Hieroglyphic Tales Read online

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  [Transcriber's Note: Archaic spellings in the original text have beenretained in this version.]

  HIEROGLYPHIC TALES.

  _Schah Baham ne comprenoit jamais bien que les choses absurdes & hors detoute vraisemblance._

  Le Sopha, p. 5.

  STRAWBERRY-HILL: PRINTED BY T. KIRGATE, MDCCLXXXV.

  PREFACE.

  As the invaluable present I am making to the world may not please alltastes, from the gravity of the matter, the solidity of the reasoning,and the deep learning contained in the ensuing sheets, it is necessaryto make some apology for producing this work in so trifling an age, whennothing will go down but temporary politics, personal satire, and idleromances. The true reason then for my surmounting all these objectionswas singly this: I was apprehensive lest the work should be lost toposterity; and though it may be condemned at present, I can have nodoubt but it will be treated with due reverence some hundred ages hence,when wisdom and learning shall have gained their proper ascendant overmankind, and when men shall only read for instruction and improvement oftheir minds. As I shall print an hundred thousand copies, some, it maybe hoped, will escape the havoc that is made of moral works, and thenthis jewel will shine forth in its genuine lustre. I was in the greaterhurry to consign this work to the press, as I foresee that the art ofprinting will ere long be totally lost, like other useful discoverieswell known to the ancients. Such were the art of dissolving rocks withhot vinegar, of teaching elephants to dance on the slack rope, of makingmalleable glass, of writing epic poems that any body would read afterthey had been published a month, and the stupendous invention of newreligions, a secret of which illiterate Mahomet was the last personpossessed.

  Notwithstanding this my zeal for good letters, and the ardour of myuniversal citizenship, (for I declare I design this present for allnations) there are some small difficulties in the way, that prevent myconferring this my great benefaction on the world compleatly and all atonce. I am obliged to produce it in small portions, and therefore begthe prayers of all good and wise men that my life may be prolonged tome, till I shall be able to publish the whole work, no man else beingcapable of executing the charge so well as myself, for reasons that mymodesty will not permit me to specify. In the mean time, as it is theduty of an editor to acquaint the world with what relates to himself aswell as his author, I think it right to mention the causes that compelme to publish this work in numbers. The common reason of such proceedingis to make a book dearer for the ease of the purchasers, it beingsupposed that most people had rather give twenty shillings by sixpence afortnight, than pay ten shillings once for all. Public spirited as thisproceeding is, I must confess my reasons are more and merely personal.As my circumstances are very moderate, and barely sufficient to maintaindecently a gentleman of my abilities and learning, I cannot afford toprint at once an hundred thousand copies of two volumes in folio, forthat will be the whole mass of Hieroglyphic Tales when the work isperfected. In the next place, being very asthmatic, and requiring a freecommunication of air, I lodge in the uppermost story of a house in analley not far from St. Mary Axe; and as a great deal of good companylodges in the same mansion, it was by a considerable favour that I couldobtain a single chamber to myself; which chamber is by no means largeenough to contain the whole impression, for I design to vend the copiesmyself, and, according to the practice of other great men, shall signthe first sheet my self with my own hand.

  Desirous as I am of acquainting the world with many more circumstancesrelative to myself, some private considerations prevent my indulgingtheir curiosity any farther at present; but I shall take care to leaveso minute an account of myself to some public library, that the futurecommentators and editors of this work shall not be deprived of allnecessary lights. In the mean time I beg the reader to accept thetemporary compensation of an account of the author whose work I ampublishing.

  The Hieroglyphic Tales were undoubtedly written a little before thecreation of the world, and have ever since been preserved, by oraltradition, in the mountains of Crampcraggiri, an uninhabited island,not yet discovered. Of these few facts we could have the most authenticattestations of several clergymen, who remember to have heard themrepeated by old men long before they, the said clergymen, were born.We do not trouble the reader with these attestations, as we are sureevery body will believe them as much as if they had seen them. It is moredifficult to ascertain the true author. We might ascribe them with greatprobability to Kemanrlegorpikos, son of Quat; but besides that we arenot certain that any such person ever existed, it is not clear that heever wrote any thing but a book of cookery, and that in heroic verse.Others give them to Quat's nurse, and a few to Hermes Trismegistus,though there is a passage in the latter's treatise on the harpsichordwhich directly contradicts the account of the first volcano in the114th. of the Hieroglyphic Tales. As Trismegistus's work is lost, itis impossible to decide now whether the discordance mentioned is sopositive as has been asserted by many learned men, who only guess at theopinion of Hermes from other passages in his writings, and who indeedare not sure whether he was speaking of volcanoes or cheesecakes, forhe drew so ill, that his hieroglyphics may often be taken for the mostopposite things in nature; and as there is no subject which he has nottreated, it is not precisely known what he was discussing in any oneof them.

  This is the nearest we can come to any certainty with regard to theauthor. But whether he wrote the Tales six thousand years ago, as webelieve, or whether they were written for him within these ten years,they are incontestably the most ancient work in the world; and thoughthere is little imagination, and still less invention in them; yet thereare so many passages in them exactly resembling Homer, that any manliving would conclude they were imitated from that great poet, if it wasnot certain that Homer borrowed from them, which I shall prove two ways:first, by giving Homer's parallel passages at the bottom of the page;and secondly, by translating Homer himself into prose, which shall makehim so unlike himself, that nobody will think he could be an originalwriter: and when he is become totally lifeless and insipid, it will beimpossible but these Tales should be preferred to the Iliad; especiallyas I design to put them into a kind of style that shall be neither versenor prose; a diction lately much used in tragedies and heroic poems, theformer of which are really heroic poems from want of probability, as anantico-moderno epic poem is in fact a meer tragedy, having little or nochange of scene, no incidents but a ghost and a storm, and no events butthe deaths of the principal actors.

  I will not detain the reader longer from the perusal of this invaluablework; but I must beseech the public to be expeditious in taking off thewhole impression, as fast as I can get it printed; because I must informthem that I have a more precious work in contemplation; namely, a newRoman history, in which I mean to ridicule, detect and expose, allancient virtue, and patriotism, and shew from original papers whichI am going to write, and which I shall afterwards bury in the ruins ofCarthage and then dig up, that it appears by the letters of Hanno thePunic embassador at Rome, that Scipio was in the pay of Hannibal, andthat the dilatoriness of Fabius proceeded from his being a pensionerof the Same general. I own this discovery will pierce my heart; but asmorality is best taught by shewing how little effect it had on the bestof men, I will sacrifice the most virtuous names for the instruction ofthe present wicked generation; and I cannot doubt but when once theyhave learnt to detest the favourite heroes of antiquity, they willbecome good subjects of the most pious king that ever lived since David,who expelled the established royal family, and then sung psalms to thememory of Jonathan, to whose prejudice he had succeeded to the throne.