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And what impression will this measure make on the public mind? How will it appear to this young and rising nation, whose struggles for her own independence and freedom are not yet forgotten? How will it strike at the feelings of the great and highly respectable fraternity of the Episcopal institution, who are carelessly anathematized as heretics, merely for a handsome pretext to lengthen out the rod over their shoulders to reach others? For it is not to be doubted that that form of speech, “Arians, Socinians, Arminians," &c., was resorted to merely to make the bundle of heretics as huge as possible, that, by a kind of indiscrimination, the censure, the single censure on the heads of the Hopkinsians might not seem solitary and partial; in short, that it might appear one sweeping stroke at all heresy.

But I asked, in a former paragraph, whether we were to understand this as the voice and sentiment of the fathers and counsellors of the Presbyterian church. I rejoice to say, for the honour of my country, and for the religion I profess, that nothing is farther from it. I recognise, in this act, the features of some fierce and furious spirits, who, in an inauspicious hour of darkness and incaution, gained so much the ascendant in that body as to procure this abortion of a Bull, who has faintly roared once, and will never be heard again. I have no doubt that its authors, ere this, do, even in their closets, shudder before the bar of public sentiment; that they, severally and individually, wish that, at that moment, they had been a day's journey from that Synod, and employed in a manner, if it would not promote, that would not endanger the prosperity and existence of the church.

INVESTIGATOR.

DEDICATION.

TO THE LEARNED, AND LONG-LIVED,

JOHN DOE AND RICHARD ROE, EsQUIRES.

GENTLEMEN,

It is well known that every artist and handicrafts-man is desirous of having his work approved, both as a source of emolument and reputation. This principle operates, probably, with greater force on the minds of authors than of any other class of men. For, aside either of profit or reputation, with which most writers have little to do, there is a great pleasure in knowing, that we have power to engage the attention of gentlemen of learning and leisure, or ladies of beauty and fortune, even though they may dislike our productions. To know that our works circulate through the finest parlours, where the pictures of heroes and princes, nobles and beauties, may gaze silently upon them ;—to know that they sometimes repose on the marble, beneath mirrors of the greatest value and purest reflection, by which their number is doubled, or on the purple sofa with the lap-dog, whence they may be lifted with the fairest hand, and their titles read, though their leaves are never turned over, or, perhaps, on the elegant piano, mingled with leaves of musick, where, had they but ears, they might hear strains sweeter than the harp of Orpheus, or the melting voice of Sappho; and thence come to their long quietus, behind the folding glasses of the bookcase, where they enjoy perpetual and dignified repose, till, overhaled by executors, the ministers of the dead, and, perhaps, go thence to auction; this, I say, Gentlemen, is food to the innocent and noble ambition of writers. And even at the auction, honour still pursues them: for, perhaps, the auctioneer holds up a book, and says to the admiring rabble, "Here, Gentlemen, here is a book from the select library of Lord Mumble: see it-the leaves are as bright as though they had never seen the sun. And, perhaps, Jack Fribble bids it off, and, without tarnishing its pure pages by one exposure to the inclement air, it goes to another respite of thirty years.

Such views and feelings we have, Gentlemen, and I beg you to excuse the plain concession of one who is ne'er the less sincere for not having studied the mollia tempora fandi. But we have still sublimer hopes than these: When a book goes from our hands, we naturally

look forward, till, wrapped in future vision, we fancy it, at length, to have escaped the ravages of time-to have survived more generations than the Pylean sage-to have overlived removals, revolutions, wars, fires, floods, and worms, till its lacerated covers, yellow paper, perforated leaves, and rounded angles, no less than its antique orthography and obsolete style, declare it full three hundred years old. Then we know it becomes invaluable, of course, especially, if age has rendered it illegible. It then is purchased by Dr. Flummery, a descendant of the present family of that name, which I know will never become extinct, and is worthy of scholiasts, readings, glossaries, and notæ variorum. I shall say nothing of succeeding and splendid editions; it is among the old authors, and that is sufficient. Thus, again, it goes on, rising from dust and ashes, like a Phoenix, once or twice in six hundred years, and triumphing over every thing, till it swells the flame of the last conflagration. Animated by such prospects, no wonder men are willing to write in a garret, dine on a crust, direct their pen by the light of vellum, and sleep on a pallet of straw.

