By the mercy of God, I
am already come within twenty years of his number, a cripple in my
limbs; but what decays are in my mind, the reader must determine. I
think myself as vigorous as ever in the faculties of my soul, excepting
only my memory, which is not impaired to any great degree; and if I
lose not more of it, I have no great reason to complain. What judgment
I had, increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they
are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to
choose or to reject; to run them into verse, or to give them the other
harmony of prose. I have so long studied and practised both, that they
are grown into a habit, and become familiar to me. In short, though
I may lawfully plead some part of the old gentleman's excuse, yet I
will reserve it till I think I have greater need, and ask no grains
of allowance for the faults of this my present work, but those which
are given of course to human frailty. I will not trouble my reader
with the shortness of time in which I writ it, or the several intervals
of sickness: they who think too well of their own performances, are
apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost
them, and what other business of more importance interfered; but the
reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allowed not a
longer time to make their works more perfect, and why they had so
despicable an opinion of their judges, as to thrust their indigested
stuff upon them, as if they deserved no better.
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