[145]"when you see a fellow careful about his words, and neat in his speech, know this for a certainty, that man’s mind is busied about toys, there’s no solidity in him.” Non est ornamentum virile concinnitas:  as he said of a nightingale, ------vox es, praeterea nihil, &c.  I am therefore in this point a professed disciple of [146]Apollonius a scholar of Socrates, I neglect phrases, and labour wholly to inform my reader’s understanding, not to please his ear; ’tis not my study or intent to compose neatly, which an orator requires, but to express myself readily and plainly as it happens.  So that as a river runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and slow; now direct, then per ambages, now deep, then shallow; now muddy, then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow:  now serious, then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the present subject required, or as at that time I was affected.  And if thou vouchsafe to read this treatise, it shall seem no otherwise to thee, than the way to an ordinary traveller, sometimes fair, sometimes foul; here champaign, there enclosed; barren, in one place, better soil in another:  by woods, groves, hills, dales, plains, &c.  I shall lead thee per ardua montium, et lubrica valllum, et roscida cespitum, et [147]glebosa camporum, through variety of objects, that which thou shalt like and surely dislike.

For the matter itself or method, if it be faulty, consider I pray you that of Columella, Nihil perfectum, aut a singulari consummatum industria, no man can observe all, much is defective no doubt, may be justly taxed, altered, and avoided in Galen, Aristotle, those great masters. Boni venatoris ([148]one holds) plures feras capere, non omnes; he is a good huntsman can catch some, not all:  I have done my endeavour.  Besides, I dwell not in this study, Non hic sulcos ducimus, non hoc pulvere desudamus, I am but a smatterer, I confess, a stranger, [149]here and there I pull a flower; I do easily grant, if a rigid censurer should criticise on this which I have writ, he should not find three sole faults, as Scaliger in Terence, but three hundred.  So many as he hath done in Cardan’s subtleties, as many notable errors as [150]Gul Laurembergius, a late professor of Rostock, discovers in that anatomy of Laurentius, or Barocius the Venetian in Sacro boscus.  And although this be a sixth edition, in which I should have been more accurate, corrected all those former escapes, yet it was magni laboris opus, so difficult and tedious, that as carpenters do find out of experience, ’tis much better build a new sometimes, than repair an old house; I could as soon write as much more, as alter that which is written.  If aught therefore be amiss (as I grant there is), I require a friendly admonition, no bitter invective, [151]_Sint musis socii Charites, Furia omnis abesto_, otherwise, as in ordinary controversies, funem contentionis nectamus, sed cui bono?  We may contend, and likely misuse each other, but to what purpose?  We are both scholars, say,