Youth & Beautie; by which severitie they seem cruel as Herod when he surpris'd the sleeping Children of Bethlem: for Youth is so far from wanting Enemies, that it is mortally its own; so unpractis'd, that it is everywhere cosen'd more than a stranger among Jews; & hath an infirmitie of sight more hurtfull than Blindness to Blind men; for though it cannot chuse the way it scorns to be led. And Beautie, though many call themselves her Friends, hath few but such as are false to her: Though the World sets her in a Throne, yet all about her (even her gravest Counsellors) are Traytors, though not in conspiracie, yet in their distinct designs; and to make her certain not onely of distress but ruin, she is ever pursu'd by her most cruel enemie, the great Destroyer, Time. But I will proceed no farther upon old men, nor in recording mistakes; lest finding so many more, than there be Verities, we might believe we walk in as great obscurity as the Egyptians when Darkness was their Plague. Nor will I presume to call the matter of which the Ornaments or Substantial parts of this Poem-are compos'd, Wit; but onely tell you my endeavour was, in bringing Truth (too often absent) home to mens bosoms, to lead her through unfrequented and new ways, and from the most remote Shades; by representing Nature, though not in an affected, yet in an usual dress.
'Tis now fit, after I have given you so long a survay of the Building, to render you some accompt of the Builder, that you may know by what time, pains, and assistants I have proceeded, or may hereafter finish my work: and in this I shall take occasion to accuse, and condemn, as papers unworthy of light, all those hastie digestions of thought which were published in my Youth; a sentence not pronounc'd out of melancholly rigour, but from a cheerfull obedience to the just authoritie, of experience: For that grave Mistress of the World, Experience (in whose profitable School, those before the Floud stay'd long, but we like wanton children come thither late, yet too soon are call'd out of it, and fetch'd home by Death) hath taughtme,
