As a dutch host, if you come to an Inn in Germany, and dislike your fare, diet, lodging, &c. replies in a surly tone, aliud tibi quæras diversorium, if you like not this, get you to another Inn: I resolve, if you like not my writing, go reade something else. I do not much esteem thy censure, take thy course, tis not as thou wilt, nor as I wil, but when we have both done, that of Plinius Secundus to Trajan will prove true, Every mans witty labour takes not, except the matter, subject, occasion, and some commending favorite happen to it.

If I be taxed, exploded by thee and some such, I shall haply be approved and commended by others, & so have been (Expertus loquor) and may truly say with Jovius in like case (absit verbo jactantia) heroum quorundam, pontificum, & virorum nobilium familiaritatem & amicitiam, gratasque gratias, & multorum bene laudatorum laudes sum inde promeritus, as I have been honoured by some worthy men, so have I been vilified by others, and shall be.

At the first publishing of this book; (which Probus of Persius satyrs) editum librum continuo mirari homines, atque avidè deripere cœperunt, I may in some sort apply to this my work. The first, second, and third edition were suddenly gone, eagerly read, & as I have said, not so much approved by some, as scornfully rejected by others. But it was Democritus his fortune, Idem admirationi & irrisioni habitus. Twas Seneca’s fate, that superintendent of wit, learning, judgement, ad stuporem doctus, the best of Greek and Latine writers, in Plutarch’s opinion;

That renowned corrector of vice, as Fabius terms him, and painful omniscious philosopher, that writ so excellently and admirably well, could not please all parties, or escape censure: How is he vilified by Caligula, Agellius, Fabius, and Lipsius himself, his chief propugner? In eo pleraque perniciosa, saith the same Fabius, many childish tracts and sentences he hath, sermo illaboratus, too negligent often, and remisse, as Agellius observes, oratio vulgaris & protrita, dicaces & ineptæ sententiæ, eruditio plebeia, an homely shallow writer as he is.

In partibus spinas & fastidia habet, saith Lipsius, and as in all his other works, so especially in his epistles, aliæ in argutiis & ineptiis occupantur, intricatus alicubi, & parum compositus, sine copia rerum hoc fecit, he jumbles up many things together immethodically, after the Stoicks fashion, parum ordinavit, multa accumulavit, &c. If Seneca be thus lashed, and many famous men that I could name, what shall I expect? How shall I that am vix umbra tanti philosophi, hope to please? No man so absolute, Erasmus holds, to satisfie all, except antiquity, prescription, &c. set a bar. But as I have proved in Seneca, this will not alwayes take place, how shall I evade?

Tis the common doom of all writers, I must (I say) abide it, I seek not applause: Non ego ventosæ venor suffragia plebis; again, non sum adeo informis, I would not be vilified. ———laudatus abunde, Non fastiditus si tibi lector ero. I fear good mens censures, and to their favorable acceptance I submit my labors, ——& linguas Mancipiorum Contemno,——— As the barking of a dog, I securely contemne those malicious and scurrile obloquies, flouts, calumnies of railers and detractors, I scorn the rest. What therefore I have said, pro tenuitate meâ I have said.

One or two things yet I was desirous to have amended if I could, concerning the manner of handling this my subject, for which I must apologize, deprecari, and upon better advice give the friendly reader notice: It was not mine intent to prostitute my muse in English, or to divulge secreta Minervæ, but to have exposed this more contract in Latine, if I could have got it printed. Any scurrile pamphlet is welcome to our mercenarie Stationers in English, they print all,———cuduntque libellos In quorum foliis vix simia nuda cacaret.

But in Latine they will not deal; which is one of the reasons Nicholas Car in his oration of the paucity of English writers, gives, that so many flourishing wits are smothered in oblivion, ly dead and buried in this our nation. Another main fault is, that I have not revised the copy, and amended the stile, which now flows remissly, as it was first conceived, but my leasure would not permit. Feci nec quod potui, nec quod volui, I confesse it is neither as I would, nor as it should be. Cum relego scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno Me quoque quæ fuerant judice digna lini. When I peruse this tract which I have writ, I am abash’d, and much I hold unfit.

Et quod gravissimum, in the matter it self, many things I disallow at this present, which when I writ, Non eadem est ætas, non mens; I would willingly retract much, &c. but tis too late, I can only crave pardon now for what is amisse. I might indeed (had I wisely done) observed that precept of the poet, ———nonumque prematur in annum, And have taken more care: Or as Alexander the physician would have done by Lapis Lazuli, fifty times washed before it be used, I should have revised, corrected and amended this tract; but I had not as (I said) that happy leasure, no Amanuenses or assistants.