Gramercy _Sack_, if happily I have hit the mark. I am no _Aquæ potor_, an implacable _Enemy to Small Beer_; all the _Purchases_ I can boast of, lies in _Wine_, which is by _Moderns_ highly esteemed for improving good Wits, _infusing_ Elogies and _Hyperbolical Exornations_, forming such hard Words in the _Brain_, as shall, like _Acesta’s arrows_, catch fire as they flie. But I have _wandered_ from that _common rode_, respecting more the _matter_ then _words_. For my Stile is _plain_ and _familiar_, rejecting bombast _Expressions_, thinking them most _happy_ when most easily to be understood. As for the _Matter_ it self, if it be faulty, or the _Method_ rude and indigested, consider, _Quod nihil perfectum vel singulari consummatum industria_, No man can observe all things; neither is it to be imagined that all _Rogueries_ can be perform’d by one man. Not but that when you have read him, you will find him _Notorious_ enough. Some men are not content to _commit Villany_ themselves, and boast of it too, but they will rob others of that which they should be _asham’d_ to own. In this there is little or no _Fiction_, I’ll assure you; and there is no _Story_ therein which doth not carry with it more then the bare _probability_ of _truth_. Should I speak much more, it is to be fear’d some will argue from hence, that I am conscious to my self of its various defects; and therefore I shall desist from Apologizing for it, or my self. Sensible I am, that if ought be omitted or added, which the Reader likes or dislikes, he will account me _Mancipium pancæ lectionis_, an Idiot, an insipid Asse; _nullus sum, vel Plagiarius_, a very Thief, and that I stole other mens Labours. Thus do I know I shall be vilified and undervalued even by such, that are so far from being capable of judging of _Ingenuity_, that they know not how to write Orthographically six words of sence in their own Mother-tongue. Yet I must confess, what is writ, is neither as I would, nor as it should, it being usher’d into the world as it was first written; whereas I should have done with this, as a _Physitian_ advised should be done with _Lapis Lazuli_, to be washt fifty times before used: had not immergent Affairs hindred me, I would have licked this _Cub_ into a more _comely Form_. But since ’tis otherwise, I shall onely complain with _Ovid_:— _Cum relego scripsisse pudet, quia plurimo cerno, Me quoq; quæ fuerant Judice digna lini._ All the favour that I shall desire, is, That the _Reader_ would not account the _Printers_ literal or verbal Escapes _mine_; and withal pass a candid interpretation on each Line; and I shall endeavour in a short time to become more satisfactory, and study how I may be always serviceable to my Country. _When I read o’er what I have writ, then shame O’erspreads my face, because it stabs my Name._ [Illustration]