I have so long studied and practic'd both, that they are grown into a habit, and become familiar to me.

In short, tho' 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 interfere'd; but the reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allow'd 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 deser'd no better.
With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part of this discourse; in the second part, as at a second sitting, tho' I alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and change the dead coloring[4] of the whole.

In general, I will only say that I have written nothing which savors of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention.