I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters:  most of our current money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another, either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden.  I do not so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry, nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children know:  much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to physic a horse or a dog.  And, since I must publish my whole shame, ’tis not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.  They conjectured of old at Athens, an aptitude for the mathematics in him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood.  In earnest, they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve.  By these features of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice:  but whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am, I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper such mean and frivolous things as these:  the meanness of the subject compells me to it.  They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not my progress:  so it is, that without anybody’s needing to tell me, I sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the folly of my design:  ’tis enough that my judgment does not contradict itself, of which these are the essays.

              “Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
               Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
               Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
               Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
               Ipse ego quam dixi:  quid dentem dente juvabit
               Rodere? carne opus est, si satur esse velis. 
               Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
               Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil.”

["Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it:  if asked, Could you even excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said:  then to what end contend tooth against tooth?  You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I know already that these things are worthless.”—­Mart., xiii. 2.]

I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in them and know them to be such:  and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance.  ’Tis no great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour, since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.