The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hieroglyphic Tales, by Horace Walpole

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Title: Hieroglyphic Tales

Author: Horace Walpole

Release Date: November 20, 2004 [EBook #14098]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Clare Boothby, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online
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[Transcriber's Note: Archaic spellings in the original text have been
retained in this version.]

HIEROGLYPHIC TALES.

_Schah Baham ne comprenoit jamais bien que les choses absurdes & hors de
toute vraisemblance._

Le Sopha, p. 5.

STRAWBERRY-HILL: PRINTED BY T. KIRGATE, MDCCLXXXV.

PREFACE.

As the invaluable present I am making to the world may not please all
tastes, from the gravity of the matter, the solidity of the reasoning,
and the deep learning contained in the ensuing sheets, it is necessary
to make some apology for producing this work in so trifling an age, when
nothing will go down but temporary politics, personal satire, and idle
romances. The true reason then for my surmounting all these objections
was singly this: I was apprehensive lest the work should be lost to
posterity; and though it may be condemned at present, I can have no
doubt but it will be treated with due reverence some hundred ages hence,
when wisdom and learning shall have gained their proper ascendant over
mankind, and when men shall only read for instruction and improvement of
their minds. As I shall print an hundred thousand copies, some, it may
be hoped, will escape the havoc that is made of moral works, and then
this jewel will shine forth in its genuine lustre. I was in the greater
hurry to consign this work to the press, as I foresee that the art of
printing will ere long be totally lost, like other useful discoveries
well known to the ancients. Such were the art of dissolving rocks with
hot vinegar, of teaching elephants to dance on the slack rope, of making
malleable glass, of writing epic poems that any body would read after
they had been published a month, and the stupendous invention of new
religions, a secret of which illiterate Mahomet was the last person
po