THIS celebrated Satirical Romance has extended the name and the reputation of its author to nations who might never have heard of the favourite of Lord Oxford, the champion of the Church of England, or even the protector of the liberties of Ireland. The first sketch of the work occurs in the proposed Travels of Martinus Scriblerus,* devised in that agreeable society
Pope has not forgotten to intimate this in the concluding chapter of the Memoirs of Scriblerus. "It was in the year 1699 that Martin set out on his travels. Thou wilt certainly be very curious to know what they were. not yet time to inform thee. But what hints I am at liberty to give, I will. "Thou shalt know then, that, in his first voyage, he was carried by a prosperous storm to a discovery of the remains of the ancient Pygmæan empire. "That, in his second, he was happily shipwrecked on the land of the Giants, now the most humane people in the world.
"That, in his third voyage, he discovered a whole kingdom of philosophers, who govern by the mathematics; with whose admirable schemes and projects he returned to benefit his own dear country; but had the misfortune to find them rejected by the envious ministers of Queen Anne, and himself sent treacherously away.
"And hence it is, that, in his fourth voyage, he discovers a vein of melancholy proceeding almost to a disgust of the species; but, above all, a mortal detestation to the whole flagitious race of ministers, and a final resolution not to give in any memorial to the Secretary of State, in order to subject the lands he discovered to the Crown of Great Britain.
"Now, if, by these hints, the reader can help himself to a farther discovery of the nature and contents of these Travels, he is welcome to as much light as they afford him: I am obliged, by all the ties of honour, not to speak more openly.
"But if any man shall see such very extraordinary voyages, into such very extraordinary nations, which manifest the most distinguishing marks of a