Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/43



SIR,

OU acquaint me, in your last, that you are still so busy building at, that your friends must not hope to see you in town this year; at the same time you desire me, that you may not be quite at a loss in conversation among the beau monde next winter, to send you an account of the present state of wit in town; which, without farther preface, I shall therefore endeavour to perform, and give you the histories and characters of all our periodical papers, whether monthly, weekly, or diurnal, with the same freedom I used to send you our other town news.

I shall only premise, that as you know I never cared one farthing either for whig or tory; so I shall consider our writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which party they may belong.

Dr. King has for some time lain down his Monthly Philosophical Transactions, which, the titlepage informed us at first, were only "to be continued as " they