Prefaces, said Charles Blount, Gent., who committed suicide because the law would not allow him to marry his brother's widow,—(a law, be it remarked in passing, which is not sanctioned by reason, and which instead of being in conformity with scripture, is in direct opposition to it, being in fact the mere device of a corrupt and greedy church)—“Prefaces,” said this flippant, ill-opinioned and unhappy man, “ever were, and still are but of two sorts, let other modes and fashions vary as they please. Let the profane long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; presbytery, popery; and popery presbytery again, yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted method of prefacing; when at the beginning of his book he enters, either with a halter about his neck, submitting himself to his reader's mercy whether he shall be hanged, or no; or else in a huffing manner he appears with the halter in his hand, and threatens to hang his reader, if he gives him not his good word. This with the excitement of some friends to his undertaking, and some few apologies for want of time, books, and the like, are the constant and usual shams of all scribblers as well ancient as modern.”—This was not true then, nor is it now; but when he proceeds to say, “for my part I enter the lists upon another score,”—so say I with him; and my Preface shall say the rest. PREFACE. Oh for a quill plucked from a Seraph's wing! YOUNG. So the Poet exclaimed; and his exclamation may be quoted as one example more of the vanity of human wishes; for in order to get a Seraph's quill it would be necessary, according to Mrs. Glasse's excellent item in her directions for roasting a hare, to begin by catching a Seraph. A quill from a Seraph's wing is, I confess, above my ambition; but one from a Peacock's tail was within my reach; and be it known unto all people, nations and languages, that with a Peacock's quill this Preface hath been penned—literally—truly, and _bona-fidely_ speaking. And this is to write, as the learned old Pasquier says, _pavonesquement_, which in latin minted for the nonce may be rendered _pavonicè_ and in English peacockically or peacockishly, whichever the reader may like best. That such a pen has verily and indeed been used upon this occasion I affirm. I affirm it upon the word of a true man; and here is a Captain of his Majesty's Navy at my elbow, who himself made the pen, and who, if evidence were required to the fact, would attest it by as round an oath as ever rolled over a right English tongue. Nor will the time easily escape his remembrance, the bells being at this moment ringing, June 4, 1814, to celebrate the King's birthday, and the public notification that peace has been concluded with France.