The general purpose of this paper, is to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour.  No man has a better judgment for the discovery, or a nobler spirit for the contempt of such impostures, than your self; which qualities render you the most proper patron for the author of these essays.  In the general, the design, however executed, has met with so great success, that there is hardly a name now eminent among us for power, wit, beauty, valour, or wisdom, which is not subscribed, for the encouragement of the two volumes in octavo, on a royal or medium paper.[54] This is indeed an honour, for which it is impossible to express a suitable gratitude; and there is nothing could be an addition to the pleasure I take in it, but the reflection that it gives me the most conspicuous occasion I can ever have, of subscribing myself,

Sir,

Your most obliged, most obedient, and most humble Servant,

ISAAC BICKERSTAFF.

[Footnote 43:  This Preface was originally prefixed to the fourth volume of the collected edition issued in 1710-11.]

[Footnote 44:  No. 238.]

[Footnote 45:  No. 9.]

[Footnote 46:  See No. 11.]

[Footnote 47:  No. 193.]

[Footnote 48:  Addison.]

[Footnote 49:  Nos. 153, 18, 42, 220.]

[Footnote 50:  Benjamin Hoadly, afterwards Bishop of Bangor, Salisbury, and Winchester, successively, was in 1709 engaged in controversy with Dr. Francis Atterbury, who represented the high-church party.  George Smalridge, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, was a Jacobite.]

[Footnote 51:  See Nos. 72, 114.]

[Footnote 52:  Arthur Maynwaring was descended from the ancient family of the Maynwarings of Over Peover, Cheshire.  He was born in 1668, at Ightfield, Shropshire, and was educated at the Shrewsbury Grammar School and at Christ Church, Oxford, where Smalridge was his tutor.  Filled with prejudices against the Revolution, he came to London to study law, but a political satire which he published brought him under Dryden’s notice, and the kind reception given him by several Whig statesmen, to whom he was introduced, caused him to change his views on politics, and after his father’s death in 1693 he gave up the law and determined to push his fortunes at the Court.  He was made a Commissioner of Customs and afterwards Auditor of the Imprests.  He was admitted to the Kit-Cat Club, and in 1706 the interest of Godolphin procured him a seat in the House of Commons.  Upon the fall of the Whig ministry in 1710, Maynwaring set up the Medley, a weekly paper in which the attacks of the Examiner were answered, and wrote various political pamphlets.  But his health soon broke down, and he died in November, 1712.  Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, was the sole executrix of his will, by which he divided his small property