I grieve if e’er great Homer chance to ſleep,
Yet Slumbers on long Works have right to creep.
For we are not here to underſtand, as, perhaps, ſome have, that an Author actually falls aſleep while he is writing. It is true that Readers are too apt to be ſo overtaken; but if the Work was as long as any of Oldmixon, the Author himſelf is too well entertained to be ſubject to the leaſt Drowſineſs. He is, as Mr. Pope obſerves,
Sleepleſs himſelf to give his Readers Sleep.
To ſay the Truth, theſe ſoporific Parts are ſo many Scenes of Serious artfully interwoven, in order to contraſt and ſet off the reſt; and this is the true Meaning of a late facetious Writer, who told the Public, that whenever he was dull they might be aſſured there was a Deſign in it.
In this Light then, or rather in this Darkneſs, I would have the Reader to conſider theſe initial Eſſays. And after this Warning, if he ſhall be of Opinion, that he can find enough of Serious in otherParts
