regularity and order were thought essential in a treatise. The notion of a genuine work, a legitimate and just piece, has certainly been the occasion of great timidity and backwardness among the adventurers in wit; and the imposition of such strict laws and rules of composition, has set heavy on the free spirits and forward geniuses of mankind. It was a yoke, it seems, which our forefathers bore; but which, for our parts, we have generously thrown off. In effect, the invidious distinction of legitimacy and illegitimacy being at length removed; the natural and lawful issue of the brain comes with like advantage into the world; and wit (mere wit) is well received; without examination of the kind, or censure of the form.

This the miscellaneous manner of writing, it must be owned, has happily effected. It has rendered almost every soil productive. It has disclosed those various seeds of wit, which lay suppressed in many a bosom; and has reared numberless conceits and curious fancies, which the natural rudeness and asperity of their native soil would have withheld, or at least not have permitted to rise above the ground. From every field, from every hedge or hillock, we now gather as delicious fruits and fragrant flowers, as of old from the richest and best cultivated gardens. Miserable were those ancient planters, who understanding not how to conform themselves to the rude taste of unpolished mankind, made it so difficult a task

to serve the world with intellectual entertainments, and furnish out the repasts of literature and science. There was certainly a time when the name of Author stood for something considerable in the world. To succeed happily in such a labour as that of writing a treatise, or a poem, was taken as a sure mark of understanding and good sense. The task was painful; but, it seems, was honourable. How the case happened, in process of time, to be so much reversed, is hard to say. The primitive authors perhaps being few in number, and highly respected for their art, fell under the weight of envy. Being sensible of their misfortune in this respect, and being probably excited by the example of some popular genius, they quitted their regular schemes and accurate forms of workmanship, in favour of those wits who could not possibly be received as Authors upon such difficult terms. was necessary, it seems, that the bottom of wit should be enlarged; it was advisable that more hands should be taken into the work. And nothing could better serve this popular purpose, than the way of Miscellany, or common essay; in which the most confused head, if fraught with a little invention, and provided with common-place-book learning, might exert itself to as much advantage, as the most orderly and well settled judgment.

It

To explain the better how this revolution in letters has been effected, it may not perhaps be indecent, should we offer to compare our writing

artists, to the manufacturers in stuff or silk. For among these it is esteemed a principal piece of skill, to frame a pattern, or plan of workmanship, in which the several colours are agreeably disposed, with such proportionable adjustment of the various figures and devices, as may, in the whole, create a kind of harmony to the eye. According to this method, each piece must be, in reality, an original. For to copy what has gone before, can be of no use, The fraud would easily be perceived. On the other side, to work originally, and in a manner create each time anew, must be a matter of pressing weight, and fitted to the strength and capacity of none besides the choicest workmen.

A manner therefore is invented to confound this simplicity and conformity of design. Patchwork is substituted. Cuttings and shreds of learning, with various fragments, and points of wit, are drawn together, and tacked in any fantastic form. If they chance to cast a lustre, and spread a sort of sprightly glare, the miscellany is approved, and the complex form and texture of the work admired. The eye, which before was to be won by regularity, and had kept true to measure and strict proportion, is by this means pleasingly drawn aside, and amuses itself in gaudy colours, and disfigured shapes of things. Custom, in the mean while, has not only tolerated this licentiousness, but rendered it even commendable, and brought it into the highest repute. The wild and whimsical, under

the name of the odd and pretty, succeed in the room of the graceful and the beautiful. Justness and accuracy of thought are set aside, as too constraining, and of too painful an aspect to be endured in the agreeable and more easy commerce of gallantry, and modern wit.

Now since it has been thought convenient, in these latter ages, to distinguish the provinces of wit and wisdom, and set apart the agreeable from the useful; it is evident there could be nothing devised more suitable to the distinct and separate interest of wit than this complex manner of performance which we call Miscellany. For whatever is capricious and odd, is sure to create diversion to those who look no further; and where there is nothing like nature, there is no room for the troublesome part of thought or contemplation. It is the perfection of certain grotesque-painters, to keep as far from nature as possible. To find a likeness in their works, is to find the greatest fault imaginable. A natural connexion is a slur. A coherence, a design, a meaning, is against their purpose, and destroys the very spirit and genius of their workmanship.

I remember formerly when I was a spectator in the French theatre, I found it the custom, at the end of every grave and solemn tragedy, to introduce a comic farce, or miscellany, which they called the little piece. We have indeed a method still more extraordinary upon our own stage. For we

think it agreeable and just to mix the little piece or farce with the main plot or fable, through every act. This perhaps may be the rather chosen, because our tragedy is so much deeper and bloodier than that of the French, and therefore needs more immediate refreshment from the elegant way of drollery, and burlesque-wit, which being thus closely interwoven with its opposite, makes that most accomplished kind of theatrical miscellany, called by our poets a tragi-comedy.

I could go further perhaps, and demonstrate from the writings of many of our grave divines, the speeches of our senators, and other principal models of our national erudition, "That the mis"cellaneous manner is at present in the highest "esteem." But since my chief intention in the following sheets, is to amuse, as well as inform the reader, I presume, that it will not be judged improper or absurd in me, to take advantage of this miscellaneous taste which now evidently prevails.

Nor ought the title of a Miscellaneous Writer to be denied me, on the account that I have grounded my Miscellanies upon a certain set of treatises already published. Grounds and foundations are of no moment in a kind of work, which, according to modern establishment, has properly neither top nor bottom, beginning nor end. Besides, that I shall, like my fellow Miscellanarians, take occasion to vary often my subject, and make what deviations or excursions I shall think fit, as I proceed in my random Essays.