Thus far I thought necessary to say relating to the great hands which have been concerned in these volumes, with relation to the spirit and genius of the work; and am far from pretending to modesty in making this acknowledgment. What a man obtains from the good opinion and friendship of worthy men, is a much greater honour than he can possibly reap from any accomplishments of his own. But all the credit of wit which was given me by the gentlemen above mentioned (with whom I have now accounted) has not been able to atone for the exceptions made against me for some raillery in behalf of that learned advocate for the episcopacy of the Church, and the liberty of the people, Mr. Hoadly. I mention this only to defend myself against the imputation of being moved rather by party than opinion;[50] and I think it is apparent, I have with the utmost frankness allowed merit wherever I found it, though joined in interests different from those for which I have declared myself. When my Favonius[51] is acknowledged to be Dr. Smalridge, and the amiable character of the dean in the sixty-sixth Tatler drawn for Dr. Atterbury, I hope I need say no more as to my impartiality.
I really have acted in these cases with honesty, and am concerned it should be thought otherwise: for wit, if a man had it, unless it be directed to some useful end, is but a wanton frivolous quality; all that one should value himself upon in this kind is, that he had some honourable intention in it.
As for this point, never hero in romance was carried away with a more furious ambition to conquer giants and tyrants, than I have been in extirpating gamesters and duellists. And indeed, like one of those knights too, though I was calm before, I am apt to fly out again, when the thing that first disturbed me is presented to my imagination. I shall therefore leave off when I am well, and fight with windmills no more: only shall be so arrogant as to say of myself, that in spite of all the force of fashion and prejudice, in the face of all the world, I alone bewailed the condition of an English gentleman, whose fortune and life are at this day precarious; while his estate is liable to the demands of gamesters, through a false sense of justice; and to the demands of duellists, through a false sense of honour. As to the first of these orders of men, I have not one word more to say of them: as to the latter, I shall conclude all I have more to offer against them (with respect to their being prompted by the fear of shame) by applying to the duellist what I think Dr. South says somewhere of the liar, "He is a coward to man, and a brave to God."
This Preface was originally prefixed to the fourth volume of the collected edition issued in 1710-11.
See [No. 11.]