Translation (continued).
discomposes me, yet the expectation of another good, that is of your humanity, in which quality you shine far beyond other men, restores and buoys me up. That gentle and excellent hope commands and exhorts me to produce some specimen or token of my duty, however small, with alacrity. By these inducements conquered, I proposed free interpretation into English of the treatise on British dogs, and have dedicated it to you rather than to anyone else as my one patron, and unique Mæcenas. Not because I supposed that the unmeasurable sea of your merits could be gaged by so jejune and poor a gift; not because I was anxious to weary your sacred and religious years with the explanation of a profane page; nor because I supposed that yun would be delighted with idle and frivolous matter, occupied as you are entirely in divine lucubrations, but rather (if I may be believed) beoause that egregious and noble prince of the liberal arts, and more especially of the faculty of medicine, who composed this work, so flourished while he lived, and obtained so brilliant a fame, that I know not honestly to confess what I feel, if after his death, he has left any like him. Lastly because he had sent this little book to Conrad Gesner, elaborated with the utmost industry into lands beyond the sea, to a man remarkable for his knowledge of all kinds of literature, and especially for his acquaintance with occult matters, which is settled in the inmost bowels and marrows of Nature (O talent worthy of a white stone!), whose difficulties, entangled by Labyrinthian windings and tortuous flexuosities I have investigated (O good God! how great a labour and how infinite a travail!) which raised such favour and conciliation in the breast of Conrad Gesner, that he not only received it with a friendly kiss, but also read it studiously, and used it accurately, with the inexhausted strength by which the dragon guards the fleece of gold, and kept it with more vigilant eyes than the eagle. Lastly, since we have heard that this epitome was written by a truly learned man to a man adorned with the highest celebrity of fame, so the epitome, in English speech, however inelegant, is yet common and popular to your hands. O most erudite Sir, I beseech you to command, that under your patronage, it may boldly go forth into all parts of our country, and I solemnly pray you to receive from me this book bearing a humble and obscure inscription, but embracing an argument new and as yet unheard of; as well as entirely free from any Sybaritic obscenity.
The most bounden to your service,
(Signed)Abraham Fleming.
