There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other.-BUTLER'S REMAINS. PRELUDE OF MOTTOES. Now they that like it may: the rest may choose.-G. WITHER. Je veux à face descouverte qu'on sçache que je fay le fol. Et pourquoy ne me le sera-t-il permis, si le grand Solon dans Athenes, ne douta de le faire pour apporter un grand bien à sa Republique? La Republique dont j'ay charge, est ce petit monde que Dieu a estably en moy; pour la conservation duquel je ne scay meilleur moyen que de tromper mes afflictions par quelques honnestes jeux d'esprit ; appellez-les bouffonneries si ainsi le Voulez.-PASQUIER. 1 If you are so bold as to venture a blowing-up, look closely to it! for the plot lies deadly deep, and 'twill be between your legs before you be aware of it. But of all things have a care of putting it in your pocket, for fear it takes fire, or runs away with your breeches. And if you can shun it, read it not when you are alone; or at least not late in the evening; for the venom is strongest about midnight, and seizes most violently upon the head when the party is by himself. I shall not tell you one line of what is in it; and therefore consider well what you do, and look to yourself. But if you be resolved to meddle, be sure have a care of catching cold, and keep to a moderate diet; for there is danger and jeopardy in it besides.— Dr. EACHARD. -For those faults of barbarism, Doric dialect, extemporanean style, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dunghills, excrements of authors, toyes and fopperies, confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgment, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantasticall, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry :-I confess all; ('tis partly affected;) thou canst not think worse of me than I do of myself. "Tis not worth the reading! I yield it. I desire thee not to lose time in perusing so vain a subject. I should be peradventure loath myself to read him or thee so writing; 'tis not operæ pretium. All I say is this, that I have precedents for it.-BURTON. A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions; these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of the occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.-Love's Labour's Lost. If the world like it not, so much the worse for them.-CowPER. viii PRELUDE OF MOTTOES. un boschetto, Donne per quello givan fior cogliendo, Più colà per le rose, cole, cole, O me, che' l'prun mi punge! E' non con essi ! Si, son!-colei o colei Vien qua, vien qua per funghi, un micolino UGOLINO UBALDINI, or If the particulars seem too large, or to be over tediously insisted upon, consider in how many impertinent and trifling discourses and actions the best of us do consume far more hours than the perusal of this requires minutes, and yet think it no tediousness: and let them call to mind how many volumes this age imprints and reads which are foolish if not wicked. Let them be persuaded, likewise, that I have not written this for those who have no need thereof, or to show my own wit or compendiousness, but to instruct the ignorant; to whom I should more often speak in vain, if I did not otherwhile by repetitions and circumlocutions stir up their affections, and beat into their understandings the knowledge and feeling of those things which I deliver. Yea, let them know that I know those expressions will be both pleasing and profitable to some which they imagine to be needless and superabundant; and that I had rather twenty nice critics should censure me for a word here and there superfluous than that one of those other should want that which might explain my meanings to their capacities, and so make frustrate all my labour to those who have most need of it, and for whom it was chiefly intended.-G. WITHER. Tempus ad hoc mecum latuit, portuque resedit, Nunc animi venere; juvat nunc denique funem Ancora sublata est; terræ, portusque valete! Imus; habet ventos nostra carina suos. WALLIUS. |