius of its women; they have only to add a little more attention to their domestic virtues, and their fame will fly over the face of the globe. If I had ever known a good match broken off on the part of the man, because a young lady had too much modesty and discretion, or was too strictly educated in the duties of a good wife, I hope I understand myself too well to obtrude my oldfashioned maxims upon them. They might be as witty as they pleased, if I thought it was for their good; but if a racer, that has too great a share of heels, must lie by because it cannot be matched, so must every young spinster if her wits are too nimble. If I could once discover that men chuse their wives, as they do their friends, for their manly atchievments and convivial talents, for their being jolly fellows over a bottle, or topping a five-barred gate in a fox-chace, I should then be able to account for the many Amazonian figures I encounter in slouched hats, great coats and half-boots, and I would not presume to set my face against the fashion; or if my experience of the fair-sex could produce a single instance in the sect of Sentimentalists, which could make me doubt of the pernicious influence of a Musidorus and a Lady Thimble, I would not so earnestly have pressed the examples of a Sappho, a Calliope or a Melissa. The first Numbers of the present collection, to the amount of forty, have already been published; but being worked off at a country press, I find myself under the painful necessity of discontinuing the edition. I have availed myself of this opportunity, not only by correcting the imperfections of the first publication, but by rendering this as unexceptionable (in the external at least) as I possibly could. I should have been wanting to the public and myself, if the flattering encouragement I have already received had not prompted me to proceed with the work; and if my alacrity in the further prosecution of it shall meet any check, it must arise only from those causes, which no human diligence can controul. Vos tamen O nostri ne festináte libelli! Si post fata venit gloria, nonne propero. I Am sitting down to begin the task of adding a new volume to these Essays, when the last day of the year 1789 is within a few hours of its conclusion, and I shall bid farewell to this eventful period with a grateful mind for its having passed lightly over my head without any extraordinary perturbation or misfortune on my part suffered, gently leading me towards that destined and not far distant hour, when I, like it, shall be no more. I have accompanied it through all those changes and successions of seasons, which in our climate are so strongly discriminated; have shared in the pleasures and productions of each, and if any little idle jars or bickerings may occasionally have started up betwixt us, as will sometimes happen to the best of friends, I willingly consign them to oblivion, and keep in mind only those kind and good offices, which will please on reflection, and serve to endear the memory of the deceased. All days in twelve months will not be days of sunshine; but I will say this for my friend in his last moments, that I cannot put my finger upon one in the same century, that hath given birth to more interesting events, been a warmer advocate for the liberties and rights of mankind in general, or a kinder patron to this country in particular: I could name a day (if there was any need to point out what is so strongly impressed on our hearts) a day of gratulation and thanksgiving which will ever stand forth amongst the whitest in our calendar. Hic dies verè mihi festus atras This is indeed a festal day, HORAT. A day that heals my cares and pains, And tells me-Cæsar lives and reigns. Though my friend in his last moments hath in this and other instances been so considerate of our happiness, I am afraid he is not likely to leave our morals much better than he found them: I cannot say that in the course of my duty as an Observer any very striking instance of amendment hath come under my notice; and though I have all the disposition in life to speak as favourably in my friend's behalf as truth will let me, I am bound to confess he was not apt to think so seriously of his latter end as I could have wished; there was a levity in his conduct, which he took no pains to conceal; he did not seem |