and will use) sumpsi, non suripui; and what Varro, lib. 6. de re rust. speaks of bees, minime maleficae nullius opus vellicantes faciunt delerius, I can say of myself, Whom have I injured?  The matter is theirs most part, and yet mine, apparet unde sumptum sit (which Seneca approves), aliud tamen quam unde sumptum sit apparet, which nature doth with the aliment of our bodies incorporate, digest, assimilate, I do concoquere quod hausi, dispose of what I take.  I make them pay tribute, to set out this my Maceronicon, the method only is mine own, I must usurp that of [101]Wecker e Ter. nihil dictum quod non dictum prius, methodus sola artificem ostendit, we can say nothing but what hath been said, the composition and method is ours only, and shows a scholar.  Oribasius, Aesius, Avicenna, have all out of Galen, but to their own method, diverso stilo, non diversa fide.  Our poets steal from Homer; he spews, saith Aelian, they lick it up.  Divines use Austin’s words verbatim still, and our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best,

------“donec quid grandius aetas
Postera sorsque ferat melior.”------[102]

Though there were many giants of old in physic and philosophy, yet I say with [103]Didacus Stella, “A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself;” I may likely add, alter, and see farther than my predecessors; and it is no greater prejudice for me to indite after others, than for Aelianus Montaltus, that famous physician, to write de morbis capitis after Jason Pratensis, Heurnius, Hildesheim, &c., many horses to run in a race, one logician, one rhetorician, after another.  Oppose then what thou wilt,

       “Allatres licet usque nos et usque
        Et gannitibus improbis lacessas.”

I solve it thus.  And for those other faults of barbarism, [104]Doric dialect, extemporanean style, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dunghills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgment, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, fantastical, 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 operae, pretium.  All I say is this, that I have [105]precedents for it, which Isocrates calls perfugium iis qui peccant, others as absurd, vain, idle, illiterate, &c. Nonnulli alii idem fecerunt; others have done as much, it may be more, and perhaps thou thyself, Novimus et qui te, &c.  We have all our faults; scimus, et hanc, veniaim, &c.; [106]thou censurest me, so have I done others, and may do thee, Cedimus inque vicem, &c., ’tis lex talionis, quid pro quo.  Go now, censure, criticise, scoff, and rail.