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To my Learned, and much Respected friend, Mr. MATHEW HARBERT.
SIR,
I Know you are not Great, there's a better title, you are Good. I might have fix'd this Piece to a Pinnacle, made the Dedication high: but to what purpose? Greatness is a Thing I cannot
admire in others, because I desire it not in my self. It is a proud Follie, a painted ceremonious Raunt. There is nothing Necessarie in it, for most men live without it, and I may not applie to that, which my Reason declines, as well as my Fortune. The Truth is, I know no use of Hog hens and Titulados, if they are in an humor to give, I am no Beggar to receive. I look not any
thing Sir, but what the Learned are inrich'd withall, Judgement, and Candor. You are a true friend to Both, and to my third self. This Discourse I shuffl'd up for your spare-houres, for it was born in a Vacation, when I did not so much labour, as play. I was indeed necessitated to some Levity, for my Adversarie proved so impotent, I might not draw out all my forces, because I
knew not where to employ them. You have here a simple Bedlam corrected, and whipt for his mad Tricks. A certain Master of Arts of Cambridge, & a Poet in the Loll & Trot of Spencer. It is suppos'd he is in Love with his Fairie-Queen, & this hath made him a very Elf in Philosophie. He is indeed a scurvie, slabbie, snotty-snowted thing. Hee is troubl'd with a certain Splenetic
loosnes, & hath such squirts of the Mouth, his Readers cannot distinguish his Breath from his Breech. He is a new kind of Pythonist, speakes no man knows what, & his Bulls have much of his Belly. But I have studied a Cure answerable to his Disease, I have bin somwhat Corrosive, and in defiance to the old Phrase, I have wash'd a Moore clean. I have put his Hog-noddle
in pickle, & here I present him to the world, a Dish of Sous'd Non-sence. This is my Subject Sir, & now I must tell you, my Address to your self hath somthing of Duty in it. I had no sooner left Milke for Meat, but my first Learning came from you. Bee pleas'd to accept this small Acknowledgement from
Your Pupill, & servant E. P. From Heliopolis 1650.
Some ten dayes after the Presse was deliverd of my Adversarie's MAURO. MANGO.