heart, and attempt, in an historical manner, to encrease their knowledge in general; and in particular, to lead them to a picus contemplation and acknowledgment of God's unfpeakable wisdom and goodness manifefted in the works of the creation; fhew them the truth of the teftimony of Jefus Chrift concerning a divine providence, immortality, and a future ftate; and that as virtue advances and improves, human felicity augments, and becomes a fure prognoftic of that fulness of blifs, which men of goodnefs and integrity are to enjoy, without interruption, frailty, and infirmity, in an unchangeable and everlafting life.

This

was my fcheme. These things I had principally in view, when, to vindicate my character from mifreprefentations and idle ftories, and to illuftrate my Memoirs of feveral Ladies of Great Britain, I fat down to writę a true hiftory of my life and notions. You will fee at once, gentlernen, that this is the laboured part of my work. Were I able to write fo as to perfuade even a few to alter their way of living, and employ their time for the future, in forming and training up their moral powers to perfection, I should think myfelf more fortunate and glorious than the greatest genius in the temple of Fame. Indeed, gentlemen, fame or name, in this world, is not the thing I think of.

Non

Non eft mortale qued opto, I can say with Lactantius: and were it within my power to choose, fure I am, that I would be for ever unknown. But that was impoffible. In juftice to myself, as before obferved, and that tradition might not hand me down, when I am gone, in that variety of bad and foolish characters, which a malice that knows nothing of me, whifpers while I am living; it was neceffary I fhould tell my. own ftory. The relation was likewife requifite, to render the Memoirs before mentioned intelligible. The volumes of that work, which are to be published, would be quite dark, and not fo grateful as intended, without a previous account of the author's life.

This, gentlemen, is the truth of the cafe, and as I fay as little of myself, in my relation, as I can; and as much for true religion and useful learning, as I was able, I hope, from your rectitude and judgment, that you will get me a fair hearing; and I call upon you as my patrons, and the friends to learning and truth, for your approbation of my good and pious intentions, though you thould not be able to fay one word of any excellencies in my writings. This is all I aík. As I wish well to your caufe, the cause of virtue and letters, and

have chiefly endeavoured, according to my abilities, to make my readers acquainted with the majesty of the Deity, and his kingdom, and the greatness of his excellency, before whom all the inhabitants of the earth, all powers and principalities, are as nothing; I hope you will, in return, favour me with your best wishes.

As to fome strange things you will find in the following journal; and a life, in various particulars, quite contrary to the common courfe of action, I can affure you, gentlemen, in refpect of the ftrange things, that however wonderful they may appear to you, yet they are, exclufive of a few decorations and figures, (neceffary in all works) ftrictly true; and as to the difference of my life, from that of the generality of men, let it only be confidered, that I was born in London, and carried an infant into Ireland, where I learned the Irish language, and became intimately acquainted with its original inhabitants; that I was not only a lover of books from the time I could spell them to this hour; but read with an extraordinary pleasure, before I was twenty, the works of feveral of the fathers, and all the old romances; which tinged my ideas with a certain piety and extravagance, that rendered my virtues as well as my imperfec

tions particularly mine that by hard measure, I was compelled to be an adventurer, when very young, and had not a friend in the universe but what I could make by good fortune, and my own address:that my wandering life, wrong conduct, and the iniquity of my kind, with a passion for extraordinary things and places, brought me into feveral great diftreffes; and that I had quicker and more wonderful deliverances from them than people in tribulation generally receive that the dull, the formal, and the visionary, the hard-honest man, and the poor-liver, are the people I have had no connexion with; but have always kept company with the polite, the generous, the lively, the rational, and the brightest freethinkers of this age--that befide all this, I was in the days of my youth, one of the most active men in the world, at every exercife; and to a degree of rashness, often venturous, when there was no neceffity for running any hazards: in diebus illis, I have defcended head-foremost from a high cliff, into the ocean, to fwim, when I could, and ought, to have gone off a rock not a yard from the furface of the deep.-I have swam near a mile and a half out in the fea, to a ship that lay off, went on board, got clothes from the mate of the veffel, and proceeded with them to the next port; while my companion A 3

I left

I left on the beach concluded me drowned, and related my fad fate in the town.—I have taken a cool thruft over a bottle, without the leaft animofity on either fide; but both of us depending on our skill in the small fword, for prefervation from mifchief.. -Such

things as thefe I now call wrong, and mention them only as famples of a rashness I was once fubject to, as an opportunity happened to come in the way. Let all these things be taken into the account, and I imagine, gentlemen, that what may at first fight seem ftrange, and next to incredible, will, on confidering these particulars, not long remain fo, in your opinion; though you may think the relator an odd man. As to that, I have nothing to fay. And if oddnefs confifts in fpirit, freedom of thought, and a zeal for the divine unity; in a taste for what is natural, antique, romantic, and wild; in honouring women, who were admirable for goodness, letters, and arts; and in thinking, after all the fcenes I have gone thro', that every thing here is vanity; except that virtue and charity, which gives us a right to expect beyond the grave; and procures us, in this world, the direction of infinite wisdom, the protection of infinite power, and the friendship of infinite goodnefs; then, may it be written on my stone, Here lies an odd man.