All men whilst here do err, and so do you.
And therefore Reader pardon the Printer, who promises amendment; and I hope thy acceptance of this and the fourth part already published will induce me to finish this Story with a fifth & last part. In the mean time the Author of this, hath lately written Printed and Published, another Book entitled.
The Unlucky Citizen, experimentially described in the various misfortunes of an Unlucky Londoner. Calculated for the Meridian of this City: but may serve by way of advice to all the Comonality of England. More particularly to Parents and Children, Masters and Servants, Husbands and Wives. Intermixed with several Choice Novels, Stored with variety of Examples and advice president and precept. Illustrated with Pictures fitted to the several Stories.
And let me assure thee Reader that no more is promised in the Title than is performed in the Book for it not only equals this in relating variety of pleasant extravagancies and other Novels but it is profitable in the many reflections and good advices given to the Reader, and is intended to be prosecuted in a second part wherein you shall have not only real and true examples and experiences, but also as good and sound advice as can be collected from any Book either Morall or Divine which this age hath produced. Therefore despise it not because of the Unlucky Title, for it is or will be worthy of thy perusall.
Transcriber’s Note.
While acknowledging the ‘To the Reader’ message at the end of the text, the Printer’s lapses in spelling, capitalization, hyphenation and punctuation have been corrected where they are obviously typographical.
The word ‘Gaol’ is printed, more often than not as ‘Goal’, and all such instances are retained. There are two instance s (74.3 and 189.30) where the first ‘d’ in ‘Landlady’ is missing, once on a end-of-line hyphenation, and once midline. The remaining fifteen instances are spelled as we would expect. In the summary of Chapter XXII, the word ‘youngmen’ appears. In the text, the phrase appears either as separate words, or somewhat more frequently, with a hyphen, but never as a single word.
Due to the variability of hyphenation, where a hyphenation occurs on a line or page break, the hyphen is retained or removed based on the preponderance of the same word elsewhere. Where there are no other or similar instances, the decision was based on modern usage.
The header of Chapter XII was misprinted as ‘II’.