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To the great Variety of
Readers.
 Rom the most able, to him that can but spell: There
you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate
of all Bookes depends vpon your capacities: and not of your heads alone,
but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, & you wil stand for your
priuiledges wee know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That
doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soeuer your
braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not.
Iudge your fixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your fiue shillings worth
at a time, or higher, so you rise to the iust rates, and welcome. But, what
euer you do, Buy. Censure will not driue a Trade, or make the Iacke go. And
though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at
Black-Friers, or the Cock-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie,
know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and stood out all
Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then
any purchas'd Letters of commendation.
It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene
wished, that the Author himselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen
his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by
death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the
office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them; and so
to haue publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diuerse
stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and
stealthes of iniurious imposters, that expos'd them: euen those, are now
offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest,
absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued thé. Who, as he was a
happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and
hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse,
that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not
our prouince, who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him.
It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your diuers capacities,
you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more
lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and
againe: And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest
danger, not to vnderstand him. And so we leaue you to other of his Friends,
whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade
your selues, and others. And such Readers we wish him.
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