I have mentioned these things, Gentlemen, that you may perceive I am no stranger to the feelings of an author. Sed nunc ad propositum : You are to know, that the Triangle has had a tolerable circulation in this country; but the grand desideratum is to get it beyond the Atlantic, and to have it read, if possible, in England. Whether it is because books cannot move against the sun, I do not know, but few of our books perform transatlantic journeys. As I have no great faith in the subject I have chosen, to give it an interest in distant countries, nor have I full confidence in the execution of the work to accomplish that end, I must rely on a dedication, as many others have done, to carry the book where, otherwise, it would probably never go. And when you understand these to be among my motives for selecting you, I presume you will justify my conduct, and accept the offering humbly laid at your feet.

I beg permission to dedicate to you, Gentlemen, from the grand consideration of your amazing longevity, which, though it has never occurred to any one before. (and I admire that it has not,) will be considered by every reader as a proper motive. Your career began before the reigns of the Henrys and Edwards; and you witnessed the conflicts between the red and white rose; you lived through the Republic and the storms raised by Cromwell; you witnessed the calamaties of the inauspicions house of Stuart-saw the Restoration— the Revolution-and have known the times ever since. You saw and heard all the controversies of Papist and Protestant, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Roundheads, Independents, Covenanters, Puritans, Friends, &c. You witnessed the agitations and intrigues of the Ryehouse plot; saw the fall of Sydney and Russell; the bigotry and folly of the second James, and the vices and vagaries of the second Charles; the feverish greatness and doubtful glory of William, and the uncertain, inconsistent, and anxious administration of Aune. You must have frequented the courts adorned and dignified by the presence of Bacon, Hale, Coke, Mansfield, and Blackstone. You have often stood by when the elder Pitt thundered in the ear of the nation, and you saw the conflict of talents and stupidity, of corruption and integrity, of pride and folly, when the British empire was severed, and our country declared independent.

With such experience, Gentlemen, as you have had, and such observation as you must have made, what may I not expect? I have frequently alluded to the times of the Reformation; you lived through

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all those times, and, no doubt, could write a history that would instruct, if not surprise, the world. To you I confidently, and may safely, appeal for the correctness of my declarations and statements.

To almost antediluvian longevity you add an unimpeached, and, of course, an unimpeachable reputation. Though you have been the constant attendants of the grandest courts of justice for many centuries, without ever absenting yourselves on any occasion, your names are always pronounced with respect and gravity, both in doors and out, by the bench, bar, clients, and spectators: a felicity which never fell to the lot of any other men. This singular felicity you derive from your impartiality, which is as far beyond all comparison, as are your longevity and reputation. Your sole object is to guard the liberties and repose of honest men against the rash and litigious; to see that suits, which are legally commenced, should be duly prosecuted, and not to suffer a man to harass his neighbour awhile, and then skulk in silence behind the curtain. Of course, there would have been a peculiar propriety in dedicating every part of this work to you.

But, Gentlemen, that trait which I especially admire in your characters, is that independence of mind which never has forsaken you in the worst of times, when tyrants frowned and threatened, nor in the softest and most luxurious, when dissipation allures the brave, and flattery circumvents the wise. Even when the stern Henry sent the lovely and virtuous Ann Boleyn to the block, and the worthy, but too yielding, Cranmer to the flames, you stood your ground, and felt no fear; when the bloody Mary illuminated England with the flames of martyrs; when the perjured and horrid Jeffries rendered the circuit of his court like the path of the destroying angel, you, Gentlemen, never deviated from the path of justice, and no one impeached your conduct, entertained a suspicion of your integrity, or a thought prejudicial to your welfare.

As you have never swerved in storms of despotic fury or republican ferocity; as papal pride, episcopal power, independent arrogance, and libertine licentiousness, could never affect you; as you are always the same in the calm of peace and rage of war, the quietude of establishment and whirl of revolution, the night of anarchy and the noon of order, it is to such men as you I may safely look to patronize my work.

