the composition, that they were written by a person, who was originally
of a low rank or a menial station, but who was distinguished by his lord
for those abilities and talents, he imagined he discovered in him. I
have learned, by a kind of vague tradition, upon which I can place
little dependence, that the noble pupil was the owner of a magnificent
_château_ not a hundred miles from your lordship's admired seat in the
county of Buckingham. It is said that this nobleman, amidst a thousand
curiosities with which his gardens abounded, had the unaccountable whim
of placing a kind of artificial hermit in one of its wildest and most
solitary recesses. This hermit it seems was celebrated through the whole
neighbourhood, for his ingenuity in the carving of tobacco-stoppers, and
a variety of other accomplishments. Some of the peasants even mistook
him for a conjuror. If I might be allowed in the conjectural licence of
an editor, I should be inclined to ascribe the following composition to
this celebrated and ingenious solitaire.

Since however this valuable tract remains without an owner, I thought it
could not be so properly addressed to any man as your lordship. I would
not however be misunderstood. I do not imagine that the claim this
performance has upon the public attention, consists in the value and
excellence of it's precepts. On the contrary, I consider it as the
darkest and most tremendous scheme for the establishment of despotism
that ever was contrived. If the public enter into my sentiments upon the
subject, they will consider it as effectually superseding Machiavel's
celebrated treatise of The Prince, and exhibiting a more deep-laid and
desperate system of tyranny. For my part, I esteem these great and
destructive vices of so odious a nature, that they need only be exposed
to the general view in order to the being scouted by all. And if, which
indeed I cannot possibly believe, there has been any noble lord in this
kingdom mean enough to have studied under such a preceptor, I would