English Blackwell. 2-9-25 11278

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PREFACE.

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HIS Preface is meerly a Piece of Complaisance to that Tyrannical Mistress, Cuftom: For, it seems, m Fellow-Authors, have fo accuftom'd thei Readers, whether Gentle or Ungentle to a Bill of Fare, and Pedantick Gráce that not one of them will think himfel Welcome to the Entertainment, without tho Infignificant Formalities. But to come t the Point---

The Subject Matter of the followin Sheets is the Grand-Leffon, deliver'd b the Delphian Oracle, Know thy Self Which certainly is the most important a Man's Life. We are, all of us, ful of Folly and Ridicule: And the fam Rul

-Rule, that a Difeafe well known is half Cur'd, holds as true in the Diftempers of the Mind, as in the Indifpofitions of the Body. Therefore the Philofophers of all Ages have beftow'd their Thoughts and Application on the Search of humane Imperfections, in order to rectify them. But tho their ends have been the fame, yet different have been the Methods they have pursued to attain thofe Ends. Some, with a Supercilious Gravity, have magifterially inveigh'd against the Vices of Mankind; whilst others, by the nipping Strokes f a Side-wind Satyr, have endeavour'd to tickle Men out of their Follies, The former have generally been abandon'd to the ill-bred Teachers of Mufty Morals in Schools, or to the four Pulpit-Crators; whereas the latter have been admitted to the Cabinets of Princes, the Toilets of the Fair Sex, the Converfation of the Polite, and in hart, have been Careft and Admir'd by thofe very People they most abus'd. What Lady, nay, what Eloping Lady, has not been entertain'd with the

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Sixth Satyr of Juvenal? What Ufurer, what Leacher, what Set, or what Glutton, has not been pleas'd with Horace's Re flections on Avarice, Lafciviousness, Drunk ennefs and Intemperance? How often has My Lord Pliant, laugh'd at the Picture of which he was himself the Original? The Reafon of all this is plain, as long as the Satyr is not directly and bluntly levella at us; our Self-love waves the Application, and makes us find a Secret fatisfacti on in Seeing others ridicul'd; and the Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur Will be ever applicable to corrupt Nature. sad man Upon this Confideration, the Modern Moralifts have caft their Obfervations on Men and Manners, into a more entertaining Form, than the rugged Philofophers of old; or rather to do the Ancients Justice, mast of the Moderns have Copied after thofe excellent Patterns, they have found in Antiquity, fuch as Theophraftus, Lucian, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius &c. Thus

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