Lector, esto libro te ofrezco, sin que me aya mandado Señor alguno que le escriva, ni menos me ayan importunado mis amigos que le estampe, sino solamente por mi gusto, por mi antojo y por mi voluntad.
MONTALVAN.
The reader must not expect in this work merely the private uninteresting history of a single person. He may expect whatever curious particulars can with any propriety be connected with it. Nor must the general disquisitions and the incidental narratives of the present work be ever considered as actually digressionary in their natures, and as merely useful in their notices. They are all united with the rest, and form proper parts of the whole. They have some of them a necessary connexion with the history of the Doctor; they have many of them an intimate relation, they have all of them a natural affinity to it. And the Author has endeavoured, by a judicious distribution of them through the work, to prevent that disgusting uniformity, and to take off that uninteresting personality, which must necessarily result from the merely barren and private annals of an obscure individual. He has thus in some measure adopted the elegant principles of modern gardening. He has thrown down the close hedges and the high walls that have confined so many biographers in their views. He has called in the scenes of the neighbouring country to his aid, and has happily combined them into his own plan. He has drawn off the attention from the central point before it became languid and exhausted, by fetching in some objects from society at large, or by presenting some view of the philosophy of man. But he has been cautious of multiplying objects in the wantonness of refinement, and of distracting the attention with a confused variety. He has always considered the history of the Doctor, as the great fixed point, the enlivening centre, of all his excursions. Every opening is therefore made to carry an actual reference, either mediate or immediate, to the regular history of the Doctor. And every visto is employed only for the useful purpose of breaking the stiff straight lines, of lighting up the dark, of heightening the little, and of colouring over the lifeless, in the regular history of the Doctor.
Preface to WHITAKER'S History of Manchester,
mutatis mutandis.
Chi tristezza da se cacciar desia,
Legga quest' opra saporita e bella.
BERTOLDO.
I exhort all People, gentle and simple, men, women and children, to buy, to read, to extol, these labours of mine. Let them not fear to defend every article; for I will bear them harmless. I have arguments good store, and can easily confute, either logically, theologically, or metaphysically, all those who oppose me.
ARBUTHNOT.
Scripta legis passim quamplurima, lector, in orbe,
Quæ damni plus quam commoditatis habent.
Hæc fugienda procul cum sint, sic illa petenda,
Jucunda utilibus quæ bene juncta docent.
P. RUBIGALLUS PANNONIUS.
Out of the old fieldes, as men saith,
Cometh all this new corn fro' year to year;
And out of old bookes, in good faith,
Cometh all this new science that men lere.
CHAUCER.