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the entry, and kindle a wonderful expectation of what is to ensue.
Such was that of a most ingenious poet, who, soliciting his brain
for something new, compared himself to the hangman and his patron to
the patient. This was insigne, recens, indictum ore alio {51a}.
When I went through that necessary and noble course of study, {51b}
I had the happiness to observe many such egregious touches, which I
shall not injure the authors by transplanting, because I have
remarked that nothing is so very tender as a modern piece of wit,
and which is apt to suffer so much in the carriage. Some things are
extremely witty to-day, or fasting, or in this place, or at eight
o'clock, or over a bottle, or spoke by Mr. Whatdyecall'm, or in a
summer's morning, any of which, by the smallest transposal or
misapplication, is utterly annihilate. Thus wit has its walks and
purlieus, out of which it may not stray the breadth of a hair, upon
peril of being lost. The moderns have artfully fixed this Mercury,
and reduced it to the circumstances of time, place, and person.
Such a jest there is that will not pass out of Covent Garden, and
such a one that is nowhere intelligible but at Hyde Park Corner.
Now, though it sometimes tenderly affects me to consider that all
the towardly passages I shall deliver in the following treatise will
grow quite out of date and relish with the first shifting of the
present scene, yet I must need subscribe to the justice of this
proceeding, because I cannot imagine why we should be at expense to
furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort
of provision for ours; wherein I speak the sentiment of the very
newest, and consequently the most orthodox refiners, as well as my
own. However, being extremely solicitous that every accomplished
person who has got into the taste of wit calculated for this present
month of August 1697 should descend to the very bottom of all the
sublime throughout this treatise, I hold it fit to lay down this
general maxim. Whatever reader desires to have a thorough
comprehension of an author's thoughts, cannot take a better method
than by putting himself into the circumstances and posture of life
that the writer was in upon every important passage as it flowed
from his pen, for this will introduce a parity and strict
correspondence of ideas between the reader and the author. Now, to
assist the diligent reader in so delicate an affair--as far as
brevity will permit--I have recollected that the shrewdest pieces of
this treatise were conceived in bed in a garret. At other times
(for a reason best known to myself) I thought fit to sharpen my
invention with hunger, and in general the whole work was begun,
continued, and ended under a long course of physic and a great want

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