are in no great danger of erring on this fide; but my caution is occafioned by a lady of your acquaintance, married to a very valuable perfon, whom yet fhe is fo unfortunate as to be always commending for those perfections to which he can leaft pretend.

I can give you no advice upon the article of expence: only I think you ought to be well informed, how much your husband's revenue amounts to; and be so good a computer, as to keep within it, in that part of the management which falls to your fhare; and not to put yourself in the number of those politick ladies, who think they gain a great point, when they have teafed their hufbands to buy them a new equipage, a laced head, or a fine petticoat, without once confidering what long scores remain unpaid to the butcher.

I defire you will keep this letter in your cabinet, and often examine impartially your whole conduct by it. And fo God bless you, and make you a fair example to your fex, and a perpetual comfort to your husband, and your parents. I am, with great truth and affection,

MADAM,

Your most faithful friend,

and bumble fervant.

A

A PREFACE to the Right Reverend Dr BURNET Bishop of SARUM'S INTRODUCTION to the third volume of the HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Written in the year 1712.

Spargere voces

In vulgum ambiguas, et quærere confcius arma.

To the BOOKSELLER.

Mr MORPHEW,

YOUR

OUR care in putting an advertisement in the Examiner, hath been of very great use to me. I now fend you my preface to the Bishop of Sarum's introduction to his third volume; which I defire you to print in such a form as, in the bookfeller's phrafe, will make a fixpenny-touch; hoping it will give fuch a public notice of my defign, that it may come into the hands of those who perhaps look not into the Bishop's introduction *. I defire you will prefix to this a paffage out of Virgil, which doth fo perfectly agree with my prefent thoughts of his Lordship, that I cannot exprefs them better, nor more truly than these words do. I am, SIR,

Your humble fervant.

A PREFACE to Bp BURNET'S INTRO

DUCTION.

THIS way of publishing introductions to books that

are, God knows when, to come out, is either

wholly

The Bishop's introduction is prefaced with a letter to his bookfeller, of which this is a burlefque. Hawkef.

wholly new, or fo long unpractifed, that my fmall reading cannot trace it. However, we are to fuppofe, that a perfon of his Lordship's great age and experience would hardly act fuch a piece of fingularity, without fome extraordinary motives. I cannot but obferve, that his fellow-labourer, the author of the paper called The Englishman, feems, in fome of his late performances, to have almost tranfcribed the notions of the Bishop. These notions I take to have been dictated by the fame matters, leaving to each writer that peculiar manner of expreffing himself, which the poverty of our language forceth me to call their ftyle. When the Guardian changed his title, and profeffed to engage in faction, I was fure the word was given; that grand preparations were making againft next feffions; that all advantages would be taken of the little diffenfions reported to be among thofe in power; and that the Guardian would foon be feconded by fome other piquerers from the fame camp. But I will confefs my fufpicions did not carry me fo far, as to conjecture, that this venerable champion would be in fuch mighty hafte to come into the field, and ferve in the quality of an enfant perdu †, armed only with a pocket-piftol, before his great blunderbus could be got ready, his old rufty breaft-plate fcoured, and his cracked head-piece mended.

I was debating with myfelf, whether this hint of producing a small pamphlet, to give notice of a large folio, was not borrowed from the ceremonial in Spanish romances, where a dwarf is fent out upon the battlements, to fignify to all paffengers what a mighty giant there is in the caftle; or whether the Bifhop copied this proceeding from the fanfaronnade of Monfieur Bouffleurs, when the Earl of Portland and that General had an interview. Several men were appointed at certain periods to ride in great hafte towards the Englifh camp, and cry out, Monfeigneur vient, Monseigneur

* Mr Steele.

vient

+ Enfant perdu, one of the forlorn hope. The forlorn hope is a number of men felected for any defperate enterprise, or appointed for the first onfet in a battle. Hawkef.

Fanfaronnade, vain oftentation.

vient then fmall parties advanced with the fame speed, and the fame cry: and this foppery held for many hours, until the Marefchal himself arrived. So here the Bishop (as we find by his dedication to Mr Churchill the bookfeller) hath for a long time fent warning of his arrival by advertisements in gazettes; and now his introduction advanceth to tell us again, Monseigneur vient. In the mean time we must gape, and wait, and gaze, the Lord knows how long, and keep our fpirits in fome reasonable agitation, until his Lordship's real felf shall think fit to appear in the habit of a folio.

I have feen the fame fort of management at a puppitfhow. Some puppits of little or no confequence appeared several times at the window, to allure the boys and the rabble: the trumpeter founded often, and the doorkeeper cried an hundred times, until he was hoarfe, that they were just going to begin; yet after all we were forced fometimes to wait an hour before Punch himself in perfon made his entry.

BUT why this ceremony among old acquaintance ? The world and he have long known one another. Let' him appoint his hour, and make his vifit, without troubling us all day with a fucceffion of messages from his lackeys and pages.

1.

WITH fubmiffion, thefe little arts of getting off an edition, do ill become any author above the fize of Marten the furgeon. My Lord tells us, that “ many thou"fands of the two former parts of his hiftory are in the

kingdom;" and now he perpetually advertiseth in the Gazette, that he intends to publifh the third. This is exactly in the method and ftyle of Marten: "The " feventh edition (many thousands of the former editi"ons having been fold off in a small time) of Mr "Marten's book concerning fecret diseases," &c.

DOTH his Lordship intend to publish his great volume by fubfcription, and is this introduction only by way of Specimen? I was inclined to think fo, becaufe, in the prefixed letter to Mr Churchill, which introduces this introduction, there are fome dubious expreffions. He fays, "The advertisements he published were in order to

VOL. VII.

T

My Lord is coming, my Lord is coming.

66 move

"move people to furnish him with materials, which "might help him to finish his work with great advantage." If he means half a guinea upon the fubfcription, and the other half at the delivery, why doth he not tell us fo in plain terms?

I am wondering how it came to pafs, that this diminutive letter to Mr Churchill fhould understand the bufinefs of introducing better than the introduction itself; or why the Bishop did not take it into his head to fend the former into the world fome months before the latter; which would have been yet a greater improve ment upon the folemnity of the proceffion.

SINCE I writ these last lines, I have perused the whole pamphlet, (which I had only dipped in before,) and found I have been hurting upon a wrong fcent; for the author hath, in several parts of his piece, discovered the true motives which put him upon fending it abroad at this juncture. I fhall therefore confider them as they come in my way.

My Lord begins his introduction with an account of the reafons why he was guilty of so many mistakes in the first volume of his hiftory of the reformation. His excufes are juft, rational, and extremely confiftent. He fays, he wrote in hafte; which he confirms, by adding, "that it lay a year after he wrote it before it was put into the prefs." At the fame time he mentiOns a passage extremely to the honour of that pious and excellent prelate Archbishop Sancroft, which demonftrates his Grace to have been a person of great fagacity, and almoft a prophet. " Dr Burnet, then a pri"vate divine, defired admittance to the Cotton li "brary, but was prevented by the Archbishop *; who

"told

* It is fomewhat remarkable to see the progrefs of this story, In the first edition of this introduction, it should feem " he was PRE"VENTED by the Archbishop," &c. When the introdu&ion was reprinted a year after with the history, it ftands: "A GREAT PRE"LATE had been before hand, and poffeffed him [Sir John Cotton] against me. That unless the Archbishop of Canterbury would "recommend me,—he defired to be excufed.The Bishop of Worcester could not prevail on the Archbishop to INTERPOSE." This is fomewhat less than PREVENTING; unless the Archbishop be meant by the GREAT PRELATE; which is not very probable, 1. Because,