PASCAL.
Gentle reader,—and if gentle, good reader,—and if good, patient reader; for if not gentle, then not good; and if not good, then not gentle; and neither good nor gentle, if not patient;—dear reader, who art happily for thyself all three, it is, I know, not less with thy good will than with my own, that I proceed with this part of my subject. Quelle matiére que je traite avec vous, c'est toujours un plaisir pour moi.1 You will say to me “amuse yourself (and me) in your own way; ride your own round-about, so you do but come to the right point at last.”2 To that point you are well assured that all my round-abouts tend; and my care must be to eschew the error of that author, engineer, statesman, or adventurer of any kind,
Which of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.3
1 MADAME DE MAINTENON.
2 CUMBERLAND.
3 SHAKESPEAR.
Lady Hester Stanhope had an English Physician with her in Syria who, if he be living, can bear testimony that her Ladyship did not commit this fault, when she superintended the cutting out of his scarlet galligaskins. Neither will I commit it.
You indeed, dear reader, would express no displeasure if, instead of proceeding in the straight line of my purpose, I should sometimes find it expedient to retrograde; or, borrowing a word of barbarous Latin coined in the musician's mint, cancrizare, which may be rendered to crab-grade. For as Roger North says, when, at the commencement of his incomparable account of his brother the Lord Keeper's life, he confesses that it would be hard to lead a thread in good order of time through it—“there are many and various incidents to be remembered, which will interfere, and make it necessary to step back sometimes, and then again forwards;—and in this manner I hope to evacuate my mind of every matter and thing I know and can remember materially concerning him. And if some things are set down which many may think too trivial, let it be considered that the smallest incidents are often as useful to be known, though not so diverting, as the greater, and profit must always share with entertainment.”
I am not however side-ling toward my object crab-like; still less am I starting back from it, like a lobster, whose spring upon any alarm is stern-foremost: nor am I going I know not where, like the three Princes Zoile, Bariandel and Lyriamandre, when, having taken leave of Olivier King of England, to go in search of Rosicler, they took ship at London sans dessein d'aller plustôt en un lieu qu'en un autre. Nor like the more famous Prince Don Florisel and Don Falanges, when having gone on board a small vessel, y mandada por ellos en lo alto de la mar meter, hazen con los marineros que no hagan otro camino mas de aquel que la nao movido por la fuerza de los ayres, quisiesse hazer, queriendo yr a buscar con la aventura lo que a ella hallar se permitia segun la poca certinidad que para la demanda podian llevar.