_But I shall be ask’d, what possess’d me to commence Author, and how came I to be so idle as to put my Name at the Head of a sorry book? I must answer again, that it was downright Indolence. As to my Name, it would have been very difficult to have concealed it from Persons to whom I have the greatest Obligations. I should have been suspected to have been the Author of these Memoirs at certain Courts, for which I have a Respect both by Inclination and Duty; and perhaps, if I had left this Copy to the wide World, as some do those Foundlings which they are asham’d to own, such Passages might have been foisted into it, as would have been father’d upon me, in spite of all Protestations of my Innocence._ _As to the Book itself, I am apt to think there is nothing in it that any Person whatsoever ought to take offence at. When I speak of Sovereign Princes, ’tis with the Reverence due to the +Lord’s Anointed+; and I also endeavour to honour them in their Ministers, being taught by my Religion that I ought to honour God in his Saints. I have done my utmost to paint the true Characters of People in Place, and can safely say, that my Authorities are not meer hear-says or scraps out of News-Papers; for, thank to God, my Birth and Fortune have put me in a capacity to see, hear, and judge for myself._ _It will be thought perhaps, that when I speak of Nations in general, I judge too rashly. It may be so; this being an Article especially in which all Men do not think alike. The +French+ have a quite different Idea of the +Germans+ from what the +English+ have, and the +English+ do not pass the same Verdict on the +French+ as the +Swedes+ do. ’Tis the same in private Life. Every one makes his own Condition the Standard of his Judgment. The Man of Quality, the Citizen, the Soldier, the Merchant, have all different Ideas. The Traveller judges of the Nation where he is, by the Company he keeps. A +Frenchman+ who in +Germany+ converses with none but those of the second Class, will say that the +Germans+ are honest People, but clownish; whereas another, who keeps company with Persons of Quality, or those in Offices, will agree, that the +Germans+ are more polite than they have been painted by certain +French+ Writers, who have been transplanted to +Germany+ either by their Distresses, or by meer Chance. So, a +German+, who, when he is at +Paris+, sees no better Company than the Marchionesses of the Suburb of +St. Germain+, imagines that all the Women both at Court and in the City are like them. In fine, a Foreigner who takes up his Residence in the City of +London+, will entertain a different Idea of the +English+ from what another shall do who lodges at +St. James+’s end of the town. They are, as one may say, so many different Nations in one and the same State, which stand in little relation to one another; and sometimes attribute Virtues and Vices to each other without due Consideration. A Foreigner therefore can form a solid