It is more difficult to know what can be done with the ladies of the pen, of whom this age has produced greater numbers than any former time.  It is, indeed, common for women to follow the camp, but no prudent general will allow them in such numbers as the breed of authoresses would furnish.  Authoresses are seldom famous for clean linen, therefore, they cannot make laundresses; they are rarely skilful at their needle, and cannot mend a soldier’s shirt; they will make bad sutlers, being not much accustomed to eat.  I must, therefore, propose, that they shall form a regiment of themselves, and garrison the town which is supposed to be in most danger of a French invasion.  They will, probably, have no enemies to encounter; but, if they are once shut up together, they will soon disencumber the publick by tearing out the eyes of one another.

The great art of life is to play for much, and to stake little; which rule I have kept in view through this whole project; for, if our authors and authoresses defeat our enemies, we shall obtain all the usual advantages of victory; and, if they should be destroyed in war, we shall lose only those who had wearied the publick, and whom, whatever be their fate, nobody will miss.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] From the Universal Visiter, April, 1756.

[2] Dodsley’s Muse in Livery was composed under these circumstances. 
    Boswell’s Life, ii.

PREFACE TO THE LITERARY MAGAZINE, 1756.

TO THE PUBLICK.

There are some practices which custom and prejudice have so unhappily influenced, that to observe or neglect them is equally censurable.  The promises made by the undertakers of any new design, every man thinks himself at liberty to deride, and yet every man expects, and expects with reason, that he who solicits the publick attention, should give some account of his pretensions.

We are about to exhibit to our countrymen a new monthly collection, to which the well-deserved popularity of the first undertaking of this kind, has now made it almost necessary to prefix the name of Magazine.  There are, already, many such periodical compilations, of which we do not envy the reception, nor shall dispute the excellence.  If the nature of things would allow us to indulge our wishes, we should desire to advance our own interest, without lessening that of any other; and to excite the curiosity of the vacant, rather than withdraw that which other writers have already engaged.

Our design is to give the history, political and literary, of every month; and our pamphlets must consist, like other collections, of many articles unconnected and independent on each other.