A Tale of a Tub | Page 3

or two in admiring their patience. I can put no greater compliment on your
Lordship's than by giving you so ample an occasion to exercise it at present. Though
perhaps I shall not be apt to reckon much merit to your Lordship upon that score, who
having been formerly used to tedious harangues, and sometimes to as little purpose, will
be the readier to pardon this, especially when it is offered by one who is, with all respect
and veneration,
My LORD, Your Lordship's most obedient and most faithful Servant, THE
BOOKSELLER.

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER

It is now six years since these papers came first to my hand, which seems to have been
about a twelvemonth after they were written, for the Author tells us in his preface to the
first treatise that he had calculated it for the year 1697; and in several passages of that
discourse, as well as the second, it appears they were written about that time.
As to the Author, I can give no manner of satisfaction. However, I am credibly informed

that this publication is without his knowledge, for he concludes the copy is lost, having
lent it to a person since dead, and being never in possession of it after; so that, whether
the work received his last hand, or whether he intended to fill up the defective places, is
like to remain a secret.
If I should go about to tell the reader by what accident I became master of these papers, it
would, in this unbelieving age, pass for little more than the cant or jargon of the trade. I
therefore gladly spare both him and myself so unnecessary a trouble. There yet remains a
difficult question--why I published them no sooner? I forbore upon two accounts. First,
because I thought I had better work upon my hands; and secondly, because I was not
without some hope of hearing from the Author and receiving his directions. But I have
been lately alarmed with intelligence of a surreptitious copy which a certain great wit had
new polished and refined, or, as our present writers express themselves, "fitted to the
humour of the age," as they have already done with great felicity to Don Quixote,
Boccalini, La Bruyere, and other authors. However, I thought it fairer dealing to offer the
whole work in its naturals. If any gentleman will please to furnish me with a key, in order
to explain the more difficult parts, I shall very gratefully acknowledge the favour, and
print it by itself.

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE POSTERITY

SIR,
I here present your Highness with the fruits of a very few leisure hours, stolen from the
short intervals of a world of business, and of an employment quite alien from such
amusements as this; the poor production of that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon
my hands during a long prorogation of Parliament, a great dearth of foreign news, and a
tedious fit of rainy weather. For which, and other reasons, it cannot choose extremely to
deserve such a patronage as that of your Highness, whose numberless virtues in so few
years, make the world look upon you as the future example to all princes. For although
your Highness is hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the universal learned world already
resolved upon appealing to your future dictates with the lowest and most resigned
submission, fate having decreed you sole arbiter of the productions of human wit in this
polite and most accomplished age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough to
shock and startle any judge of a genius less unlimited than yours; but in order to prevent
such glorious trials, the person, it seems, to whose care the education of your Highness is
committed, has resolved, as I am told, to keep you in almost an universal ignorance of
our studies, which it is your inherent birthright to inspect.
It is amazing to me that this person should have assurance, in the face of the sun, to go
about persuading your Highness that our age is almost wholly illiterate and has hardly
produced one writer upon any subject. I know very well that when your Highness shall
come to riper years, and have gone through the learning of antiquity, you will be too
curious to neglect inquiring into the authors of the very age before you; and to think that

this insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, designs to reduce them to a
number so insignificant as I am ashamed to mention; it moves my zeal and my spleen for
the honour and interest of our vast flourishing body, as well as of myself, for whom I
know by long experience he has