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of money. Now, I do affirm it will be absolutely impossible for the
candid peruser to go along with me in a great many bright passages,
unless upon the several difficulties emergent he will please to
capacitate and prepare himself by these directions. And this I lay
down as my principal postulatum.

Because I have professed to be a most devoted servant of all modern
forms, I apprehend some curious wit may object against me for
proceeding thus far in a preface without declaiming, according to
custom, against the multitude of writers whereof the whole multitude
of writers most reasonably complain. I am just come from perusing
some hundreds of prefaces, wherein the authors do at the very
beginning address the gentle reader concerning this enormous
grievance. Of these I have preserved a few examples, and shall set
them down as near as my memory has been able to retain them.

One begins thus: "For a man to set up for a writer when the press
swarms with," &c.

Another: "The tax upon paper does not lessen the number of
scribblers who daily pester," &c.

Another: "When every little would-be wit takes pen in hand, 'tis in
vain to enter the lists," &c.

Another: "To observe what trash the press swarms with," &c.

Another: "Sir, it is merely in obedience to your commands that I
venture into the public, for who upon a less consideration would be
of a party with such a rabble of scribblers," &c.

Now, I have two words in my own defence against this objection.
First, I am far from granting the number of writers a nuisance to
our nation, having strenuously maintained the contrary in several
parts of the following discourse; secondly, I do not well understand
the justice of this proceeding, because I observe many of these
polite prefaces to be not only from the same hand, but from those
who are most voluminous in their several productions; upon which I
shall tell the reader a short tale.

A mountebank in Leicester Fields had drawn a huge assembly about
him. Among the rest, a fat unwieldy fellow, half stifled in the
press, would be every fit crying out, "Lord! what a filthy crowd is
here. Pray, good people, give way a little. Bless need what a
devil has raked this rabble together. Z----ds, what squeezing is
this? Honest friend, remove your elbow." At last a weaver that
stood next him could hold no longer. "A plague confound you," said
he, "for an overgrown sloven; and who in the devil's name, I wonder,
helps to make up the crowd half so much as yourself? Don't you
consider that you take up more room with that carcass than any five
here? Is not the place as free for us as for you? Bring your own
guts to a reasonable compass, and then I'll engage we shall have
room enough for us all."

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof

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