A Tale Of A Tub

This chapter covers a basic summary of what Swift will discuss in the treatise. Swift provides a humorous and satirical list written in Old English.

This letter, included at the beginning of the book, is a dedication to John Lord Somers written by the Bookseller. Somers was an English jurist and politician from the Whig party, who eventually become Lord High Chancellor. He published tracts concerning succession and was a believer that only Protestants could sit on the English throne. He also had a literary background. It's possible the Bookseller chose to dedicate this letter and the book to Lord Somers because the Lord High Chancellor was one of the most powerful men in the English government. He may also have wanted monetary support for publishing. 

However, by the third paragraph of this letter, it is apparent that the Bookseller is also being facetious. Discussing the work about to be read, he writes: “For upon the covers of these papers I casually observed written in large letters the two following words, DETUR DIGNISSIMO, which for aught I knew, might contain some important meaning” (7). He employs Latin—a phrase that even his translators, who never knew Latin to begin with, do not know how to translate.