my own hands, it being my daily prayer:—“Absit[118] a jocorum nostrorum simplicitate malignus interpres.”—Martial.
If any shall wonder why I print a comedy, whose life rests much in the actor’s voice, let such know that it cannot avoid publishing; let it therefore stand with good excuse that I have been my own setter out.
If any desire to understand the scope of my comedy, know it hath the same limits which Juvenal gives to his Satires:—
“Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli est.”—Juvenal.
As for the factious malice and studied detractions of some few that tread in the same path with me, let all know I most easily neglect them, and (carelessly slumbering to their vicious endeavours) smile heartily at their self-hurting baseness. My bosom friend, good Epictetus, makes me easily to contemn all such men’s malice: since other men’s tongues are not within my teeth, why should I hope to govern them? For mine own interest for once, let this be printed,—that of men of my own addiction I love most, pity some, hate none; for let me truly say it, I once only loved myself, for loving them, and surely I shall ever rest so constant to my first affection, that let their ungentle combinings, discourteous whisperings, never so treacherously labour to undermine my unfenced reputation, I shall (as long
as I have being) love the least of their graces, and only pity the greatest of their vices.
And now, to kill envy, know you, that affect to be the only minions of Phœbus, I am not so blushlessly ambitious as to hope to gain any the least supreme eminency among you; I affect not only the “‘Euge’ tuum et ‘Belle!’”[119]—’tis not my fashion to think no writer virtuously confident that is not swellingly impudent; nor do I labour to be held the only spirit whose poems may be thought worthy to be kept in cedar[120] chests:—
“Heliconidasque pallidamque Pyrenen
Illis relinquo quorum imagines lambunt
Hederæ sequaces....”—Persius.
He that pursues fame shall, for me, without any rival, have breath enough. I esteem felicity to be a more solid contentment; only let it be lawful for me, with unaffected modesty and full thought, to end boldly with that of Persius:—
“Ipse semipaganus
Ad sacra vatum carmen affero nostrum.”—Persius.