As to the performance, it can signify little now to make an apology upon
that account, any farther than this, that if the reader pleases he may
take notice that what he has now before him was collected from a large
bundle of papers, most of which were writ in shorthand, and very
ill-digested. However, this may be relied upon, that though the language
is something altered, and now and then a word thrown in to help the
expression, yet strict care has been taken to speak the author's mind,
and keep as close as possible to the meaning of the original. For the
design, I think there is nothing need be said in vindication of that.
Here is a dumb philosopher introduced to a wicked and degenerate
generation, as a proper emblem of virtue and morality; and if the world
could be persuaded to look upon him with candour and impartiality, and
then to copy after him, the editor has gained his end, and would think
himself sufficiently recompensed for his present trouble.




PART I


Among the many strange and surprising events that help to fill the
accounts of this last century, I know none that merit more an entire
credit, or are more fit to be preserved and handed to posterity than
those I am now going to lay before the public.

Dickory Cronke, the subject of the following narrative, was born at a
little hamlet, near St. Columb, in Cornwall, on the 29th of May, 1660,
being the day and year in which King Charles the Second was restored. His