Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/42

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xxxvi
GENERAL PREFACE.

and to this I have been chiefly indebted, for the proofs produced in support of his character.

"The first thing to be done in this edition, was, to disembroil these works from the chaos in which they have hitherto appeared, and reduce them into some regular order under proper heads.

"The first volume is wholly taken up with the History of his Life.

"The second contains his Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books, being his earliest productions, and the first of his Political Tracts written in England.

"The third and fourth contain all his other Political Tracts relative to English Affairs.

"The fifth, his Essays on various Subjects.

"The sixth, Gulliver's Travels.

"The seventh and eighth, all his Poetical Works, and Polite Conversation.

"The ninth, all his Political Tracts relative to Ireland.

"The tenth, his sermons, and a variety of detached Pieces written in Ireland.

"The eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth volumes contain the whole of his Epistolary Correspondence. As the several parcels containing these Letters had fallen into different hands, and were published at different times, they were printed without any regard to order, insomuch that the answers to numbers of the Letters were to be sought for in different volumes. They are here digested in a regular series according to their dates. The correspondence between Mr. Pope and the Dean, not in the former edition, is here added, as published by Pope; and the whole closed with his Journal to Stella, in an uninterrupted series.

"In