The passages, which appear most liable to objection, are parodies. The Author entirely innocent of any intention of glancing at those tenets of Religion, which he has by some prejudiced or ignorant readers been supposed to mean. This particularly the case in the passage about the three wooden machines. An irony runs through the whole book. Not necessary to take notice of treatises written against it The usual fate of common answerers to books of merit is to sink into waste paper and oblivion. The case very different, when a great genius exposes a foolish piece. Reflections occasioned by Dr. King's Remarks on the Tale of a Tub; others, by Mr. Wotton. The manner in which the Tale was first published accounted for. The Fragment not printed in the way the Author intended; being the ground-work of a much larger discourse[1]. The oaths of Peter why introduced. The severest strokes of satire in the treatise are levelled against the custom of employing wit in profaneness or immodesty. Wit the noblest and most useful gift of human nature; and Humour the most agreeable. Those who have no share of either, think the blow weak, because they are themselves insensible.
P. S. The Author of the Key wrong, in all his conjectures. The whole work entirely by one hand; the Author defying any one to claim three lines in the book.
- ↑ In several parts of the Apology, the Author dwells much on the circumstances of the book having been published, while his original papers were out of his own possession. Three editions were printed in the year 1704; a fourth, corrected, in 1705.
