Modesty. Otherwise your Fame and your Property fuffer alike; you are at once expofed and plundered. As an Author, you are deprived of that Power, which above all others conftitutes a good one, the power of rejecting, and the right of judging for yourself, what pieces it may be most useful, entertaining, or reputable to publish, at the time and in the manner you think best. As a Man, you are deprived of the right even over your own Sentiments, of the privilege of every human creature to divulge or conceal them; of the advantage of your Second thoughts; and of all the benefit of your Prudence, your Candour, or your Modefty. As a Member of Society, you are yet more injured; your private conduct, your domeftic concerns, your family: fecrets, your paf fions, your tendernesses, your weaknesses, are expofed to the Mifconftruction or Refentment of fome, to the Genfure or Impertinence of the whole world. The printing private letters in fuch a manner, is the worst fort of betraying Conversation, as it has evidently the most extenfive, and the most lafting, ill confequences. It is the higheft offence against Society, as it renders the most dear and intimate intercourfe of friend with friend, and the moft neceffary, commerce of man with man, unfafe, and to be dreaded. To open Letters is esteemed J the greatest breach of honour; even to look into them already opened or accidentally dropt, is held an ungenerous, if not an immoral act. What then can be thought of the procuring them merely by Fraud, and the printing them merely for Lucre? We cannot but conclude every honeft man will wifh, that, if the Laws have as yet provided no adequate remedy, one at least may be found, to prevent fo great and growing an evil. I Letter 1. F Mr. Dryden's death; his moral cha- OF racter: the poets who fucceeded him: the temper of critics. XV. More concerning corrections of the poems. XVI. From Mr. Wycherley, after his illness. ...‚ Ï XVII. From Mr. Wycherley. Concerning the. Mifcellanies, and the Critics. XIX. Concerning Miscellanies, and the danger of young poets. Letter XXII. From Mr. Wycherley. His defire of his XXV. From Mr. Wycherley. In answer to the account of the ftate of his papers. **04 XXVI. The laft advice about his papers, to turn Mr. Wycherley agreed to and begun before his ལ AII. & Mr. Walsh to Mr. Pope. Concerning pa III. The answer. Of correcting, and the extreme of it. Of paftoral comedy, and its character. |