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of life; I have concatenated events, rather than deduced consequences by logical reasoning; and have exhibited scenes of prosperity and distress as more forcibly persuasive than the rhetoric of declamation.

In the story of Melissa, I have endeavoured to repress romantic hopes, by which the reward of laborious industry is despised; and have founded affluence and honour upon an act of generous integrity, to which few would have thought themselves obliged. In the life of Opsinous, I have shown the danger of the first speculative defection, and endeavoured to demonstrate the necessary dependence of Virtue upon Religion. Amurath's first advance to cruelty was striking a dog. The wretchedness of Hassan was produced merely by the want of positive virtue; and that of Mirza by the solitariness of his devotion. The distress of Lady Freeman arises from a common and allowed deviation from truth; and in the two papers upon marriage, the importance of minute particulars is illustrated and displayed. With this clue, the reader will be able to discover the same design in almost every paper that I have written, which may easily be known from the rest by having no signature at the bottom. Among these, however, Number forty-four was the voluntary contribution of a stranger, and Number forty-two + the gift of a friend; so were the first hints on which I wrote

*By signature is meant the letter, or mark, placed on the left hand side of the page; not the subscribed nan es of the assumed characters in which several of the papers are written.

Said, by mistake, to be Number forty-seven, in former editions,

the story of Eugenio, and the letter signed TIM. COGDIE.

I did not, however, undertake to execute this scheme alone; not only because I wanted sufficient leisure, but because some degree of same→ ness is produced by the peculiarities of every writer; and it was thought that the conceptions and expression of another, whose pieces should have a general coincidence with mine, would produce variety, and by increasing entertainment facilitate instruction.

With this view the pieces that appear in the beginning of the work signed A, were procured; but this resource soon failing, I was obliged to carry on the publication alone, except some casual supplies, till I obtained from the gentlemen who have distinguished their pieces by the letters T and Z* such assistance as I most wished. Of their views and expectations, some account has been already given in Number one hundred and thirty-seven, and Number one hundred and thirty-nine. But there is one particular, in which the critical pieces concur in the general design of this paper, which has not been mentioned: those who can judge of literary excellence, will easily discover the Sacred Writings to have a divine origin by their manifest superiority; he, therefore, who dis plays the beauties and defects of a classic author, whether ancient or modern, puts into the hands of those to whom he communicates critical knowledge, a new testimonial of the truth of Christianity.

The pieces signed Z are by the Rey. Mr. Warton, whose translation of Virgil's Pastorals and Georgics would alone sufficiently distinguish him as a genius and a

scholar.

Besides the assistance of these gentlemen, I have received some voluntary contributions which would have done honour to any collection: the allegori- . cal letter from Night, signed S; the Story of Fidelia, in three parts, signed Y; the letter signed TIM WILDGOOSE; Number forty-four and Number ninety marked with an &, were sent by unknown hands.

But whatever was the design to which I directed my part of this work, I will not pretend, that the view with which I undertook it was wholly disinterested; or that I would have engaged in a periodical paper, if I had not considered, that though it would not require deep researches and abstracted speculation, yet it would admit much of that novelty which nature can now supply, and afford me opportunity to excel, if I possessed the power; as the pencil of a master is as easily distinguished in still life, as in a Hercules or a Venus, a landscape or a battle. I confess, that to this. work I was incited, not only by a desire to propagate virtue, but to gratify myself; nor has the private wish, which was involved in the public, been disappointed. I have no cause to complain, that the Adventurer has been injuriously neglected; or that I have been denied that praise, the hope of which animated my labour and cheered my weariness: I have been pleased, in proportion as I have been known in this character; and as the fears in which I made the first experiment are past, I have subscribed this paper with my name. But the hour is hastening, in which, whatever praise or censure I have acquired by these compositions, if they are remembered at all, will be remembered with equal indifference, and the tenour of them only will afford me comfort. Time, who is impatient to date

my last paper, will shortly moulder the hand that is now writing it in the dust, and still the breast that now throbs at the reflection: but let not this be read as something that relates only to another; for a few years only can divide the eye that is now reading from the hand that has written. This awful truth, however obvious, and however reiterated, is yet frequently forgotten; for, surely, if we did not lose our remembrance, or at least our sensibility, that view would always predominate in our lives, which alone can afford us comfort when we die.

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