ADVERTISEMENT. IN presenting to the publick a new edition of the Works of so well known and popular a writer as Dr. SWIFT, it would be equally unjust and invidious to withhold the preliminary observations of men high in esteem for critical sagacity, who on former occasions have not disdained to undertake the office of ushering the Dean's writings into the world: These, therefore, will be found collected into one point of view in the General Preface. From a large accumulation of useful materials (to which the present Editor had contributed no inconsiderable share, and to which in 1779 he annexed a copious index to the Dean's works, and a chronological list of the epistolary correspondence) a regular edition in seventeen volumes was in 1784 compiled by the late Mr. Sheridan; to whom the former biographers who prefixed an excellent life of the Dean, which no man was better qualified than himself to undertake. This renders it unnecessary were collectors of materials; and to enter farther on to observe, in the that subject, than merely words of a late worthy friend*, that, "if we deduct somewhat from report, which is apt to add to the oddities of men of note, the greatest part of his conduct may be accounted for by the common operations of human nature Choler,' lord Bacon observes, puts men on action; when it grows adust, it turns to melancholy.' In Swift, that humour seems to have been predominant; governed, however, even in his younger days, by a fund of good sense, and an early experience of the world. He was thrown, luckily, in the prime of life, into the family of a great personage, where he had the happiness of an interview with a monarch; from whence he had resonable hopes of satisfying his towering ambition. But he found them followed by nothing but disappointment. In a course of years, honours seemed a second time to make their court to him. He came into favour with a prime minister under another reign, even when different principles prevailed from those which guided his former patron; a rare felicity! which, however, in the event, served only to convince him, that he was banished to Ireland for life, and that all hopes were cut off of his rising, even there, any higher than the Deanery. What would one of his parts and wit do in such a situation, but drop mankind as much as possi * Mr. Bowyer, the justly celebrated printer, 3 ble, especially the higher class of it, which to a man of humour is naturally a restraint; where, at best, as he observes, the only difference is, to have two candles on the table instead of one? What, I say, would such a one do, but cultivate an acquaintance with those who were disappointed like himself? what but write compliments on ladies, lampoons on men in power, sarcasms on human nature, trifle away life between whim and resentment, just as the bile arose or subsided? He had sense, and I believe religion, enough to keep him from vice; and from a consciousness of his integrity, was less solicitous about the appearances of virtue, or even decency, which is often the counterfeit of it. The patriot principle, which he had imbibed in queen Anne's reign, lurked at the bottom of his heart; which, as it was more active in those days than since, sometimes roused him to defend the Church, and Ireland his asylum, against any encroachments.-View him now in his decline. Passions decay, and the lamp of life and reason grows dim. It is the fate of many, I may say most geniuses, who have secluded themselves from the world, to lose their senses in their old age; especially those who have worn them out in thought and application. Providence, perhaps, has therefore ordained, that the eyes, the inlets of knowledge, should be impaired, before the understanding, the repository of it, is decayed;、 |