YOU, perhaps, as your Manner is, both covet and expect one of my Orations; but I produce to you my gayer Writings, as it were from some foreign and select Merchandize. You will receive with this Letter my Phaleucic Verses, with which I amuse my leisure Time, in my Chariot, in the Bath, and at Supper. In these I express my Pleasantry, my Mirth, my Love, my Sorrow, my Complaint, my Anger. I describe something or other, sometimes more humbly, and at other times more loftily; and endeavour to bring it about by the Variety it self, that several Things may oblige different Tastes, and some possibly may please all. If any among them appear to you a little too petulant, it will become your Learning to consider, that the greatest and wisest Men, who have written in that Vein, have sometimes not only fallen into a certain Wantonness of Matter, but even a Nakedness of Expression. Which I have declin'd; not that I am more grave and severe, for how is that possible? But because I am more
You may form an Estimate by this, how much I value your Judgment, that I had rather all was exactly weigh'd by you, than some chosen Parts applauded. And indeed the finest things cease to appear so, when they once begin to be march'd with others. Besides, a judicious and discerning Reader ought not to compare different Things with different, but to examine every Particular, and not to have the worse Opinion of any that is perfect in its kind. But why need I enlarge? For to excuse or recommend a few Trifles by a longer Preface, is the greatest of Trifles. One thing only seems requisite to be previously hinted, that I think to give these Toys of mine the Title of Hendecasyllables; a Word that is confin'd only to the Law of the Number. Therefore whether you prefer the Name
Farewell.