SHENSTONE-GREEN. I CHA P. I. THE PROPRIETOR'S PREFACE. AM fitting down to write a book for the use of all those projectors who build towns upon poetical principles. No man is better qualified, as far as experience goes, to fet this matter in a properer light than myself, because I have wafted more brick, mortar, and money, than any other individual in Europe. Let him who hath feen, judge; and let him point point out proprieties to others who hath bitterly felt his own folly. It is on this principle that I fhall circumftantially relate certain pleasantries which coft me many years of my time, and many thoufand pounds of my money. Not that this work will be generally useful; for, luckily, more of my readers erect houses for themselves than for others; and there is no danger of its ever becoming a fashion tỏ ruin oneself by a good intention. Benevolence is in these days a tolerable oeconomist-as prudent a lady as could be well defired in a family-and we have nothing to fear from the influence of exceffive virtues. The nation will never be deftroyed that way. Praise, Praise, therefore, to the difcreet qualities of the age, my warning will be only for a few, and thofe chiefly a fet of fimpletons who work up their hearts to a warmth that mounts into the brain, and brings on the convulfions of fympathy. Such hath been my disorder. It is to you, ye gentle beings, whose bofoms are fraught with foreign woes; whose weeping eyes and milky tempers render you the flaves rather than the friends of virtue: to you I address the fentiments and the adventures of a man who was arrogant enough to suppose he could make human creatures live FOR rather than UPON one another. Yes, I am the man who hath attempted this. The fuccefs or mifcarB 2 riage |