In the Preface to A Tale of a Tub (1704), Swift finds a classic way to define the kind of writing that is not classic and the kind of reading that should properly accompany it. Shadowing this passage is Cicero’s declaration in De re publica (The Republic) of the unchanging and everlasting law of right reason. In place of law, Swift gives us modern wit which, we are told, does not travel well. Even ‘the smallest Transposal or Misapplication’ can annihilate it (PW 1.26). Some jests are only comprehensible at Covent-Garden, some at Hyde-Park Corner. All the universal truths about modernity are sourced in its provinciality.