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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Let me have good proof of your greediness to devour my labours, and I will dish up such a meal for you in my next volume, as shall go nigh to produce extermination by surfeit. One favour, alone, I crave—give me abuse enough; let no squeamish pretences of respect for my bookseller, or disguised qualms of apprehension for your own sacred persons, deter the natural inclination of your hearts. The slightest deviation from your usual course to independent writers—or one step towards commendation from your gang, might induce the public to believe I had abandoned my character, and become one of yourhonourable fraternity-the very suspicion of which would (to me) produce irretrievable ruin. Your masters, the trading brotherhood, will (as usual) direct you in the course you should pursue; whether to approve or condemn, as their 'peculiar interests may dictate. Most sapient sirs of the secret bandit' of the screen, inquisitors of literature, raise all your arms and heels, your daggers, masks, and hatchets, to revenge the daring of an open foe, who thus boldly defies your base and selfish views; for, basking at his ease in the sunshine of public patronage, he feels that his heart is rendered invulnerable to yourpoisoned shafts. Read, and you shall find I have not been parsimonious of the means to grant you foodand pleasure: errors there are, no doubt, and plenty of them, grammatical and typographical, all of which I might have corrected by an errata at the end of my volume; but I disdain the wish to rob you of your office, and have therefore left them just where I made them, without a single note to mark them out; for if all the thistles were rooted up, what would become of the asses? or of those "Who pin their easy faith on critic's sleeve, And, knowing nothing, ev'ry thing believe?" Fully satisfied that swarms of literary blow flies will pounce upon the errors with delight, and, buzzing with the ecstasy of infernal joy, endeavour to hum their readers into a belief of the profundity of their critic erudition;—I shall nevertheless, with Churchill, laughingly exclaim—"Perish my muse"