There are certain eminent painters in this prolific age, most gentle reader, who, by their drawings, paintings, and varied colouring, depict the tribal gods and human beings, as also other things of different sorts, with such exactness that a voice and a soul seem the only things wanting to them; but here, most gentle reader, I offer you, nearly in the manner of these painters, a house, which not only is elegant and finished in its outlines and parts, but speaks prettily and describes itself part by part in a eulogy. I also offer you seven epitaphs, composed and written in the ancient style and in very ancient language. These epitaphs show, in a way that we may call comprehensible, the various affections to which unhappy mortals who are in love are subject. I am, I say, pleased to offer you these, not that you may speak or write in obsolete words such as you here find, but that you may have before your eyes, so bright and full of charm, a sample of antiquity, and may know that you have been thoroughly warned by me to be on your guard against falling into the snares and perplexities of an insane love. Farewell.
In addition to the border of the title-page, the book contains seven exquisite little engravings, corresponding to Tory's seven 'love epitaphs,'—engravings which are certainly his, in design at least, although unsigned. Here is a list of them:—
1. Two hearts pierced by an arrow.
2. Two hearts in a circle.
3. Two hearts bound together by cords.
4. Two hearts in a boat.
5. A pig sniffing at two hearts.
6. Two hearts, a distaff, etc.
7. Two hearts being kicked by a horse.