was, that the booksellers were doing the same, in collecting your pieces, the corn with the chaff; I do not mean that any thing of yours is chaff, but with other wit of Ireland which was so, and the whole in your name. I meant principally to oblige them to separate what you writ seriously from what you writ carelesly; and thought my own weeds might pass for a sort of wild flowers, when bundled up with them.
It was I that sent you those books into Ireland, and so I did my epistle to lord Bathurst even before it was published, and another thing of mine, which is a parody from Horace[1], writ in two mornings. I never took more care in my life of any thing than of the former of these, nor less than of the latter: yet every friend has forced me to print it, though in truth my own single motive was about twenty lines toward the latter end, which you will find out.
I have declined opening to you by letters the whole scheme of my present work, expecting still to do it in a better manner in person: but you will see pretty soon, that the letter to lord Bathurst is a part of it, and you will find a plain connexion between them, if you read them in the order just contrary to that they were published in. I imitate those cunning tradesmen, who show their best silks last: or, (to give you a truer idea, though it sounds too proudly) my works will in one respect be like the works of nature, much more to be liked and understood when considered in the relation they bear with each other, than when ignorantly looked upon
- ↑ Sat. I, lib. 2.
