Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/13

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A D V E R T I S E M E N T.

N presenting to the publick a new edition of the Works of so well known and popular a writer as Dr. Swift, it would be equally unjust and invidious to withhold the preliminary observations of men high in esteem for critical sagacity, who on former occasions have not disdained to undertake the office of ushering the dean's writings into the world. These, therefore, will be found collected into one point of view at the beginning of the second volume.

From a large accumulation of useful materials (to which the present editor had contributed no inconsiderable share, and to which in 1779 he annexed a copious index to the dean's works, and a chronological list of the epistolary correspondence) a regular edition in seventeen volumes was in 1784 compiled by the late Mr. Sheridan; who prefixed an excellent life of the dean, which no man was better qualified than himself to undertake, and which renders it unnecessary to enter farther on that subject, than merely to observe, in the words of a late worthy friend, that, "if we deduct somewhat from report, which is apt to add to the oddities of men of note, the greatest part of his conduct may be accounted for by the common operations of human nature — ' Choler,' lord Bacon observes, 'puts men on action; when it grows adust, it turns to melancholy.' In Swift, that humour seems to have been predominant; governed, however, even in his younger days, " by