A Voyage to Lethe

I KNOW not any thing that more enlarges the mind of man than voyages. They are not only of absolute use in opening a commerce with our fellow inhabitants of the globe, but by exhibiting a stupendous variety of heavens and earth, men and beasts, birds and fishes, they shew the Deity in the most awful and striking light. I make no doubt but there is an irresistable princi- ple in man, like that of propagation, which urges him on to these undertakings, or he could never rise superior to the various hardships and dangers, the various miseries and misfortunes, he has to encounter with in the pursuit of them. Curiosity, glory, interest, conspire to form a common spring to actuate the adventurer; and the reception the world has given to relations of this nature, sufficiently shew they are far from being disagreeable to the taste of a modern reader. According to the learned Doctor Burnet in his sacred theory, the earth before the flood was of an even surface, having no mountains, rivers, or othe»- waters than what came down from above, and con- sequently we' must not expect to hear of voyages from Adam to Noah ; which however I think a mis- take, and without entering deeply into the matter, or designing to insult the ashes of that great man, I will venture to assert the contrary, namely, that many voyages were made to Lethe during that Antediluvian period. Considering then the numberless voyages have been made thither, from the beginning of the world to this day, by all ranks and sexes, of what country soever, it is somewhat wonderful we have not had one written relation from Greek or Roman, ancient or modern, which latter it must be own'd has been particularly fertile in voyage writing. My very good friend indeed Captain Gulliver, I am credibly inform'd, was solicited some years ago, by a very great man, to oblige the learned world with an accurate journal to Lethe ; but from a distaste he took in a voyage he once made thither, having lost his ship on the coast, he declin'd the undertaking, which one would think should rather have been an inducement to it. How ever that be, his noncompliance was certainly a great loss to the public, which I have nevertheless endeavour'd tQ supply in the best manner I am able, and have the vanity to think myself not altogether unequal to the task, as repeated voyages have made me perfectly acquainted with every rock, shoal, bay, and creek on the coast