A D V E R T I S E -M E N T.

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I f will be sufficient to say os this Edition, that thereader has here a much more correB and compleatcopy of the D u n c i a v, than has hitherto ap-peared : I cannot answer but some mijlakes may have Jliptinto it, hut a vast number of others will be prevented,by the Names being now not only set at length, but justi-fied by the authorities and reasons given. I male nodoubt, the Author's own motive to use real rather thanfeigrCd names, was his care to preserve the Innocent frontany false Applications ; whereas in the former editionswhich had no more than the Initial letters, he was made >by Keys printed here, to hurt the inoffensive-, and (whatwas worse) to abuse his friends, by an impression atPubiin.

she Commentary which attends the Poem was sent mefrom several hands, and consequently must be unequallywritten ; yet will it have one advantage over most Com-mentaries, that it is not made upon conjeBures, or at a \

remote distance of time: and the reader cannot but derive <

one pleasure from the very Obscurity of the persons ittreats of, that it partakes of the nature of a Secret,which most people love to be let into, tho ’ the Men orIhe Things be ever so inconsiderable or trivial.

Os the Persons it was judg’d proper to give some ac-count : for since it is only in this monument that theymust expeB to survive, (and here survive they will, asimg as the Englip tongue pall remain fitch as it wasin the reigns of Ejueen Anne and King George^