And therefore, in order to promote so useful a work, I will here take
leave to glance a few innuendos that may be of great assistance to
those sublime spirits who shall be appointed to labour in a universal
comment upon this wonderful discourse. And first, I have couched a very
profound mystery in the number of o's multiplied by seven and divided
by nine. Also, if a devout brother of the Rosy Cross will pray
fervently for sixty-three mornings with a lively faith, and then
transpose certain letters and syllables according to prescription, in
the second and fifth section they will certainly reveal into a full
receipt of the _opus magnum_. Lastly, whoever will be at the pains to
calculate the whole number of each letter in this treatise, and sum up
the difference exactly between the several numbers, assigning the true
natural cause for every such difference, the discoveries in the product
will plentifully reward his labour. But then he must beware of Bythus
and Sige, and be sure not to forget the qualities of Acamoth; _a cujus
lacrymis humecta prodit substantia, a risu lucida, a tristitia solida,
et a timore mobilis_, wherein Eugenius Philalethes[181] hath committed
an unpardonable mistake.
[Footnote 180: The bad critics.]
[Footnote 181: A name under which Thomas Vaughan wrote.]
XXX. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE POSTERITY.
The following is the famous dedication of _The Tale of a Tub_. The
description of "the tyranny of Time" was regarded by Goethe as one
of the finest passages in Swift's works.
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