and unworthy member, and from whose assistance I derive more than half the names which appear to this subscription.

It remains that I make some apology for the delay in publishing these volumes, the real reason of which was, the dangerous illness of one from whom I draw all the solid comfort of my life, during the greatest part of this winter. This, as it is most sacredly true, so will it, I doubt not, sufficiently excuse the delay to all who know me.

Indeed when I look a year or two backwards, and survey the accidents which have befallen me, and the distresses I have waded through whilst I have been engaged in these works, I could almost challenge some philosophy to myself, for having been able to finish them as I have; and however imperfectly that may be, I am convinced the reader, was he acquainted with the whole, would want very little goodnature to extinguish his disdain at any faults he meets with. But this hath dropped from me unawares: for I intend not to entertain my reader with my private history: nor am I fond enough of tragedy to make myself the hero of one.

However, as I have been very unjustly censured, as well on account of what I have not written, as for what I have, I take this opportunity to declare in the most solemn manner, I have long since (as long as from June, 1741) desisted from writing one syllable in the Champion, or any other public paper; and that I never was, nor will be, the author of anonymous scandal on the private history or family of any person whatever.

Indeed there is no man who speaks or thinks with more detestation of the modern custom of libelling. I look on the practice of stabbing a man's character in the dark, to be as base and as barbarous as that of stabbing him with a poignard in the same manner; nor have I ever been once in my life guilty of it.

It is not here, I suppose, necessary to distinguish between ridicule and scurrility; between a jest on a public character, and the murther of a private one.

My reader will pardon my having dwelt a little on this particular, since it is so especially necessary in this age,

when almost all the wit we have is applied this way; and when I have already been a martyr to such unjust suspicion. Of which I will relate one instance. While I was last winter laid up in the gout, with a favourite child dying on one bed, and my wife in a condition very little better on another, attended with other circumstances which served as very proper decorations to such a scene, I received a letter from a friend, desiring me to vindicate myself from two very opposite reflections, which two opposite parties thought fit to cast on me, viz., the one of writing in the Champion (though I had not then written in it for upwards of half a year), the other, of writing in the Gazetteer, in which I never had the honour of inserting a single word.

To defend myself therefore as well as I can from all past, and to enter a caveat against all future, censure of this kind, I once more solemnly declare, that since the end of June, 1741, I have not, besides Joseph Andrews, published one word, except The Opposition, a Vision; A Defence of the Duchess of Marlborough's Book; Miss Lucy in Town (in which I had a very small share). And I do further protest, that I will never hereafter publish any book or pamphlet whatever, to which I will not put my name. A promise which, as I shall sacredly keep, so will it, I hope, be so far believed, that I may henceforth receive no more praise or censure to which I have not the least title.

And now, my good-natured reader, recommending my works to your candour, I bid you heartily farewell; and take this with you, that you may never be interrupted in the reading these Miscellanies with that degree of heartache which hath often discomposed me in the writing them.

OF TRUE GREATNESS

AN EPISTLE TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GEORGE DODINGTON, Esq.

"TIS strange, while all to greatness homage pay,
So few should know the goddess they obey;
That men should think a thousand things the same,
And give contending images one name.

Not Greece, in all her temples' wide abodes,
Held a more wild democracy of gods
Than various deities we serve, while all
Profess before one common shrine to fall.

Whether ourselves of greatness are possess'd, Or worship it within another's breast.

While a mean crowd of sycophants attend,
And fawn and flatter, creep and cringe and bend;
The fav'rite blesses his superior state,

Rises o'er all, and hails himself the great.
Vain man! can such as these to greatness raise?
Can honour come from dirt? from baseness, praise?
Then India's gem on Scotland's coast shall shine,
And the Peruvian ore enrich the Cornish mine.

Behold, in blooming May, the May-pole stand, Dress'd out in garlands by the peasant's hand; Around it dance the youth, in mirthful mood; And all admire the gaudy, dress'd-up wood.

See, the next day, of all its pride bereft,
How soon the unregarded post is left.
So thou, the wonder of a longer day,

Raised high on power, and dress'd in titles gay,
Stripp'd of these summer garlands, soon wouldst see
The mercenary slaves adored, not thee;

Wouldst see them thronging thy successor's gate,
Shadows of power, and properties of state.
As the sun insects, power court-friends begets,
Which wanton in its beams, and vanish as it sets.

Thy highest pomp the hermit dares despise,
Greatness (cries this) is to be good and wise.
To titles, treasures, luxury and show,
The gilded follies of mankind, a foe.
He flies society, to wilds resorts,

And rails at busy cities, splendid courts.
Great to himself, he in his cell appears,

As kings on thrones, or conquerors on cars.

O thou, that dar'st thus proudly scorn thy kind,
Search, with impartial scrutiny, thy mind;
Disdaining outward flatteries to win,
Dost thou not feed a flatterer within?
While other passions temperance may guide,
Feast not with too delicious meals thy pride.
On vice triumphant while thy censures fall,
Be sure no envy mixes with thy gall.

Ask thyself oft, to power and grandeur born,
Had power and grandeur then incurr'd thy scorn?
If no ill-nature in thy breast prevails,

Enjoying all the crimes at which it rails?

A peevish sour perverseness of the will,
Oft we miscall antipathy to ill.

Scorn and disdain the little cynic hurl'd At the exulting victor of the world.

Greater than this what soul can be descried?
His who contemns the cynic's snarling pride.
Well might the haughty son of Philip see
Ambition's second lot devolve on thee;

Whose breast pride fires with scarce inferior joy,
And bids thee hate and shun men, him destroy.

But hadst thou, Alexander, wish'd to prove
Thyself the real progeny of Jove,
Virtue another path had bid thee find,
Taught thee to save, and not to slay, mankind.

Shall the lean wolf, by hunger fierce and bold,
Bear off no honours from the bloody fold?
Shall the dead flock his greatness not display;
But shepherds hunt him as a beast of prey?
While man, not drove by hunger from his den,
To honour climbs o'er heaps of murder'd men.
Shall ravaged fields and burning towns proclaim
The hero's glory, not the robber's shame?
Shall thousands fall, and millions be undone,
To glut the hungry cruelty of one?

Behold, the plain with human gore grow red, The swelling river heave along the dead. See, through the breach the hostile deluge flow, Along it bears the unresisting foe: Hear, in each street the wretched virgin's cries, Her lover sees her ravish'd as he dies. The infant wonders at its mother's tears, And smiling feels its fate before its fears. Age, while in vain for the first blow it calls, Views all its branches lopp'd before it falls. Beauty betrays the mistress it should guard, And, faithless, proves the ravisher's reward: Death, their sole friend, relieves them from their ills Their kindest victor he who soonest kills.