Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/13

Rh confusion; and the Tale of a Tub, the Battle of the Books, and the Fragment, are not included.

"In the edition which is now offered to the publick, the Tale of a Tub, of which the Dean's corrections sufficiently prove him to have been the author, the Battle of the Books, and the Fragment, make the first volume; the second is Gulliver's Travels; the Miscellanies will be found in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth; and the contents of the other volumes are divided into two classes, as relating to England or Ireland. As to the arrangement of particular pieces in each class, there were only three things that seemed to deserve attention, or that could direct the choice; that the verse and prose should be kept separate; that the posthumous and doubtful pieces should not be mingled with those which the Dean is known to have published himself; and that those tracts which are parts of a regular series, and illustrate each other, should be ranged in succession, without the intervention of other matter: such are the Drapier's Letters, and some other papers published upon the same occasion, which have not only in the Irish edition, but in every other, been so mixed as to misrepresent some facts and obscure others: such also are the tracts on the Sacramental Test, which are now first put together in regular order, as they should always be read by those who would see their whole strength and propriety.

"As to the pieces which have no connexion with each other, some have thought that the serious and Rh