bottom; while he who commits his safety to the bosom of the
wide-embracing ocean, is sure to be strongly supported, or at worst
thrown upon the shore.

On this principle it has been still my study to obtain from a humane and
generous Public that shelter their protection best affords from the
poisoned arrows of private malignity; for though it is not difficult to
despise the attempts of petty malice, I will not say with the
Philosopher, that I mean to build a monument to my fame with the stones
thrown at me to break my bones; nor yet pretend to the art of Swift's
German Wonder-doer, who promised to make them fall about his head like
so many pillows. Ink, as it resembles Styx in its colour, should
resemble it a little in its operation too; whoever has been once _dipt_
should become _invulnerable_: But it is not so; the irritability of
authors has long been enrolled among the comforts of ill-nature, and the
triumphs of stupidity; such let it long remain! Let me at least take
care in the worst storms that may arise in public or in private life, to
say with Lear,

--I'm one
More sinn'd against, than sinning.

For the book--I have not thrown my thoughts into the form of private
letters; because a work of which truth is the best recommendation,
should not above all others begin with a lie. My old acquaintance rather
chose to amuse themselves with conjectures, than to flatter me with
tender inquiries during my absence; our correspondence then would not
have been any amusement to the Public, whose treatment of me deserves
every possible acknowledgment; and more than those acknowledgments will
I not add--to a work, which, such as it is, I submit to their candour,