I will not dispute whether or no there be any Intrinsic Value in a long Descent, or whether that be deriv’d from the necessity of a Subordination essential to Government, or else from the just Reward of Virtue, which ennobles all the Posterity of the Possessors of it, it being here a very useless Disquisition since Your Lordship’s Family is of so very high an Original that none can boast a greater Antiquity, and that Your Lordship is possest of all that Merit which first distinguish’d Man from Man, and gave a Preeminence to the Deserving. Among all the Excellencies which thus dignifie Your Lordship’s Character, perhaps there is none more eminent than Your Protection and Encouragement of Arts and Sciences, to which the _English_ World owe the incomparable Mr. _Lock_’s _Essays on Human Understanding_, and other Works extreamly beneficial to the Public. Neither do I in the least question but Your Lordship’s Protection of so excellent and useful an _Art_ as _Surgery_, will render it as flourishing here in _England_ as it is in any other part of the World. ’Tis true we are not wanting of some extraordinary Professors of that _Art_, but I could also heartily wish we had not a greater number of Bad, and yet perhaps the chief occasion of this may be the want of a due Method of Encouragement, by which the modest Endeavours of young Proficients are eclips’d, and which (to make a Comparison) like tender Plants, are nipp’d in the Bud and perish for want of Watering. Now as the want of Opportunity has been in some respect a prejudice to my Business, so also the want of Encouragement has in a great measure been a hindrance to this Work: For what regret of Mind must it needs occasion, to find none esteem’d but such as speak Experience in their Looks, and that Youth should be despis’d tho’ never so hopeful and industrious, meerly because of a particular number of Years, and what an interruption must it be to our painful Studies, to think that even the best Performances of this kind are contemn’d because they are chiefly a Collection, when on the contrary it is receiv’d as an establish’d Maxim, that such as Travel into Foreign Countries, are not only the most capable to describe them, but also whatsoever they relate is look’d upon as the sole matter of Fact and Truth, when many times Business is better transacted by Correspondence, and those that have been at the trouble, expence and danger of Travelling have come home no more improv’d than they went out, except in the Fashions and Levities of the Age, yet are we commonly so imprudent as to value Things meerly for their coming from a far and at a great deal of Expence; but whilst we admire those Novelties, we are often misled and deceiv’d by meer Fables and imaginary Stories of such Things as neither are, nor ever have been.