BIBLIOTHECA REGLA MONACENSIS 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. TO THE READER IN ORDINARY. THE Muses forbid that I should restrain your meddling, whom I see already busy with the title, and tricking over the leaves it is your own. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad; and now so secure an interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise nor dispraise from you can affect me.- -The commendation of good things may fall within a many, the approbation but in a few; for the most commend out of affection, self-tickling, an easiness or imitation; but men judge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty; and to those works that will bear a judge, nothing is more dangerous than a foolish praise. You will say, I shall not have yours therefore; but rather the contrary, all vexation of censure. If I were not above such molestations now, I had great cause to think unworthily of my studies, or they had so of me. But I leave you to your exercise. Begin. BEN JONSON. VOL. IV. b |