by his exterior appearance, you would
not have given the peel of an onion for him, so deformed he was in
body, and ridiculous in his gesture.... Opening this box, you would
have found within it a heavenly and inestimable drug, a more than
human understanding, an admirable virtue, matchless learning,
invincible courage, inimitable sobriety, certain contentment of
mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible disregard of all that
for which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail, fight, travel,
toil, and turmoil themselves.

Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble
tend? For so much as you, my good disciples, and some other jolly
fools of ease and leisure,... are too ready to judge, that there is
nothing in them but jests, mockeries, lascivious discourse, and
recreative lies;... therefore is it, that you must open the book,
and seriously consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall you
find that it containeth things of far higher value than the box did
promise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so
foolish, as by the title at the first sight it would appear to be.

...Did you ever see a dog with a marrow-bone in his mouth?... Like
him, you must, by a sedulous lecture [reading], and frequent
meditation, break the bone, and suck out the marrow; that is, my
allegorical sense, or the things I to myself propose to be
signified by these Pythagorical symbols;... the most glorious
doctrines and dreadful mysteries, as well in what concerneth our
religion, as matters of the public state and life economical.

Up to this point, the candid reader has probably been conscious of a
growing persuasion that this author must be at bottom a serious if also
a humorous man,--a man, therefore, excusably intent not to be
misunderstood as a mere buffoon. But now let the candid reader proceed
with the following, and confess, upon his honor, if he is not
scandalized and perplexed. What shall be said of a writer who thus plays
with his reader?

Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was
couching his Iliad and Odyssey, had any thought upon those
allegories which Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius,
Phornutus, squeezed out of him, and which Politian filched again
from them? If you trust it, with neither hand nor foot do you come
ne