 Book
itself doth not make you ashamed of your Commendations, nothing that I can here
write will, or ought. I am not to give up my Right to your Protection and
Patronage, because you have commended my Book: For though I acknowledge so many
Obligations to you, I do not add this to the Number; in which Friendship, I am
convinced, hath so little Share: Since that can neither biass your Judgment, nor
pervert your Integrity. An Enemy may at any Time obtain your Commendation by
only deserving it; and the utmost which the Faults of your Friends can hope for
is your Silence; or, perhaps, if too severely accused, your gentle Palliation.
    In short, Sir, I suspect, that your Dislike of public Praise is your true
Objection to granting my Request. I have observed, that you have, in common with
my two other Friends, an Unwillingness to hear the least Mention of your own
Virtues; that, as a great Poet says of one of you, (he might justly have said it
of all three) you
 

                 Do Good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.
 
If Men of this Disposition are as careful to shun Applause, as others are to
escape Censure, how just must be your Apprehension of your Character falling
into my Hands; since what would not a Man have Reason to dread, if attacked by
an Author who had received from him Injuries equal to my Obligations to you!
    And will not this Dread of Censure increase in Proportion to the Matter
which a Man is conscious of having afforded for it? If his whole Life, for
Instance, should have been one continued Subject of Satire, he may well tremble
when an incensed Satyrist takes him in Hand. Now, Sir, if we apply this to your
modest Aversion to Panegyric, how reasonable will your Fears of me appear!
    Yet surely you might have gratified my Ambition, from this single
Confidence, that I shall always prefer the Indulgence of your Inclinations to
the Satisfaction of my own. A very strong Instance of which I shall give you in
this Address; in which I am determined to follow the Example of all other
Dedicators, and will consider not what my Patron really deserves to have
written, but what he will be best pleased to read.
    Without further Preface then, I here present you with the Labours of some
Years of my Life. What Merit these Labours have is already known to yourself.
If, from your favourable Judgment, I have conceived some Esteem for them, it
cannot be imputed to Vanity; since I should have agreed as implicitly to
