work has taken a new method, which was in fashion in his time, and has fucceeded. Panegyrics were then the taste, as romances are at prefent, and were made on the meerest trifles; he therefore has made nfe of this mode to difplay to his contemporaries the most serious and interefting truths, and has happily given them, by this ingenious artifice, a better relish than they could have had from a grave or pedantick ftrain. In fhort, the picture of hell, with all its different punishments, has been fo long difplayed to us, that we now do not fo much as take the trouble to look at it; especially as the most ignorant of our churchmen, in order to carry every point they please throughout the Christian world, have made a perfect bugbear of it. But to reprefent it under a charming appearance, at the first glance at least, is fuch a novelty, that it cannot fail of having a good effect upon the human heart, were it only for the oddity of the contrivance.

THERE is ftill one thing, gentlemen, that I have to tell you concerning this work, which is, that I am but the tranflator of it; the author, who was a man of great genius, as you will fee by the reading of his book, having been dead more than a hundred years. Moreover, you will fee by this how much you have been to blame, and how much more you would have been fo, if you had continued your useless exclamations against a mortal, whom the irrevocable laws of nature have put out of your reach. Give a truce to

rancour then, and admire the vivacity, fteadiness of argument, and fruitfulnefs of imagination, with which he has treated in this book, a subject handled so often, and in fo fruitless a manner, both before and after his death, rather than endeavour to blaft the memory of a man, through a falfe zeal, who has left fuch excellent inftructions to pofterity. Would you do a thing which would be infinitely more glorious and ufeful to yourselves, profit by a work which has coft him a great a deal more labour and time than you can spend in criticising on it, or exclaiming against him, which he must doubtless laugh at in his grave.

BUT I have a better opinion of you, and it is for that reason I intreat you to read this work, which, properly speaking, is a juft defcription of mankind fince the creation. You will fee therein all the defects, exceffes, vices and follies, into which they have run at all times, on one fide. The author for this purpose has caused all the great perfonages which have ever been produced to pafs before your eyes, as it were in review, all whofe pretended greatness you will own is brought to the lowest pitch of real meannefs. You will be informed, on the other hand, wherein true glory, real virtue, and the true blef fings, which alone can make a man truly great, worthy, and happy, confift. In fhort, you will here fee picture of the world as it is, and as it always has been, to the true philofopher; that is, the real rational man.

CANDID reader, it is not poffible you can avoid feeling a vast pleasure in beholding fo extenfive, so agreeable, and fo variegated a picture, though you be ever fo little a philofopher in your own writings. It still would be a greater impoffibility for you not to draw the confequences which the author has in his view from it, and which naturally follow from these ingenious and agreeable pictures; that is, the change and reformation of manners. If you are in this dif pofition, as I perfuade myself you are,

FAREWEL, READ, AND PROFIT.

THE

A 4

The origin of panegyrics. The defign of the author in His declaration concerning it.

this work.

INCE the famous Erafmus, of learned and fatirical memory, thought fit to write, in order to divert himself, The PRAISE. of FOLLY, a work dictated by reafon, and compofed by eloquence, feveral other wits, following.

(Didier) was one of the most learned men, and