Where we are to look for our author, it still remains to be considered; whether in the high road of publick employments, or the by-paths of private life.

It has always been observed of those that frequent a court, that they soon, by a kind of contagion, catch the regal spirit of neglecting futurity.  The minister forms an expedient to suspend, or perplex, an inquiry into his measures, for a few months, and applauds and triumphs in his own dexterity.  The peer puts off his creditor for the present day, and forgets that he is ever to see him more.  The frown of a prince, and the loss of a pension, have, indeed, been found of wonderful efficacy to abstract men’s thoughts from the present time, and fill them with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to come.  But, I am inclined to think more favourably of the author of this prediction, than that he was made a patriot by disappointment or disgust.  If he ever saw a court, I would willingly believe, that he did not owe his concern for posterity to his ill reception there, but his ill reception there to his concern for posterity.

However, since truth is the same in the mouth of a hermit, or a prince, since it is not reason, but weakness, that makes us rate counsel by our esteem for the counsellor, let us, at length, desist from this inquiry, so useless in itself, in which we have room to hope for so little satisfaction.  Let us show our gratitude to the author, by answering his intentions, by considering minutely the lines which he has left us, and examining their import without heat, precipitancy, or party-prejudices; let us endeavour to keep the just mean, between searching, ambitiously, for far-fetched interpretations, and admitting such low meaning, and obvious and low sense, as is inconsistent with those great and extensive views, which it is reasonable to ascribe to this excellent man.

It may be yet further asked, whether this inscription, which appears in the stone, be an original, and not rather a version of a traditional prediction, in the old British tongue, which the zeal of some learned man prompted him to translate and engrave, in a more known language, for the instruction of future ages:  but, as the lines carry, at the first view, a reference both to the stone itself, and, very remarkably, to the place where it was found, I cannot see any foundation for such a suspicion.

It remains, now, that we examine the sense and import of the inscription, which, after having long dwelt upon it, with the closest and most laborious attention, I must confess myself not yet able fully to comprehend.  The following explications, therefore, are, by no means, laid down as certain and indubitable truths, but as conjectures not always wholly satisfactory, even to myself, and which I had not dared to propose to so enlightened an age, an age which abounds with those great ornaments of human nature, skepticks, antimoralists, and infidels, but with hopes that they would excite some person of greater abilities, to penetrate further into the oraculous obscurity of this wonderful prediction.