PREFACE. THE causes which inclined Pope and Swift, or rather Pope with the concurrence of Swift, to publish, in an authenticated shape, the various small pieces contained in the following miscellanies, are stated by him in the following preface, which Dr Johnson justly terms querulous and apologetic. Swift, who had withdrawn into another sphere of action, and of hostility, could not be supposed to feel great interest in the desultory warfare sustained by his friend against the effrontery of Curl, and the crowd of obscure authors whom his satire or his success had irritated. It is also certain that he abandoned to Pope any advantages which might be derived from the sale of these miscellanies, of which the bard of Twickenham accordingly availed himself. In reading the preface, it is impossible to suppress a wish that Pope, in the pre-eminence of his talents, had despised the petty malice of his enemies, and disdained to imitate them in the poor stratagems by which they sought to undermine his impregnable reputation. |