was before.

By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself;
two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which
were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is
digressive, and it is progressive too,--and at the same time.

This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth's moving
round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her
elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that
variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;--though I own it suggested
the thought,--as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and
discoveries have come from such trifling hints.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the
soul of reading!--take them out of this book, for instance,--you might
as well take the book along with them;--one cold eternal winter would
reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;--he steps forth
like a bridegroom,--bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the
appetite to fail.

All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as
to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author,
whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a
digression,--from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock
still;--and if he goes on with his main work,--then there is an end of
his digression.

--This is vile work.--For which reason, from the beginning of this, you
see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of
it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the
digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the
whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;--and, what's more, it
shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of
health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

Chapter 1.XXIII.

I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very
nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.--Accordingly I set off
thus:

If the fixture of Momus's glass in the human breast, according to the
proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place,--first, This
foolish consequence would certainly have followed,--That the very
wisest and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid
window-money every day of our lives.

And, secondly, that had the said glass been there set up, nothing more
w