_Well, well! if I seem mystical or tyrannical; whether I be a fool or a Lord's-Ingle; all's one! If you be angry, you are not well advised! I will tell you, it is an Indian humour I have snuffed up from Divine Tobacco! and it is most gentlemanlike, to puff it out at any place or person!_ _I'll no_ Epistle! _It were worse than one of HERCULES' labours! but will conclude honesty is a man's best virtue. And but for the Lord Mayor and the two Sheriffs, the Inns of Court, and many Gallants elsewhere, this last year might have been burned! As for MOMUS (carp and bark who will!), if the_ noble Ass _bray not, I am as good a Knight Poet, as_ Ætatis suæ, _Master_ An. Dom.'s _son-in-law._ _Let your critic look to the rowels of his spurs, the pad of his saddle, and the jerk of his wand! then let him ride me and my rhymes down, as hotly as he would. I care not! We shall meet and be friends again, with the breaking of a spear or two! and who would do less, for a fair Lady?_ _There I leave you, where you shall ever find me!_ * * * * * _Passionate DAIPHANTUS, your loving subject, Gives you to understand, he is a_ Man in Print, _and it is enough he hath undergone a Pressing, though for your sakes and for Ladies: protesting for this poor infant of his brain, as it was the price of his virginity, born into the world with tears: so (but for a many his dear friends that took much pains for it) it had died, and never been laughed at! and that if Truth have wrote less than Fiction; yet it is better to err in Knowledge than in Judgement! Also, if he have caught up half a line of any other's, it was out of his memory, not of any ignorance!_ _Why he dedicates it to All, and not to any Particular, as his Mistress or so? His answer is, He is better born, than to creep into women's favours, and ask their leave afterwards._ _Also he desireth you to help to correct such errors of the Printer, which (because the Author is dead, or was out of the City) hath been committed. And it was his folly, or the Stationer's, you had not an_ Epistle _to the purpose._ _Thus like a lover, wooes he for your favour; Which, if you grant, then_ Omnia vincit Amor. [Illustration] _DAIPHANTUS._ Proem [Illustration] I sing the old World in an infant story! I sing the new World in an ancient ditty! I sing this World; yes, this World's shame and glory! I sing a Medley of rigour and of pity! I sing the Court's, City's, and the Country's fashions! Yet sing I but of Love and her strange Passions! I sing that anthem lovers sigh in sadness! I sing sweet times of joys in wo[e]-ven verses! I sing those lines, I once did act in madness! I sing and weep! (tears follow birth and hearses!) I sing a _Dirge!_ a Fury did indite it! I sing Myself! whilst I myself do write it.