dislike.

For the matter itself or method, if it be faulty, consider I pray you that
of _Columella, Nihil perfectum, aut a singulari consummatum industria_, no
man can observe all, much is defective no doubt, may be justly taxed,
altered, and avoided in Galen, Aristotle, those great masters. _Boni
venatoris_ ([148]one holds) _plures feras capere, non omnes_; he is a good
huntsman can catch some, not all: I have done my endeavour. Besides, I
dwell not in this study, _Non hic sulcos ducimus, non hoc pulvere
desudamus_, I am but a smatterer, I confess, a stranger, [149]here and
there I pull a flower; I do easily grant, if a rigid censurer should
criticise on this which I have writ, he should not find three sole faults,
as Scaliger in Terence, but three hundred. So many as he hath done in
Cardan's subtleties, as many notable errors as [150]Gul Laurembergius, a
late professor of Rostock, discovers in that anatomy of Laurentius, or
Barocius the Venetian in _Sacro boscus_. And although this be a sixth
edition, in which I should have been more accurate, corrected all those
former escapes, yet it was _magni laboris opus_, so difficult and tedious,
that as carpenters do find out of experience, 'tis much better build a new
sometimes, than repair an old house; I could as soon write as much more, as
alter that which is written. If aught therefore be amiss (as I grant there
is), I require a friendly admonition, no bitter invective, [151]_Sint musis
socii Charites, Furia omnis abesto_, otherwise, as in ordinary
controversies, _funem contentionis nectamus, sed cui bono_? We may contend,
and likely misuse each other, but to what purpose? We are both scholars,
say,

[152] ------"Arcades ambo
Et Cantare pares, et respondere parati."

"Both young Arcadians, both alike inspir'd
To sing and answer as the song requir'd."

If we do wrangle, what shall we get by it? Trouble and wrong ourselves,
make sport to others. If I be convict of an error, I will yield, I will
amend. _Si quid bonis moribus, si quid veritati dissentaneum, in sacris vel
humanis literis a me dictum sit, id nec dictum esto_. In the mean time I
require a favourable censure of all faults omitted, harsh compositions,
pleonasms of words, tautological repetitions (though Seneca bear me out,
_nunquam nimis dicitur, quod nunquam satis dicitur_) perturbations of
tenses, numbers, printers' faults, &c. My translations are sometimes rather
paraphrases than in