Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/20

xiv will also be found some letters between the Dean and Mrs. Esther Vanhomrigh, with a few others, which did not come to the hands of the proprietors till the rest of the work was printed.

"Some letters of a private nature, and some that relate to persons who are still living, have been suppressed; but the number is very small. Some are inserted that persons still living have written; but they are such as would reflect no dishonour upon the highest character.

"For the publication of letters, which certainly were not written for the publick, I shall however make no apology in my own name, because the publication of them is not my own act, nor at my own option; but the act of those to whom they had been sold for that purpose, before I knew they were in being.

"It may, however, be presumed, that though the publication of letters has been censured by some, yet that it is not condemned by the general voice, since a numerous subscription, in which are many respectable names, has been lately obtained, for printing other parts of the Dean's epistolary correspondence, by a relation who professes the utmost veneration for his memory; and a noble lord has permitted Mr. Wilkes to place this under his protection.

"A recommendation of these volumes is yet less necessary than an apology; the letters are indisputably genuine; the originals, in the handwriting of the parties, or copies indorsed by the Dean, being deposited in the British Museum; except of those in the appendix, mentioned to have come to the proprietors hands after the rest was printed, the ginals