The Reader will expect that I shou’d here say a Word or two concerning the Notes which follow the Characters.  Some Authors or Commentators (call them which you will) out of a vain Ostentation of Literature, lay hold of the slightest of Opportunities to expose all their Learning to the World, without ever knowing when they have said enough:  Insomuch, that in most Commentaries upon antient Authors, one may sooner meet with a System of Antiquities, than with Solutions of the real Difficulties of the Text.  Consider’d barely as a Translator, I lay under no immediate Necessity of writing Notes, but then as I was highly concern’d, even in that Capacity, to lay before the English Reader, what I took to be the true Sense of the Greek, and as I farther propos’d to preserve that particular Humour of the Original, which depends on those Manners and Customs which are alluded to, I found, my self necessitated to add some Notes; but yet I have endeavoured to shun that Fault, which I have already censur’d, by saying no more, but what was immediately necessary, to illustrate the Text, to vindicate a received Sense, or to propose a new one.

I am not conscious of having made any great Excursions beyond the Bounds which these Rules prescrib’d to me, unless it is in the Chapter concerning Superstition.  And even here, unless the Commentary had been somewhat copious, the Text it self wou’d have appear’d like a motly Piece of mysterious Nonsense.  Thus much I thought my self oblig’d to do in Justice to Theophrastus; and as for the Enlargements which I have made, over and above what wou’d have satisfy’d this Demand, they will not, ’tis hop’d, be unacceptable to the curious Reader.  They are Digressions I own; but I shall not here offer to make one Digression to execute another, or, according to the Custom and Practice of modern Authors, beg a thousand Pardons of the Reader, before I am certain of having committed one Offence.  Such a Procedure seems preposterous.  For when an Author happens to digress, and take a Trip +huper ta eskammena+, beyond the Bounds prescrib’d; the best, the only consistent thing he can do, is to take his Chance for the Event.  If what he has said does not immediately relate to the Matter in Hand, it may nevertheless be a propos, and good in its Kind; and then instead of Censure, he will probably meet with Thanks; but if it be not good, no prefatory Excuses will make it so:  And besides, it will ever be insisted on, that ’tis an easier Matter to strike out bad Digressions, than it is to write good Apologies.

One Word more, and then I have done.  Since Mr. Budgell has thought fit to censure Mr. de la Bruyere, for troubling his Reader with Notes, I think my self oblig’d, in order to justify both Mr. de la Bruyere and my self, to shew that this Censure is very unreasonable, and very unjust.[D] Mr. Budgell’s Words are as follow.