To this end, I selected them out of many disordred Papers, and dispos'd them into such a method as They seem'd capable of; beginning first with _Plants_, going on to _Animals_, proceeding farther to things relating to _Men_, and concluding with _matters_ of a _various nature_. Concerning the _Plants_, I did, on purpose, forbear to range them (as some advised) according to their _Tribes_ and _Families_; because, by so doing, I should have represented that as a studied and formal work, which is but a Collection of _occasional Essaies_. And, indeed, both this _Tract_, and those which follow, were rather the _diversions_ than the _Labours_ of his Pen: and, because He did, as it were, drop down his Thoughts of a sudden, in those little spaces of vacancy which he snatch'd from those very many occasions which gave him hourly interruption; If there appears, here and there, any uncorrectness in the style, a small degree of Candour sufficeth to excuse it. If there be any such errours in the words, I'm sure the Press has not made them fewer; but I do not hold my self oblig'd to answer for That which I could not perfectly govern. However, the matter is not of any great moment: such errours will not mislead a Learned Reader; and He who is not such in some competent degree, is not a fit Peruser of these LETTERS. Such these _Tracts_ are; but, for the Persons to whom they were written, I cannot well learn their _Names_ from those few obscure marks which the Authour has set at the beginning of them. And these Essaies being _Letters_, as many as take offence at some few familiar things which the Authour hath mixed with them, find fault with decence. Men are not wont to set down Oracles in every line they write to their Acquaintance. There, still, remain other brief Discourses written by this most Learned and ingenious Authour. Those, also, may come forth, when some of his Friends shall have sufficient leisure; and at such due distance from these Tracts, that They may follow rather than stifle them. Amongst these Manuscripts there is one which gives a brief Account of all the _Monuments_ of the _Cathedral_ of _Norwich_. It was written merely for private use: and the Relations of the Authour expect such Justice from those into whose hands some imperfect Copies of it are fallen; that, without their Consent first obtain'd, they forbear the publishing of It. The truth is, matter equal to the skill of the Antiquary was not, there, afforded: had a fit Subject of that nature offer'd it self, He would scarce have been guilty of an oversight like to that of _Ausonius_, who, in the description of his native City of _Burdeaux_, omitted the two famous Antiquities of it, _Palais de Tutele_, and, _Palais de Galien_.