To prevent those Scruples which else might arise in the perusall of the ensuing Discourse, the Reader of it is requested to take notice
I. That though Ignorance hath been of late so much in Fashion with too many of our Young Nobility, that some passages of the ensuing Papers may seem unfit to have been written to a Young Gentleman, yet the Person, they were addrest to, being both a Traveller, a Linguist and a Scholler, it was not improper to discourse with him, at the Rate of supposing him so qualifi’d.
II. That the ensuing Letter was not written single, being but the Last of Divers, wherein Love in generall was Confessed, Justified, & Celebrated; wherein the Received way of Making Love was Explicated, Defended, and Opposed; wherein Constancy and Inconstancy in Love were argued For and Against; wherein Platonick Love was Explicated, Celebrated, and Derided; wherein the Cure of Love was Proposed and Presecuted; wherein (to dispatch) the Controverted points concerning Love were Discoursed of in a way suited to the severall Themes, and to the Humors and Principles of the supposed Writers. But all the Former papers, (written in Complement to a fair Lady) though very free from the guilt of either Licentiousnesse or Prophanenesse, have been by the Author judged too little Serious, either to appear Alone, or to Accompany the ensuing Discourse, wherein he has expressed his Own Opinions, as in the Former he but deduced those of Imaginary Persons.
III. That the following Paper was to have been Attended by Another, wherein the Properties and Duties of Seraphick Love were to have been Explicated and insisted on, but that the Author, before he had written that other, accidentally meeting with a French Book, wherein,1 though what he had already Discoursed of, were not handled, he found much of what he had Designed to set down, was Anticipated; and the most pertinent Considerations his intended Themes suggested, were skillfully Displayed already. He fear’d it might be Injurious to his Reader, and himself, if he should either turn a Transcriber of another’s Notions, or decline the Best thoughts belonging to his Theme, that the Lesse good ones might passe without suspition for his Own.
IV. That the ensuing Trifle having been written in Haste, and by Snatches, amongst distracting Avocations, and far from Literary Accommodations, is freely Prostrated to the Censure of Learned and Impartiall Perusers, especially Divines: who are, by the Author, Requested, to believe its Mistaking Passages, and Unwary Expressions, (if it contain any such) to have been altogether Unintentionall, and such as they shall find it never to be more than One Labour, to make him Discern and Retract; he being Resolved, by God’s assistance, to continue still Obsequious enough, to all Clearer Discoveries of Truth, to be able to say, Errare Possum, Haereticus esse Nolo. And as he is on his part so Resigned, and so willing to be Rectifi’d; so he expects this Equity from those, to whose Judgments he Submits, That, considering he intended not to write a Solemn and Regular Treatise, but a Private and Familiar Epistle, they will passe-by such Unaccuratenesses, as are wont to be Incident to Composures of this later Nature. He presum’d, he might sometimes make Bold with the Vulgar Laws of Tenses, treating of an Eternity that admits them not. He hopes, that the freedom taken in some of his Expressions, concerning Love, and the wonted Objects of it, would be excus’d, by its being Exacted by the Designe he had upon Lindamor, though he had not (which yet he has) otherwise Accounted for it.2 And as for those common Places, which the Method of our Author’s Discourse allow’d him not to Decline, he hopes, the Reader will Discern, by his way of Writing, that he loves to use them, not as Travellers, but as Hunters, use the Highwaies: For the Traveller, when he once gets into the Road, makes it his businesse to keep in it; whereas the Hunter, if he meets one, lying in his way, is not fond of Staying in it, but Nimbly Crosses it, or Traverses so much of it, as is requisite to be Past through, in the Pursuit of the Game.
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