As for my part, I am onely a _Wise-acre_, (a Retort once put upon _Ben Johnson_), for I have no _Acres of Land_. But therefore don’t be so unadvised, (as too many are of late) to regard not so much the _worth_ of the Work, as the _dignity_ of the Person. _Qui similiter in legendos libros atq; in salutandos homines irruunt, non cogitantes quales, sed quibus vestibus induti sint._ They mind not so much _what_, as _who writ_ it; not the Quality of the _Thing_, but the Quality of the _Author_, and a _Person of Honour_ (now adays) being set in the place of the _Writer_, makes the Book received with a general applause. Pardon as well my Satyrical as Cynical Humour. If any dislike what I have writ, let them let it _alone_, or publish themselves something of a better _Composition_. I shall not value any ones Censure, for I have already _Antidoted_ my self against it, by my own _dis-esteem_ I have hereof. I am so far from being _Opinionative_, that you cannot speak worse then what I judge of it. _Nasutus sis usq; licet, sis deniq; Nasus, Non potes in nugas dicere plura meas._ _Bark, foul-mouth’d carping _Momus_, if thou durst: What I have writ is Bad; Now do thy worst._ Thus you see, as I will not _arrogate_, so I shall not _derogate_: for as I am so many _Parasanges_ after such a one, yet I may be an _Ace_ above thee, if thou art too _Censorious_. But some may say, That this is but _actum agere_, a Collection out of _Guzman_, _Buscon_, or some others that have writ upon this subject; _Crambem bis coctam apponere_; and that I have onely _squeez’d_ their _Juice_, (adding some Ingredients of mine own) and afterwards _distill’d_ it in the _Lymbeck_ of my own _Head_. _Non habes confitentem reum_, I ne’er _extracted_ from them _one single drop of Spirit_. As if we could not produce an _English Rogue_ of our _own_, without being beholding to other _Nations_ for him. I will not say that he durst vye with either an _Italian_, _Spanish_, or _French Rogue_; but having been _steept_ for some years in an _Irish Bogg_, that hath added so much to his _Rogue-ships_ perfection, that he out-did them all by out-doing one, and that was a _Scot_; I need not use the Epithite _Roguish_, since the very name proves it a _Tautologie_. If I have borrowed any thing, it was not from what past the _Press_; but what I have taken upon the _score_ in Discourse, _&c._ I here repay with Usury, but not in the same _Commodity_. _Etiamsi apparet unde sumptum sit, aliud tamen quam unde sumptum fit, apparet._ I have not done as the _Romans_, who robb’d the whole Universe to enrich their ill-sited City; _Rome_ I mean. I skimm’d not off the Cream of other mens Wits, nor Cropt the flowers in others gardens to garnish my own _Plots_; neither have I Larded my Lean Fancy with the Fat of others _Ingenious Labours_; but from the dictation of my own _Genius_, I have exprest _quicquid in buccam venerit_, what came next, without much premeditation or study.