and my _Reputation_
in danger; should Your Lordship hence suspect that one could never write
so much of _dressing Sallets_, who minded anything serious, besides the
gratifying a Sensual Appetite with a Voluptuary _Apician_ Art.

Truly, _My Lord_, I am so far from designing to promote those _Supplicia
Luxuriae_, (as _Seneca_ calls them) by what I have here written; that
were it in my Power, I would recall the World, if not altogether to
their Pristine _Diet_, yet to a much more _wholsome_ and _temperate_
than is now in Fashion: And what if they find me like to some who are
eager after _Hunting_ and other Field-Sports, which are _Laborious_
Exercises? and _Fishing_, which is indeed a _Lazy_ one? who, after all
their Pains and Fatigue, never eat what they take and catch in either:
For some such I have known: And tho' I cannot affirm so of my self,
(when a well drest and excellent _Sallet_ is before me) I am yet a very
moderate Eater of them. So as to this _Book-Luxury_, I can affirm, and
that truly what the _Poet_ says of himself (on a less innocent Occasion)
_Lasciva pagina, vita proba._ God forbid, that after all I have advanc'd
in Praise of _Sallets_, I should be thought to plead for the Vice I
censure, and chuse that of _Epicurus_ for my _Lemma_; _In hac arte
consenui_; or to have spent my time in nothing else. The _Plan_ annext
to these Papers, and the _Apparatus_ made to superstruct upon it, would
acquit me of having bent all my Contemplations on _Sallets_ only. What
I humbly offer Your Lordship, is (as I said) Part of _Natural History_,
the Product of _Horticulture_, and the _Field_, dignified by the most
illustrious, and sometimes tilled _Laureato Vomere_; which, as it
concerns a Part of _Philosophy_, I may (without Vanity) be allow'd to
have taken some Pains in Cultivating, as an inferior Member of the
_Royal Society_.

But, _My Lord_, wilst You read on (if at least You vouchsafe me that
Honor to read at all) I am conscious I rob the Publick of its most
Precious Moments.

I therefore Humbly again Implore Your Lordship's Pardon: Nor indeed
needed I to have said half this, to kindle in Your Breast, that which is
already shining there (Your Lordship's Esteem of the _Royal Society_)
after what You were pleas'd to Express in such an Obliging manner, when
it was lately to wait upon Your Lordship; among whom I had the Honor
to be a Witness of Your Generous, and Favourable Acceptance of their
Addresses, who am,

_My