_There are very few Books without a +Preface+; and that there are so, is in a great measure owing to the Fancy of the +Booksellers+, who think them to be absolutely necessary, and too often judge of the merit of a Copy by the Flights of its Preface, and the insinuating Tone of the +Author’s+ Voice in reading it. I had the misfortune to fall into the hands of one of these Booksellers, so fond of Prefaces, whom nothing would serve but he must have one at the Head of my +Memoirs+. My telling him that I did not know what to put into a Preface, signify’d no more than if I had been talking to a Post; for he threaten’d to get a Preface compos’d by an Author who wrote for Wages. This startled me, and I trembled for the fate of my Book, not doubting that a Preface written by a Man of Letters, who made it his profession to compose such marvellous Pieces, would altogether eclipse the few Excellencies in this Work of mine. What, said I to myself, the Sale of my Book then must depend only on the Goodness of the Preface, which, when the Readers compare with the Book it self, they will say, O! what a wonderful Man is the Author of the +Preface+! What a pitiful Writer, the Compiler of the +Memoirs+! No, said I again to my self, I am resolv’d that the Preface and the Book shall run the same risk; and since Chance has enter’d me an Author, I’ll play out the whole part of one._ _I am told, that the Design of a Preface is to give the Publick an account, in the first place, of the Reasons that have engag’d the Author to compose his Work; that then he is to inform the Publick, that ’tis in meer Complaisance to his Friends, and because there are mangled Copies of his Manuscript abroad, that he has been determined to put it to the Press; and finally, that he is to conclude with a sort of Petition, wherein he is to beg the Reader’s Indulgence for his Productions. This, I have been assured, is the Plan of a Preface; let us now see how well I can execute it._ _As to the first Article, +viz.+ what Motives I had to write, I sincerely own that when I set Pen to Paper, I meant nothing more than to amuse myself. I was the farthest in the World from thinking that I should one day be overtaken with the Temptation of setting up for an Author. I wrote Letters to a Friend of mine, purely to divert him with an Account of such things as came in my way; the Minutes of which Letters I preserved till I had insensibly formed a Volume of ’em; and having nothing else to do, I augmented and digested them in the manner that I now give them to the Publick. The truth is, that my Friends have not used the least Importunity with me to commit my Manuscript to the Press, nor was it possible for any spurious Copies of it to get abroad, because no body ever saw it till I put it into the hands of the Bookseller._