TO THE READER.

As there are Notes of considerable length to the two following Fragments, I have thought it advisable to transfer them to the end of their respective articles. The use of Notes, so common in modern Book, arises, on the one hand, from the unskilfulness of Authors, who feel themselves at å loss how to introduce into their Works observations which they conceive to be interesting; and on the other, from the excessive delicacy of Readers, who do not like to have their progress interrupted by digressions.

The Ancients, who wrote much better than we do, never subjoined Notes to their text; but they stepped aside from it, to the right and to the left, according as occasion required. In this manner wrote the most celebrated Philosophers and Historians of Antiquity, such as Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, Tacitus, the good Plutarch......Their di gressions, if I may be permitted to judge, diffuse a very pleasing variety over their Works. They shew you a great deal of the country in a little time; and conduct you by the lakes, over the mountains, through the forests; but never fail to lead you to the mark, and that is no easy matter. This mode of travelling however does not suit the Authors, nor the Readers, of our times, who are disposed to find their way only through the plains. To save others, and especially myself, some part

of the intricacies of the road, I have composed Notes, and separated them from the Text. This arrangement presents a farther accommodation to the Reader; he will be spared the trouble" of perusing the Notes if he grows tired of the Text,*

* I have taken the liberty, in this Edition, to insert the notes on the corresponding pages of the text, to save the Reader the trouble of turning from one part of the book to another; but such is the veneration I have for my Author, that I could not think of suppressing even the above short notice, as it stands.

As soon as they perceived that after an experience of Mankind so vexatious my heart panted only for a life of solitude; that I had embraced principles from which I could not depart; that my opinions respecting Nature were contrary to their systems; that I was not a person disposed to be either their puffer, or to court their protection; and that, in a word, they had embroiled me with my patron, whom they frequently abused to me in the view of alienating me from him, and to whom they assiduously paid their court; they then became my enemies. A great many vices are imputed to the Great; but I have always found many more in the Little who study to please them.

These last were too cunning to attack me openly with a Personage to whom I had given, in the very height of my misfortunes, proofs of a friendship so disinterested. On the contrary, in presence of that, gentleman, as well as before myself, they passed high encomiums on my principles, and on some very simple acts of moderation which had resulted from them; but they employed terms SO artfully

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artfully exaggerated, and appeared so uneasy about the opinion which the World would entertain of the matter, that it was easy to discern their great object was to induce me to renounce it, and that they commended my patience so extravagantly only to make me lose it. Thus they calumniated me under the guise of panegyric, and destroyed my reputation in feigning to pity me ; likewise those sorceresses of Thessaly, mentioned by Pliny, who blasted the harvests, the flocks, and the husbandmen, by speaking good of them.

I separated myself therefore from those artful men, who continued to justify themselves at my expence, in representing me as a person of a mistrustful disposition, after having abused my confidence in so many different ways.

Not but that I consider myself as reprehensible for a sensibility, too acute, to pain, whether physical or moral. A single prickle gives me more uneasiness than the smell of a hundred roses gives pleasures. The best company in the world appears to me intolerable, if I meet in it a single self-important, envious, evil-speaking, malignant, perfidious person. I am well aware that people of very great worth associate every day with persons of all these descriptions, support them, nay flatter them, and turn them to their own account; but I am well aware at the same time that these same people of worth bring into Society nothing but the jargon of the World; whereas I, for my part, always pour out my heart; that they pay deceivers in their own coin, and I with all I have, that is to say with my sentiments. Though my enemies may represent

me