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but neither lived to publish his essay nor to proceed farther in so
useful an attempt, which is very much to be lamented, because the
discovery he made and communicated to his friends is now universally
received; nor do I think any of the learned will dispute that famous
treatise to be a complete body of civil knowledge, and the
revelation, or rather the apocalypse, of all state arcana. But the
progress I have made is much greater, having already finished my
annotations upon several dozens from some of which I shall impart a
few hints to the candid reader, as far as will be necessary to the
conclusion at which I aim.

The first piece I have handled is that of "Tom Thumb," whose author
was a Pythagorean philosopher. This dark treatise contains the
whole scheme of the metempsychosis, deducing the progress of the
soul through all her stages.

The next is "Dr. Faustus," penned by Artephius, an author bonae
notae and an adeptus; he published it in the nine hundred and
eighty-fourth year {67a} of his age; this writer proceeds wholly by
reincrudation, or in the via humida; and the marriage between
Faustus and Helen does most conspicuously dilucidate the fermenting
of the male and female dragon.

"Whittington and his Cat" is the work of that mysterious Rabbi,
Jehuda Hannasi, containing a defence of the Gemara of the Jerusalem
Misna, and its just preference to that of Babylon, contrary to the
vulgar opinion.

"The Hind and Panther." This is the masterpiece of a famous writer
now living {67b}, intended for a complete abstract of sixteen
thousand schoolmen from Scotus to Bellarmine.

"Tommy Potts." Another piece, supposed by the same hand, by way of
supplement to the former.

The "Wise Men of Gotham," cum Appendice. This is a treatise of
immense erudition, being the great original and fountain of those
arguments bandied about both in France and England, for a just
defence of modern learning and wit, against the presumption, the
pride, and the ignorance of the ancients. This unknown author hath
so exhausted the subject, that a penetrating reader will easily
discover whatever has been written since upon that dispute to be
little more than repetition. An abstract of this treatise has been
lately published by a worthy member of our society.

These notices may serve to give the learned reader an idea as well
as a taste of what the whole work is likely to produce, wherein I
have now altogether circumscribed my thoughts and my studies; and if
I can bring it to a perfection before I die, shall reckon I have
well employed the poor remains of an unfortunate life. This indeed
is more than I can justly expect from a quill worn to the pith in
the service of the State, in pros and cons upon Popish Plots, and
Meal Tubs, and Exclusion Bills, and Passive Obedience, and Addresses

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