and to others for assistance. The number of
my friends was never great, but they have been
such as would not suffer me to think that I was
writing in vain, and I did not feel much dejection
from the want of popularity.

My obligations having not been frequent, my
acknowledgments may be soon despatched. I can
restore to all my correspondents their productions,
with little diminution of the bulk of my volumes,
though not without the loss of some pieces to
which particular honours have been paid.

The parts from which I claim no other praise
than that of having given them an opportunity of
appearing, are the four billets in the tenth paper,
the second letter in the fifteenth, the thirtieth, the
forty-fourth, the ninety-seventh, and the hundredth
papers, and the second letter in the hundred and
seventh.

Having thus deprived myself of many excuses
which candour might have admitted for the
inequality of my compositions, being no longer able
to allege the necessity of gratifying correspondents,
the importunity with which publication was
solicited, or obstinacy with which correction was
rejected, I must remain accountable for all my faults,
and submit, without subterfuge, to the censures of
criticism, which, however, I shall not endeavour to