ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 1 CONTAINING FIVE PAGES OF PAPER As truth distinguishes our writings from those idle romances which are filled with monsters, the productions, not of nature, but of distempered brains, and which have been therefore recommended by an eminent critic to the sole use of the pastry-cook,1 so, on the other hand, we would avoid any resemblance to that kind of history which a celebrated poet seems to think is no less calculated for the emolument of the brewer, as the reading it should be always attended with a tankard of good ale-
For as this is the liquor of modern historians, nay, perhaps their muse, if we may believe the opinion of Butler, who attributes inspiration to ale,3 it ought likewise to be the potation of their readers, since every book ought to be read with the same spirit and in the same manner as it is writ. Thus the famous author of Hurlothrumbo told a learned bishop that the reason his lordship could not taste the excellence of his piece was that he did not read it with a fiddle in his hand, which instrument he himself had always had in his own when he composed it.
