than omit the due use for want of a convenient knowledge.

The next is, lest in some nice nostril the quotations might savour
affected, I do let you know, that I abhor nothing more; and I have
only done it to shew my integrity in the story, and save myself in
those common torturers that bring all wit to the rack; whose noses
are ever like swine, spoiling and rooting up the Muses' gardens;
and their whole bodies like moles, as blindly working under earth,
to cast any, the least, hills upon virtue. Whereas they are in
Latin, and the work in English, it was presupposed none but the
learned would take the pains to confer them: the authors themselves
being all in the learned tongues, save one, with whose English side
I have had little to do. To which it may be required, since I have
quoted the page, to name what editions I followed: Tacit. Lips. in
quarto, Antwerp, edit. 1600; Dio. folio, Hen. Steph. 1592. For the
rest, as Sueton, Seneca, etc., the chapter doth sufficiently
direct, or the edition is not varied.

Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not
the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a
second: pen had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen
to put weaker, and no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to
defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.

Fare you well, and if you read farther of me, and like, I shall not
be afraid of it, though you praise me out.

Neque enim mihi cornea fibra est.