Under this Shelter, then, I may safely tell you, That the greatest Encouragement I have had to publish this Work, has risen from the several Hours of Patience you have lent me at the Reading it. It is true, I took the Advantage of your Leisure in the Country, where moderate Matters serve for Amusement; and there, indeed, how far your Good-nature for an old Acquaintance, or your Reluctance to put the Vanity of an Author out of countenance, may have carried you, I cannot be sure; and yet Appearances give me stronger Hopes: For was not the Complaisance of a whole Evening's Attention as much as an Author of more Importance ought to have expected? Why then was I desired the next Day to give you a second Lecture? Or why was I kept a third Day with you, to tell you more of the same Story? If these Circumstances have made me vain, shall I say, Sir, you are accountable for them? No, Sir, I will rather so far flatter myself as to suppose it possible, That your having been a Lover of the Stage (and one of those few good Judges who know the Use and Value of it, under a right Regulation) might incline you to think so copious an Account of it a less tedious Amusement, than it may naturally be to others of different good Sense, who may have less Concern or Taste for it. But be all this as it may; the Brat is now born, and rather than see it starve upon the Bare Parish Provision, I chuse thus clandestinely to drop it at your Door, that it may exercise One of your Many Virtues, your Charity, in supporting it.
If the World were to know into whose Hands I have thrown it, their Regard to its Patron might incline them to treat it as one of his Family: But in the Consciousness of what I _am_, I chuse not, Sir, to say who you _are_. If your Equal in Rank were to do publick Justice to your Character, then, indeed, the Concealment of your Name might be an unnecessary Diffidence: But am I, Sir, of Consequence enough, in any Guise, to do Honour to Mr. ----? Were I to set him in the most laudable Lights that Truth and good Sense could give him, or his own Likeness would require, my officious Mite would be lost in that general Esteem and Regard which People of the first Consequence, even of different Parties, have a Pleasure in paying him. Encomiums to Superiors from Authors of lower Life, as they are naturally liable to Suspicion, can add very little Lustre to what before was visible to the publick Eye: Such Offerings (to use the Stile they are generally dressed in) like _Pagan_ Incense, evaporate on the Altar, and rather gratify the Priest than the Deity.