branch of modern wit or invention, planted and cultivated by the present age, and which, of all other, had borne the most and the fairest fruit. For though some remains of it were left us by the ancients, yet have not any of those, as I remember, been translated or compiled into systems for modern use. Therefore, we may affirm, to our own honour, that it hath, in some sort, been both invented and brought to a perfection by the same hands. What I mean is, that highly celebrated talent among the modern wits of deducing similitudes, allusions, and applications, very surprising, agreeable, and apposite, from the pudenda of either sex, together with their proper uses. And truly, having observed how little invention bears any vogue besides what is derived into these channels, I have sometimes had a thought that the happy genius of our age and country was prophetically held forth by that ancient typical description of the Indian pigmies, whose statue did not exceed two feet, sed quorum pudenda crassa, et ad talos usque pertingentia.* Now, I have been very curious to inspect the late productions wherein the beauties of this kind have most prominently appeared. And although this vein hath bled so freely, and all endeavours have been used in the power of human breath to dilate, extend, and keep it open,-like the Scythians, who had a custom and an instrument to blow up the privities of their mares, that they might

* Ctesiæ fragmentæ apud Photium.

yield the more milk *—yet I am under an apprehen→ sion it is near growing dry, and past all recovery, and that either some new fonde of wit should, if possible, be provided, or else that we must e'en be content with repetition here, as well as upon all other occasions.

This will stand as an incontestable argument that our modern wits are not to reckon upon the infinity of matter for a constant supply. What remains, therefore, but that our last recourse must be had to large indexes and little compendiums? Quotations must be plentifully gathered, and booked in alphabet. To this end, though authors need be little consulted, yet critics and commentators and lexicons carefully must. But, above all, those judicious collectors of bright parts and flowers and observandas are to be nicely dwelt on, by some called the sieves and boulters of learning, though it is left undetermined whether they dealt in pearls or meal, and, consequently, whether we are more to value that which passed through or what stayed behind.

By these methods, in a few weeks there starts up many a writer capable of managing the profoundest and most universal subjects. For what though his head be empty, provided his commonplace book be full? And if you will bate him but the circumstances of method and style and grammar and invention, allow him but the common privileges of transcribing * Herodotus 1. 4.

from others, and digress from himself as often as he shall see occasion, he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller's shelf, there to be preserved neat and clean for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title fairly inscribed on a label, never to be thumbed or greased by students, nor bound to everlasting chains of darkness in a library, but when the fulness of time is come, shall happily undergo the trial of purgatory in order to ascend the sky.

Without these allowances, how is it possible we modern wits should ever have an opportunity to introduce our collections, listed under so many thousand heads of a different nature? for want of which the learned world would be deprived of infinite delight, as well as instruction, and we ourselves buried beyond redress in an inglorious and undistinguished oblivion.

From such elements as these I am alive to behold the day wherein the corporation of authors can outvie all its brethren in the guild; a happiness derived to us, with a great many others, from our Scythian ancestors, among whom the number of pens was so infinite, that the Grecian eloquence had no other way of expressing it than by saying that, in the region far to the north, it was hardly possible for a man to travel, the very air was so replete with feathers.*

The necessity of this digression will easily excuse *Herodotus 1. 4.,

the length; and I have chosen for it as proper a place as I could readily find. If the judicious reader can assign a fitter, I do here empower him to remove it into any other corner he pleases. And so I return, with great alacrity, to pursue a more important con

cern.

SECTION VIII.

A TALE OF A TUB.

THE learned Æolists* maintain the original cause of all things to be wind, from which principle this whole universe was at first produced, and into which it must at last be resolved: that the same breath which had kindled and blown up the flame of nature should one day blow it out:

Quod procul a nobis flectat fortuna gubernans.

This is what the adepti understand by their anima mundi: that is to say, the spirit, or breath, or wind, of the world. For examine the whole system by the particulars of nature, and you will find it is not to be disputed. For whether you please to call the forma informans of man by the name of spiritus, animus afflatus, or anima, what are all these but several appellations for wind, which is the ruling element in every compound, and into which they all resolve upon

* All pretenders to inspiration whatsoever.