¤XX*XXXXXXXXXX 淡淡 INTRODUCTION. H villain! oh wicked, impious, curfed atheift!To the flames, to the flames, to "the flames! To make a panegyric upon hell!-Just "heavens! What terrible libertinifm of mind! "What unheard of boldness! What terrible impiety! "To the flames, to the flames, to the flames, "with the deteftable book and its abominable au"thor! He is furely fome devil who has escaped " from hell, to come and feduce his readers here, and "to break the only chain, which keeps as well the "good as the bad in the paths of virtue. To the "flames, to the flames, to the flames, to the flames, " to the!” OH gentlemen!—for heaven's fake !-gentlemen deign to grant me one moment's hearing! The greatest criminals are not refused that. "A moment's hearing!-to the ftake, to the ftake, "to the ftake, with all the devils of that hell thou "art going to, wretched, wicked, impious, cursed "writer! 2 FOR heaven's fake, gentlemen, moderate a little the violent tranfports which agitate you, and fupport a little better, than you now do, the honour of your character. WHAT! you, who are clergymen, to be thus enraged !—Enraged, did I fay? Why you are in such a paffion against me, that it would make me tremble for my life, if it was in your hands. You fpeak but of flames and ftakes, to which your charity pioufly condemns me. And for what, pray, are you fo enraged? Why, because a title has not the good fortune to please you! Nevertheless, the matter upon which the book, which I here present to you, treats, is your deareft delight, and, as you yourselves confefs, the fubject of your moft ferious and facred meditations. You are fo taken up with it, that you have it continually in your mouths, efpecially when you interfere.in judging your neighbour. From whence then can come this ftrange transport against me? In reality, if I had not known you long fince, I fhould have cried out, in the just astonishment which your fury causes in me, with the French fatirist, Can fo much fpite in facred minds refide ?* "To the stake, to the stake, to the ftake, to the" AH, well, to the ftake!be it fo.I confent to be condemned to it, with the book, which ftirs up your pious wrath fo much, if we deferve it; but at leaft, Boileau's Lutrin. Canto i. leaft, before you come to this barbarous extremity, let us examine this affair a little, if you pleafe; and, as juftice and equity allow not people to be condemned without hearing them, let us fee a little if I am as guilty as you imagine. Judge not by appearance, even your foes, WITH regard to the title which it bears, which undoubtedly has stirred you up against me, I confess it is fingular. I even own that it was that fingularity which made me chufe it, the better to excite the curiofity of readers, and to engage them to read this fmall work, which is nothing the worse for the bad idea you have formed to yourselves of it. As to the fubject of which it treats, you yourselves will agree, that it is the most interefting; and when you have read it, you will confefs, that it is done in a manner very proper to produce the good effect which the author proposes to himself by it, that is, the reformation of manners. Perhaps you are going again to exclaim against what I advance: but for heaven's fake continue to hear me, and you fhall then judge if I am in the wrong or not. MORALITY is one of thofe drugs, which, by the too frequent ufe that has been made of it for above fix thousand years, is become almoft quite infipid to men. Nevertheless, it is a remedy which they cannot altogether be without. But what means can there be found out to make them fwallow this wholefome pill? Prefent it to them with all its harshness, and as the philofophers have defcribed it; they hate it, and will not fo much as hear it mentioned. Ornament it as our ableft preachers do, with the most fplendid flowers of rhetoric, and it has no other effect but to make them fall into as found a fleep as the most foporific opium. What is then to be done in this troublesome extremity? Take the method the most experienced physicians make use of when they want their patients to take fome medicine, which is not very agreeable; which is, to gild the pill, roll it in fugar, or inclofe it in fome sweetmeats, which, being eafily fwallowed, has its defired effect. It is thus that men of wit have done in all ages to render themselves useful to mankind. Some, knowing that moral truths plainly administered do but difcourage, or, at moft, glide but foftly over their minds, have prefented them as parables and fables; others have disguised them under the figure of ftories this writer has conveyed them by fatire; that by comedy; one has difplayed them under the fhape of allegories, another by romances; and, in fhort, every one by his different and curious method, has had the effect which he proposed. FOLLOWING their example, the author of this work |