THE

Present State

OF

WIT,

IN A

LETTER

TO A

Friend in the Country.

LONDON:

Printed in the Year, MDCCXI.

(Price 3d.)

203

THE

Present State

SIR,

OF

WIT, & c.

Ou acquaint me in your last, that you are still so busy building at, that your friends must not hope to see you in Town this year at the same time, you desire me, that you may not be quite at a loss in conversation among the beau monde next winter, to send you an account of the present State of Wit in Town: which, without further preface, I shall endeavour to perform; and give you the histories and characters of all our Periodical Papers, whether monthly, weekly, or diurnal, with the same freedom I used to send you our other Town

news.

I shall only premise, that, as you know, I never cared one farthing, either for Whig or Tory: so I shall consider our Writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which Party they belong.

Dr. KING has, for some time, lain down his monthly Philosophical Transactions, which the title-page informed us at first, were only to be continued as they sold; and though that gentleman has a world of Wit, yet as it lies in one particular way of raillery, the Town soon grew weary of his Writings: though I cannot but think that their author deserves a much better fate than to languish out the small remainder of his life in the Fleet prison.