Most of our modern Prefaces savour very strongly of the Egotism.  Every insignificant Author fancies it of Importance to the World, to know that he writ his Book in the Country, that he did it to pass away some of his idle Hours, that it was published at the Importunity of Friends, or that his natural Temper, Studies or Conversations, directed him to the Choice of his Subject.

  ‘—­Id populus curat scilicet.’

Such Informations cannot but be highly improving to the Reader.

In Works of Humour, especially when a Man writes under a fictitious Personage, the talking of one’s self may give some Diversion to the Publick; but I would advise every other Writer never to speak of himself, unless there be something very considerable in his Character:  Tho’ I am sensible this Rule will be of little Use in the World, because there is no Man who fancies his Thoughts worth publishing, that does not look upon himself as a considerable Person.

I shall close this Paper with a Remark upon such as are Egotists in Conversation:  These are generally the vain or shallow part of Mankind, People being naturally full of themselves when they have nothing else in them.  There is one kind of Egotists which is very common in the World, tho’ I do not remember that any Writer has taken Notice of them; I mean those empty conceited Fellows, who repeat as Sayings of their own, or some of their particular Friends, several Jests which were made before they were born, and which every one who has conversed in the World has heard a hundred times over.  A forward young Fellow of my Acquaintance was very guilty of this Absurdity:  He would be always laying a new Scene for some old Piece of Wit, and telling us, That as he and Jack such-a-one were together, one or t’other of them had such a Conceit on such an Occasion; upon which he would laugh very heartily, and wonder the Company did not join with him.  When his Mirth was over, I have often reprehended him out of Terence, Tuumne, obsecro te, hoc dictum erat? vetus credidi.  But finding him still incorrigible, and having a Kindness for the young Coxcomb, who was otherwise a good-natured Fellow, I recommended to his Perusal the Oxford and Cambridge Jests, with several little Pieces of Pleasantry of the same Nature.  Upon the reading of them, he was under no small Confusion to find that all his Jokes had passed through several Editions, and that what he thought was a new Conceit, and had appropriated to his own Use, had appeared in Print before he or his ingenious Friends were ever heard of.  This had so good an Effect upon him, that he is content at present to pass for a Man of plain Sense in his ordinary Conversation, and is never facetious but when he knows his Company.

[Footnote 1:  Essay 2.]

* * * * *

No. 563.  Monday, July 5, 1714.

  ‘—­Magni nominis Umbra—­’

  Lucan.