A Modest
PREFACE
Containing
Many Words to the Wise.
BEING about to deliver to the learned World in these Letters, one of the noblest Presents that ever was made to it, I must own, I have been as much perplex'd how to introduce them properly, by a Preface worthy of them, as Cervantes himself, when he fell on that which stands before his inimitable Don Quixote, or as Thuanus was how to begin the first Sentence of his History, which we are told, cost him so many painful Hours, before he could settle it to his Mind.
I question if Malherb who spent a Quire of Paper, in finishing his Simile of Phillis's gathering Flowers in a Garden; or the illustrious Balzac who us'd to take a Week to write a Letter in, for fear of the French Criticks; ever toil'd more than I have done, to give full Satisfaction in this IntroductoryDis-
