ABSTRACT
POSTSCRIPT Having just run thro’ the first Volume and clos’d my Letter, I was told that the second Volume was at last come out. I was too much tir’d with the Badness of the Road in my first Journey, to venture upon another the same Way, without resting to recover my Patience, of which I was to have sufficient use in my passing thro’ the second Part. I am afraid that Robinson Crusoe reserv’d so much Opium for his own Use, when he dispos’d of the rest to the Merchant of Japan, that he has scarce been thoroughly awake ever since; and has communicated that somniferous Quality of the Drug to his Writing thro’ the whole second Part, which every where prepares you for Sleep; to avoid a Lethargy therefore, I shall not dwell upon it, and its perpetual Succession of Absurdities, but only touch upon some few, which may serve for Samples of the whole. I cannot, however, omit taking particular Notice of the Editor’s Preface, because it is not only written by the same Hand, but also very singular in its kind: You begin with a Boast of the Success of your Book, and which you say deserves that Success by its Merits, that is, The surprising Variety of the Subject, and the agreeable Manner of the Performance. It’s well you tell us so yourself, the judicious Reader else must have been puzzel’d to find out the Mystery of its Success. For first, as to the Variety of the Subject, it will be a hard Matter to make that good, since it’s spread out into at least five and twenty Sheets, clog’d with Moral Reflections, as you are pleas’d to call them, every where insipid and aukward, and in many Places of no manner of Relation to the Occasion on which they are deliver’d, besides being much larger than necessary, and frequently impious and prophane; and always canting are the Reflections which you are pleas’d to call religious and useful, and the brightest Ornaments of your Book, tho’ in reality they were put in by you to swell the Bulk of your Treatise up to a five Shilling Book; whereas, the Want of Variety in your Subject would never have made it reach to half the Price; nay, as it is, you have been forc’d to give us the same Reflections over and over again, as well as repeat the same Fact afterwards in a Journal, which you had told us before in a plain Narration. So agreeable is the Manner of your Performance! which is render’d more so by the excessive Sterility of your Expression, being forc’d perpetually to say the same Things in the very self same Words four or five times over in one Page; which puts me in Mind of what Hudibras says,
Another agreeable Thing in the Performance is, that every Page is full of Solecisms or false Grammar. However, this may be, for ought I know, a very agreeable Performance to most of your Buyers.
