 and Compassion of your Countenance, as for a Person whose Fit you feared was approaching.
Being, both of us, more composed, your Greatness was pleased to demand whether this Romance was wholly of my own Invention, or, if I had lately been fishing the Well, where Truth was formerly drowned, for an
Ens Rationis
of some speculating Philosopher? Where, you cried in the name of Wonder, have you been able to gather together such an old fashioned Bundlement of Scientific Balderdash? You shall bring me to the Practice, exactly, at the Period that the Hogs shall be brought to feed along with the Herrings; or at the time of the Appearance of the Comet with the three Tails; or on the Week of the four Fridays, so long looked for by Astrologians.  �  Here! exclaimed your Respectableness, who waits? All you, my Printers, Editors, and other Porters who attend at the Gate of the Public! should this Fellow come, any more, with these his Preachments of Piety, and Poverty, and Patriotism, and Stuff, I command Ye to shut my Doors directly in his Face.
May it please your Respectableness, I am but a very little Man, and of a very lowly Temper, and yet I could not but be piqued at the Severity of this Treatment. I was, as a trodden Worm, and turned upon your Greatness with a Resentment, that, possibly, did not become me.
May your Dignity, I replied, continue to be blessed with Writers duely levelled to the Taste of the Reader, with the Politicks of Court Hirelings, the Poetry of Laureats, the Divinity of a H � y; with Bawdry from the Fleet, with Fragments from the Kennel of Grubstreet, with Strumpet Biography with W � upon Grace, with Treatises on  � , and episcopal Essays on Spirit.
I trust that My Patron, in Recompence for a long Life spent in his Service, will pardon me the dropping of one Observation, � Nay don't look disgusted, � it is no matter of great Offence, it is nothing more than this, that the Nose of your Respectableness hath ever been a ready Handle for the leading of a FOOL, and a FOOL shall accordingly attend You on my next Visit.
PREFACE.
I Hate Prefaces. I never read them, and why should I write them? They stand like Pales about a Park, I always overleap 'em, if I
there is any thing, within, worth
. But, what can I do? I am likely to lead a fine Life with this Performance, when People
