them well
consider what they do before they, produce it to the light who hastens
them? My book is always the same, saving that upon every new edition
(that the buyer may not go away quite empty) I take the liberty to add
(as 'tis but an ill jointed marqueterie) some supernumerary emblem; it is
but overweight, that does not disfigure the primitive form of the essays,
but, by a little artful subtlety, gives a kind of particular value to
every one of those that follow. Thence, however, will easily happen some
transposition of chronology, my stories taking place according to their
opportuneness, not always according to their age.

Secondly, because as to what concerns myself, I fear to lose by change:
my understanding does not always go forward, it goes backward too. I do
not much less suspect my fancies for being the second or the third, than
for being the first, or present, or past; we often correct ourselves as
foolishly as we do others. I am grown older by a great many years since
my first publications, which were in the year 1580; but I very much doubt
whether I am grown an inch the wiser. I now, and I anon, are two several
persons; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were a fine thing to
be old, if we only travelled towards improvement; but 'tis a drunken,
stumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that of reeds, which the air
casually waves to and fro at pleasure. Antiochus had in his youth
strongly written in favour of the Academy; in his old age he wrote as
much against it; would not, which of these two soever I should follow, be
still Antiochus? After having established the uncertainty, to go about
to establish the certainty of human opinions, was it not to establish
doubt, and not certainty, and to promise, that had he had yet another age
to live, he would be always upon terms of altering his judgment, not so
much for the better, as for something else?

The public favour has given me a little more confidence than I expected;
but what I 'most fear is, lest I should glut the world with my writings;
I had rather, of the two, pique my reader than tire him, as a learned man
of my time has done. Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom,
or upon what account it will; yet ought a man to understand why he is
commended, that he may know how to keep up the same reputation still:
imperfections themselves may get commendation. The vulgar and common
estimation is seldom happy in hitting; and I am much mis