Hieroglyphic Tales | Page 2

indulging their curiosity any farther at present; but I shall take care
to leave so minute an account of myself to some public library, that the
future commentators and editors of this work shall not be deprived of
all necessary lights. In the mean time I beg the reader to accept the
temporary compensation of an account of the author whose work I am
publishing.

The Hieroglyphic Tales were undoubtedly written a little before the
creation of the world, and have ever since been preserved, by oral
tradition, in the mountains of Crampcraggiri, an uninhabited island, not
yet discovered. Of these few facts we could have the most authentic
attestations of several clergymen, who remember to have heard them
repeated by old men long before they, the said clergymen, were born.
We do not trouble the reader with these attestations, as we are sure
every body will believe them as much as if they had seen them. It is
more difficult to ascertain the true author. We might ascribe them with
great probability to Kemanrlegorpikos, son of Quat; but besides that we
are not certain that any such person ever existed, it is not clear that he
ever wrote any thing but a book of cookery, and that in heroic verse.
Others give them to Quat's nurse, and a few to Hermes Trismegistus,
though there is a passage in the latter's treatise on the harpsichord
which directly contradicts the account of the first volcano in the 114th.
of the Hieroglyphic Tales. As Trismegistus's work is lost, it is
impossible to decide now whether the discordance mentioned is so
positive as has been asserted by many learned men, who only guess at
the opinion of Hermes from other passages in his writings, and who
indeed are not sure whether he was speaking of volcanoes or
cheesecakes, for he drew so ill, that his hieroglyphics may often be
taken for the most opposite things in nature; and as there is no subject
which he has not treated, it is not precisely known what he was
discussing in any one of them.
This is the nearest we can come to any certainty with regard to the
author. But whether he wrote the Tales six thousand years ago, as we
believe, or whether they were written for him within these ten years,
they are incontestably the most ancient work in the world; and though
there is little imagination, and still less invention in them; yet there are
so many passages in them exactly resembling Homer, that any man
living would conclude they were imitated from that great poet, if it was
not certain that Homer borrowed from them, which I shall prove two
ways: first, by giving Homer's parallel passages at the bottom of the
page; and secondly, by translating Homer himself into prose, which
shall make him so unlike himself, that nobody will think he could be an
original writer: and when he is become totally lifeless and insipid, it

will be impossible but these Tales should be preferred to the Iliad;
especially as I design to put them into a kind of style that shall be
neither verse nor prose; a diction lately much used in tragedies and
heroic poems, the former of which are really heroic poems from want
of probability, as an antico-moderno epic poem is in fact a meer
tragedy, having little or no change of scene, no incidents but a ghost
and a storm, and no events but the deaths of the principal actors.
I will not detain the reader longer from the perusal of this invaluable
work; but I must beseech the public to be expeditious in taking off the
whole impression, as fast as I can get it printed; because I must inform
them that I have a more precious work in contemplation; namely, a new
Roman history, in which I mean to ridicule, detect and expose, all
ancient virtue, and patriotism, and shew from original papers which I
am going to write, and which I shall afterwards bury in the ruins of
Carthage and then dig up, that it appears by the letters of Hanno the
Punic embassador at Rome, that Scipio was in the pay of Hannibal, and
that the dilatoriness of Fabius proceeded from his being a pensioner of
the Same general. I own this discovery will pierce my heart; but as
morality is best taught by shewing how little effect it had on the best of
men, I will sacrifice the most virtuous names for the instruction of the
present wicked generation; and I cannot doubt but when once they have
learnt to detest the favourite heroes of antiquity, they will become good
subjects of the most pious king that ever lived since David, who
expelled the established royal family, and then sung psalms