But after all our boasts of materials, sent us by our several emissaries, we may probably soon fall short, if the town will not be pleased to lend us further assistance toward entertaining itself.  The world best knows its own faults and virtues, and whatever is sent shall be faithfully returned back, only a little embellished according to the custom of authors.  We do therefore demand and expect continual advertisements in great numbers, to be sent to the printer of this paper, who hath employed a judicious secretary to collect such as may be most useful for the public.

And although we do not intend to expose our own persons by mentioning names, yet we are so far from requiring the same caution in our correspondents, that on the contrary, we expressly charge and command them, in all the facts they send us, to set down the names, titles, and places of abode at length; together with a very particular description of the persons, dresses, and dispositions of the several lords, ladies, squires, madams, lawyers, gamesters, toupees, sots, wits, rakes, and informers, whom they shall have occasion to mention; otherwise it will not be possible for us to adjust our style to the different qualities, and capacities of the persons concerned, and treat them with the respect or familiarity, that may be due to their stations and characters, which we are determined to observe with the utmost strictness, that none may have cause to complain.

[Footnote 1:  In the “Contents” to both the editions of 1729 and 1730, this is called “Introduction.”  Each of the numbers has a special title in this table, as follows: 

No.  I. Introduction. 
II.  The Inhospitable Temper of ’Squire Wether. 
III.  A Vindication of Mr. Gay, and the Beggar’s Opera. 
IV.  The Folly of Gaming. 
V. A Description of what the World calls Discretion. 
VI.  A Representation of the Present Condition of Ireland. 
VII.  The Character of Corusodes and Eugenio. 
VIII.  A Dialogue between Mullinix and Timothy. 
IX.  The foolish Methods of Education among the Nobility. 
X. Tim and Gay’s Fables. 
XI.  Proposals in Prose and Verse for, An Universal View of all the
eminent Writers on the Holy Scriptures, &c. 
XII.  Sir Ralph the Patriot turned Courtier. 
XIII.  The Art of Story-Telling. 
XIV.  Prometheus’s Art of Man-making:  And the Tale of the T—­d. 
XV.  The Services the Drapier has done his Country, and the Steps taken to
ruin it. 
XVI.  The Adventures of the three Brothers, George, Patrick, and Andrew. 
XVII.  The Marks of Ireland’s Poverty, shewn to be evident Proofs of its
Riches. 
XVIII.  St. Andrew’s Day, and the Drapier’s Birth-Day. 
XIX.  The Hardships of the Irish being deprived of their Silver, and
decoyed into America.
[XX.  Dean Smedley, gone to seek his Fortune. 
The Pheasant and the Lark.  A Fable.]-[T.S.]]

[Footnote 2:  A fashionable card game of the time.  See also Swift’s poem, “The Journal of a Modern Lady” (Aldine edition, vol. i., pp. 214-23), and “A New Proposal for the better regulation ... of Quadrille,” written by Dr. Josiah Hort, Bp. of Kilmore, in 1735/6 (afterwards Abp. of Tuam), and included by Scott in his edition of Swift (vii. 372-7). [T.S.]]