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POSTSCRIPT.

SINCE the writing of this, which was about a year ago, a prostitute bookseller hath published a foolish paper, under the name of Notes on the Tale of a Tub, with some account of the author; and with an insolence, which I suppose is punishable by law, hath presumed to assign certain names. It will be enough for the author to assure the world that the writer of that paper is utterly wrong in all his conjectures upon that affair. The author further asserts that the whole work is entirely of one hand, which every reader of judgment will easily discover, the gentleman who gave the copy to the bookseller being a friend of the author, and using no other liberties besides that of expunging certain passages, where now the chasms appear under the name of desiderata. But if any person will prove his claim to three lines in the whole book, let him step forth and tell his name and titles, upon which the bookseller shall have orders to prefix them to next edition, and the claimant shall from henceforward be acknowledged the undisputed author.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN LORD SOMERS.

MY LORD,-Although the author has written a large dedication, yet that being addressed to a prince whom I am never likely to have the honour of being known to a person, besides, as far as I can observe, not at all regarded or thought on by any of our present writers; and being wholly free from that slavery which booksellers usually lie under to the caprices of authors, I think it a wise piece of presumption to inscribe these papers to your Lordship, and to implore your Lordship's protection of them. God, and your Lordship, know their faults and their merits; for as to my own particular, I am altogether a stranger to the matter; and though everybody else should be equally ignorant, I do not fear the sale of the book at all the worse upon that score. Your Lordship's name on the front in capital letters will at any time get off one edition; neither would I desire any other

help to grow an alderman than a patent for the sole privilege of dedicating to your Lordship.

I should now, in right of a dedicator, give your Lordship a list of your own virtues, and at the same time be very unwilling to offend your modesty; but chiefly I should celebrate your liberality towards men of great parts and small fortunes, and give you broad hints that I mean myself. And I was just going on in the usual method, to peruse a hundred or two of dedications, and transcribe an abstract, to be applied to your Lordship, but I was diverted by a certain accident. For upon the covers of these papers I casually observed, written in large letters, the two following words, DETUR DIGNISSIMO, which, for aught I knew, might contain some important meaning. But it unluckily fell out that none of the authors I employ understood Latin, though I have them often in pay to translate out of that language; I was therefore compelled to have recourse to the curate of our parish, who Englished it thus, Let it be given to the worthiest. And his comment was, that the author meant his work should be dedicated to the sublimest genius of the age for wit, learning, judgment, eloquence, and wisdom. I called at a poet's chamber (who works for my shop) in an alley hard by, showed him the translation, and desired his opinion who it was that the author could

mean he told me, after some consideration, that vanity was a thing he abhorred; but by the description he thought himself to be the person aimed at, and at the same time he very kindly offered his own assistance gratis towards penning a dedication to himself. I desired him, however, to give a second guess; why then, said he, it must be I, or my Lord Somers. From thence I went to several other wits of my acquaintance, with no small hazard and weariness to my person, from a prodigious number of dark, winding stairs, but found them all in the same story, both of your Lordship and themselves. Now your Lordship is to understand that this proceeding was not of my own invention; for I have somewhere heard it is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title to the first.

This infallibly convinced me that your Lordship was the person intended by the author. But being very unacquainted in the style and form of dedications, I employed those wits aforesaid to furnish me with hints and materials towards a panegyric upon your Lordship's virtues.

In two days they brought me ten sheets of paper filled up on every side. They swore to me that they had ransacked whatever could be found in the characters of Socrates, Aristides, Epaminondas, Cato,

Tully, Atticus, and other hard names which I cannot now recollect. However, I have reason to believe they imposed upon my ignorance, because, when I came to read over their collections, there was not a syllable there but what I and everybody else knew as well as themselves. Therefore I grievously suspect a cheat, and that these authors of mine stole and transcribed every word from the universal report of mankind. So that I look upon myself as fifty shillings out of pocket to no manner of purpose.

If by altering the title I could make the same materials serve for another dedication, as my betters have done, it would help to make up my loss: but I have made several persons dip here and there in those papers, and before they read three lines they have all assured me plainly that they cannot possibly be applied to any person besides your Lordship.

I expected, indeed, to have heard of your Lordship's bravery at the head of an army; of your undaunted courage in mounting a breach, or scaling a wall; or to have had your pedigree traced in a lineal descent from the house of Austria; or your wonderful talent at dress and dancing; or your profound knowledge in algebra, metaphysics, and the oriental tongues. But to ply the world with an old beaten story of your wit, and eloquence, and learning, and wisdom, and justice, and politeness, and candour, and

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