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With the history of animals they should be showed anatomy as a divertisement, and made to know the figures and natures of those creatures which are not common among us, disabusing them at the same time of those errors which are universally admitted concerning many. The same method should be used to make them acquainted with all plants; and to this must be added a little of the ancient and modern geography, the understanding of the globes, and the principles of geometry and astronomy. They should likewise use to declaim in Latin and English, as the Romans did in Greek and Latin; and in all this travail be rather led on by familiarity, encouragement, and emulation, than driven by severity, punishment, and terror. Upon festivals and playtimes, they should exercise themselves in the fields, by riding, leaping, fencing, mustering, and training, after the manner of soldiers, &c. And, to prevent all dangers and all disorder, there should always be two of the scholars with them, to be as witnesses and directors of their actions; in foul weather, it would not be amiss for them to learn to dance, that is, to learn just so much (for all beyond is superfluous, if not worse) as may give them a graceful comportment of their bodies.

Upon Sundays, and all days of devotion, they are to be a part of the chaplain's province.

That, for all these ends, the college so order it, as that there may be some convenient and pleasant houses thereabouts, kept by religious, discreet, and careful persons, for the lodging and boarding of young scholars; that they have a constant eye over them, to see that they be bred up there

piously, cleanly, and plentifully, according to the proportion of the parents' expenses.

And that the college, when it shall please God, either by their own industry and success, or by the benevolence of patrons, to enrich them so far, as that it may come to their turn and duty to be charitable to others, shall, at their own charges, erect and maintain some house or houses for the

entertainment of such poor men's sons, whose good natural parts may promise either use or ornament to the commonwealth, during the time of their abode at school; and shall take care that it shall be done with the same conveniences as are enjoyed even by rich men's children (though they maintain the fewer for that cause), there being nothing of eminent and illustrious to be expected from a low, sordid, and hospital-like education.

CONCLUSION.

IF I be not much abused by a natural fondness to my own conceptions (that ropyn of the Greeks, which no other language has a proper word for), there was never any project thought upon, which deserves to meet with so few adversaries as this; for who can without impudent folly oppose the establishment of twenty well-selected persons in such a condition of life, that their whole business and sole profession may be to study the improvement and advantage of all other professions, from that of the highest general even to the lowest artisan? who shall be obliged to employ their whole time, wit, learning, and industry, to these four, the most useful that can be imagined, and to no other ends; first, to weigh, examine, and

prove, all things of nature delivered to us by former ages; to detect, explode, and strike a censure through, all false monies with which the world has been paid and cheated so long: and (as I may say) to set the mark of the college upon all true coins, that they may pass hereafter without any further trial: secondly, to recover the lost inventions, and, as it were, drowned lands of the ancients thirdly, to improve all arts which we now have and lastly, to discover others which we yet have not: and who shall, besides all this (as a benefit by the by), give the best education in the world (purely gratis) to as many men's children as shall think fit to make use of the obligation? Neither does it at all check or interfere with any parties in a state or religion; but is indifferently to be embraced by all differences in opinion, and can hardly be conceived capable (as many good institutions have done) even of degeneration into any thing harmful. So that, all things considered, I will suppose this proposition shall encounter with no enemies: the only question is, whether it will find friends enough to carry it on from discourse and design to reality and effect; the necessary expenses of the beginning (for it will maintain itself well enough afterwards) being so great (though I have set them as low as is possible, in order to so vast a work), that it may seem hopeless to raise such a sum out of those few dead relics of human charity and public generosity which are yet remaining in the world,

PREFACE

TO THE

CUTTER OF COLEMAN STREET.

A COMEDY, called the Guardian, and made by me when I was very young, was acted formerly at Cambridge; and several times after, privately, during the troubles, as I am told, with good approbation, as it has been lately too at Dublin. There being many things in it which I disliked, and finding myself for some days idle, and alone in the country, I fell upon the changing of it almost wholly, as now it is, and as it was played since at his Royal Highness's theatre.under this new name. It met at the first representation with no favourable reception; and I think there was something of faction against it, by the early appearance of some men's disapprobation before they had seen enough of it to build their dislike upon their judgment. Afterwards it got some ground, and found friends, as well as adversaries. In which condition I should willingly let it die, if the main imputation under which it suffered had been shot only against my wit or art in these matters, and not directed against the tenderest parts of human reputation, good-nature, good-manners, and piety itself.

The first clamour, which some malicious persons raised, and made a great noise with, was, that it was a piece intended for abuse and satire against the King's party. Good God! against the King's party? After having served it twenty years, during all the time of their misfortunes and afflictions; I must be a very rash and imprudent per-,

son, if I chose out that of their restitution to begin a quarrel with them. I must be too much a madman to be trusted with such an edged tool as comedy. But first, why should either the whole party (as it was once distinguished by that name, which I hope is abolished now by universal loyalty), or any man of virtue or honour in it, believe themselves injured, or at all concerned, by the representation of the faults and follies of a few, who in the general division of the nation had crowded in among them? In all mixed numbers (which is the case of parties), nay, in the most entire and continued bodies, there are often some degenerated and corrupted parts, which may be cast away from that, and even cut off from this unity, without any infection of scandal to the remaining body. The church of Rome, with all her arrogance, and her wide pretences of certainty in all truths, and exemption from all errors, does not clap on this enchanted armour of infallibility upon all her particular subjects, nor is offended at the reproof of her greatest doctors. We are not, I hope, become such Puritans ourselves, as to assume the name of the congregation of the spotless. It is hard for any party to be so ill as that no good, impossible to be so good as that no ill, should be found among them. And it has been the perpetual privilege of satire and comedy, to pluck their vices and follies, though not their persons, out of the sanctuary of any title. A cowardly ranting soldier, an ignorant charlatanical doctor, a foolish cheating lawyer, a silly pedantical scholar, have always been, and still are, the principal subjects of all comedies, without any scandal given to those honourable professions, or even taken by their severest professors. And, if any good physician or divine should be offended with me here, for inveighing against a quack, or for

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