should be informed in. For, to tell you a secret, I am able to contain it no longer. However, I have been perplexed for some time, to resolve what would be the most proper form to send it abroad in. To which end, I have been three days coursing thro' Westminster-Hall, and St. Paul's Church-yard, and Fleet-street, to peruse titles; and, I do not find any, which holds so general a vogue, as that of A Letter to a Friend: nothing is more common than to meet with long epistles addressed to persons and places, where, at first thinking, one would be apt to imagine it not altogether so necessary or convenient; such as, a neighbour at next door, a mortul enemy, a perfect stranger, or a person of quality in the clouds; and these upon subjects in appearance, the least proper for conveyance by the post; as, long schemes in Philosophy; dark and wonderful Mysteries of State; Laborious Dissertations in Criticism and Philosophy; Advice to Parliaments, and the like. Now, Sir, to proceed after the method in

present wear. (For let me say what I will to the contrary, I am afraid you will publish this Letter, as soon as ever it comes to your hands.) I desire you will be my witness to the world, how careless and sudden a scribble it has been; that it was but yesterday, when you and I began accidentally to fall into discourse on this matter; that I was not very well, when we parted; that the

post is in such haste, I have had no manner of time to digest it into order, or correct the style; and if any other, modern excuses, for haste and negligence shall occur to you in reading, I beg you to insert them, faithfully promising they shall be thankfully acknowledged.

Pray, Sir, in your next letter to the Iroquois Virtuosi, do me the favour to present my humble service to that illustrious body, and assure them, I shall send an account of those phænomena, as soon as we can determine them at Gresham.

I have not had a line from the Literati of Tobinambou, these three last ordinaries.

And now, Sir, having dispatched what I had to say of forms, or of business, let me intreat, you will suffer me to proceed upon my subject; and to pardon me, if I make no farther use of the epistolary style, till I come to conclude.

SECT. I.

"TIS recorded of Mahomet, that upon a visit he was going to pay in Paradise, he had an offer of several vehicles to conduct him upwards; as fiery chariots, wing'd horses, and celestial sedans:

but he refused them all, and would be born to Heaven upon nothing but his ass. Now, this inclination of Mahomet, as singular as it seems, hath been since taken up by a great number of devout Christians; and doubtless, with very good reason. For, since that Arabian is known to have borrowed a moiety of his religious system from the Christian faith, it is but just he should pay reprisals to such as would challenge them, wherein the good people of England, to do them all right, have not been backward. For, tho' there is not any other nation in the world, so plentifully provided with carriages for that journey, either as to safety, or ease; yet there are abundance of us, who will not be satisfied with any other machine, beside this of Mahomet.

For my own part, I must confess to bear a very singular respect to this animal, by whom I take human nature to be most admirably held forth in all its qualities as well as operations : And therefore whatever in my small reading occurs, concerning this our fellow-creature, I do never fail to set it down, by way of commonplace; and when I have occasion to write upon human reason, politicks, eloquence, or knowledge; I lay my memorandums before me, and insert them with a wonderful facility of application. However, among all the qualifications ascribed to this distinguished brute, by

antient or modern authors, I cannot remember this talent of bearing his rider to heaven, has been recorded for a part of his character, except in the two examples mentioned already; therefore, I conceive the methods of this art to be a point of useful knowledge in very few hands, and which the learned world would gladly be better informed in: this is what I have undertaken to perform in the following discourse.

For,

towards the operation already mentioned, many peculiar properties are required, both in the rider and the ass; which I shall endeavour to set in as clear a light as I can.

But, because I am resolved, by all means, to avoid giving offence to any party whatever; I will leave off discoursing so closely to the letter as I have hitherto done, and go on for the future by way of allegory, tho' in such a manner, that the judicious reader may, without much straining, make his applications as often as he shall think fit. Therefore, if you please, from hence forward, instead of the term, ass, we shall make use of gifted, or enlightned teacher; and the word rider, we will exchange for that of fanatic auditory, or any other denomination of the like import. Having settled this weighty point, the great subject of enquiry before us, is to examine, by what methods this teacher arrives at his Gifts, or Spirit, or Light; and by what

intercourse between him and his assembly, it is cultivated and supported.

In all my writings, I have had constant regard to this great end, not to suit and apply them to particular occasions and circumstances of time, of place, or of person; but to calculate them for universal nature, and mankind in general. And of such catholick use, I esteem this present disquisition: for I do not remember any other temper of body, or quality of mind, wherein all nations and ages of the world have so unanimously agreed, as that of a fanatick strain, or tincture of enthusiasm; which improved by certain persons or societies of men, and by them practised upon the rest, has been able to produce revolutions of the greatest figure in history; as will soon appear to those who know any thing of Arabia, Persia, India, or China, of Morocco and Peru. Farther, it has possessed as great a power in the kingdom of knowledge, where it is hard to assign one art or science, which has not annexed to it some fanatick branch; such are the Philosopher's Stone ;* the Grand Elixir ; the Planetary Worlds; the Squaring of the Circle; the Summum Bonum; Utopian Common-wealths; with some others of less or subordinate note; which all serve for nothing else, but to employ

* Some writers hold them for the same, others not.