And here his
sagacity must make it needless to observe how artfully these
chapters are calculated for that excellent purpose; for in these we
have always taken care to intersperse somewhat of the sour or acid
kind, in order to sharpen and stimulate the said spirit of criticism.
Again, the indolent reader, as well as spectator, finds great
advantage from both these; for, as they are not obliged either to
see the one or read the others, and both the play and the book are
thus protracted, by the former they have a quarter of an hour longer
allowed them to sit at dinner, and by the latter they have the
advantage of beginning to read at the fourth or fifth page instead
of the first, a matter by no means of trivial consequence to persons
who read books with no other view than to say they have read them, a
more general motive to reading than is commonly imagined; and from
which not only law books, and good books, but the pages of Homer and
Virgil, of Swift and Cervantes, have been often turned over.
Many other are the emoluments which arise from both these, but
they are for the most part so obvious, that we shall not at present
stay to enumerate them; especially since it occurs to us that the
principal merit of both the prologue and the preface is that they be
short.
Chapter 2
A whimsical adventure which befel the squire, with the distressed
situation of Sophia
We must now convey the reader to Mr.
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