I have duly considered, Gentlemen, that you are not lawyers, though that class certainly excels all others in point of eloquence; and a real orator cannot be a bigot, though many of them are no incompetent judges of theological opinions and doctrines: yet, they are generally engaged in professional business, and have not leisure to divide their attention, or bestow their patronage on any side of a religious controversy. And I heartily wish that a less number of them were like Gallio, "who cared for none of these things." I am likewise consoled by the consideration that you are not popular men: "For," says Sir William Temple, come not too near to a man studying to rise in popular favour unless you can aid him in his grand object, lest you meet with a repulse." There may be, indeed, contrived a reciprocity of interest and obligation, and then you can advance with the proper overture, "Tililla me et titillabo te;"* then it will do. you, Gentlemen, are in pursuit of no man's favour, suffrage, influence, or patronage. You have seen, from the raised platform of solid reputation, numerous generations of ambitious men grasping for dominion,

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Tickle me, and I'll tickle you.

But

disappear, like insects swept into the lake, by the sudden wing of the tempest, while yourselves remain unmoved.

Moreover, you are not authors-from whom an author as rarely gets patronage as a hungry man does food from ravens; for, says Johnson, few things can be published, however exalted or mean, however contemptible or meritorious, however great or little, from which an author will not fancy some obstruction in some channel of his fame, some diminution of the splendour of his reputation. The public mind cannot be more than occupied, and, as each author hopes to seize a hemisphere at least, and some more, as you see, every new candidate for notice and applause must take, perhaps, a share from those that occupied it before; and great authors act on one another like the disturbing influences of the planets on the centre of gravity, by which it is often caused to vacillate. Well it is that some of them do not drag it beyond the orbit of Saturn. But you, Gentlemen, are no authors, homines viventes estis-and living men are you likely to remain. You have none of these low prejudices and selfish fears. You do not say of one excellent book, it is very well, but the author was a plagiarist; of another, it is dull and tedious, and not worth reading; of a third, it is written withability, but the sentiments are false; of a fourth, the author meant well, but his subject was badly handled: and so on to the hundredth, with a but to every one of them. Not but that there may, indeed, be such buts in reality, for most human things have a but; but all these buts of authors, are generally expounded by one, viz., but I am an author, which may properly be called the author's but.

Equal cause have I to rejoice, that you are not princes or nobles; in which case, among numerous candidates of patronage and favour, I should have cause to fear that one so obscure and remote might be overlooked, or, perhaps, easily outbid by skilful flattery, or, perhaps, by arguments more shining and solid, and motives addressed more home to the heart. Yet, when it is considered that any man of wealth has substantially the same ability to patronise books and literature that princes have, and, perhaps, fewer demands on their liberality in proportion to their ability, it is not to be doubted that a full share of princes have been patrons of learning.

I scarcely need say, that you, Gentlemen, are not clergymen, otherwise there would have been the greatest temerity and presumption in this dedication. Had you been clergymen, and upon a careful enumeration of your sides and angles had found them to be six, instead of threatening to prosecute the Investigator, as some clergymen, after counting up, have done, you would, perhaps, have done what would have been much worse-you would have taken no notice of it. It is with clergymen as with all other classes of men; some of them are very good men, and some are quite the other way, as you, in a life of several hundred years, must doubtless have observed. The good clergymen, which I hope, in some countries, bear some respectable proportion to the whole number, in a degree resemble the elect; they are mingled with a numerous class, from which no mortal eye can certainly distinguish them. Few men are viler in the sight of heaven, or more full of mischief among men, than an impious clergyman; and none have done more to obstruct the progress of truth, and the interests of religion, than this ill-fated class. They derive their extraordinary power, to this end, from their successful endeavours to establish a high reputation for piety and zeal: and you, Gentlemen, no doubt, well remember the time when Bonner and Gardner were gazed at and adored, by a deluded multitude, as saints next in holiness to the

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