The Preface.

Whatever country in the universe is meant by the Bee-Hive represented here, it is evident from what is said of its laws and constitution, and the glory, wealth, power, and industry of its inhabitants, that it must be a large, rich, and warlike nation that is happily governed by a limited monarchy. The satire, therefore, to be found in the following lines concerning the various professions and callings, and almost every rank and status of people, was not intended to harm or point to specific individuals, but only to show the vileness of the ingredients that together compose the wholesome mixture of a well-ordered society. This is done in order to praise the wonderful power of political wisdom, with the help of which so beautiful a machine is raised from the most contemptible branches. For the main design of the fable (as it is briefly explained in the Moral) is to show the impossibility of enjoying all the most elegant comforts of life found in an industrious, wealthy, and powerful nation, and at the same time being blessed with all the virtue and innocence that one could hope for in a Golden Age. It aims, therefore, to expose the unreasonableness and folly of those who, desiring to be an opulent and flourishing people and being wonderfully greedy for all the benefits they can receive as such, yet are always murmuring against and complaining about those vices and inconveniences which, from the beginning of the world to this present day, have been inseparable from all kingdoms and states that have ever