name of the author: the first will serve the bookseller's purpose, as Yorick's name is pofsibly of the two the more known; and the second will ease the minds of those

who fee a jest, and the danger which lurks under it, where no jest was meant.

I suppose it is needless to inform the publick, that the

reason of printing these ser

mons, arifes altogether from

the

:

the favourable reception, which the fermon given as a sample of them in TRISTRAM SHANDY, met with from the world; That fermon was printed by itself fome years ago, but could find neither purchasers or readers, so that I apprehended little hazard from a promise I made upon its republication, "That if the " fermon was liked, these " should be alfo at the world's

"service;" which, to be as

good

!

good as my word, they here are, and I pray to God, they may do the service I wish it. I have little to say in their behalf, except this, that not one of them was compofed with any thoughts of being printed, they have been haftily wrote, and carry the marks of it along with them. This may be no recommendation;

I mean it however as such;

for as the fermons turn chiefly

upon philanthropy, and those

kin

!

kindred virtues to it, upon which hang all the law and the prophets, I trust they will be no less felt, or worse received, for the evidence they bear, of proceeding more from the heart than the head. I have nothing to add, but that the reader, upon old and beaten subjects, must not look for

many thoughts,

new

'tis

well if he has new language; in three or four pafsages, where he has neither the

I

A 3

the one or the other, I have quoted the author I made free with there are some other passages, where I suspect I may have taken the same liberty, - but 'tis only suspicion, for I do not remember it is so, otherwise I should have restored them to their proper owners, so that I put it in here more as a general saving, than from a confci

ousness of having much to

answer for upon that score:

in