in this treatise, and sum up
the difference exactly between the several numbers, assigning the true
natural cause for every such difference, the discoveries in the product
will plentifully reward his labour. But then he must beware of Bythus
and Sige, and be sure not to forget the qualities of Acamoth; _a cujus
lacrymis humecta prodit substantia, a risu lucida, a tristitia solida,
et a timore mobilis_, wherein Eugenius Philalethes[181] hath committed
an unpardonable mistake.

[Footnote 180: The bad critics.]

[Footnote 181: A name under which Thomas Vaughan wrote.]

XXX. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE POSTERITY.

The following is the famous dedication of _The Tale of a Tub_. The
description of "the tyranny of Time" was regarded by Goethe as one
of the finest passages in Swift's works.

SIR,

I here present your Highness with the fruits of a very few leisure
hours, stolen from the short intervals of a world of business, and of
an employment quite alien from such amusements as this; the poor
production of that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon my hands
during a long prorogation of Parliament, a great dearth of foreign
news, and a tedious fit of rainy weather. For which, and other reasons,
it cannot choose extremely to deserve such a patronage as that of your
Highness, whose numberless virtues in so few years, make the world look
upon you as the future example to all princes. For although your
Highness is hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the universal learned
world already resolved upon appealing to your future dictates with the
lowest and most resigned submission, fate having decreed you sole
arbiter of the productions of human wit in this polite and most
accomplished age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough to
shock and startle any judge of a genius less unlimited than yours; but
in order to prevent such glorious trials, the person, it seems, to
whose care the education of your Highness is committed, has resolved,
as I am told, to keep you in almost an universal ignorance of our
studies, which it is your inherent birthright to inspect.

It is amazing to me that this person should have assurance, in the face
of the sun, to go about persuading your Highness that our age is almost
wholly illiterate and has hardly produced one writer upon any subject.
I know very well that when your Highness shall come to riper years, and
have gone through the learning of an