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Stile as possible,
which on this Occasion I take to be the best: For since the Instruction of
Mankind ought to be the principal Drift of all Writers (of History
especially); whoever writes to the Capacity of most Readers, in my
Opinion most fully answers the End.
I am not ignorant, how tiresome and difficult a Piece of Work it is to
translate, nor how little valued in the World. My Experience has
convinced me, that 'tis more troublesome and teazing than to write and
invent at once. The Idiom of the Language out of which one translates,
runs so in the Head, that 'tis next to impossible not to fall frequently
into it. And the more bald and incorrect the Stile of the Original is, the
more shall that of the Translation be so too. Many of the Quotations in
this Book are drawn from Priests, Monks, Friars, and Civil Lawyers,
who minded more, in those barbarous Ages, the Substance than the
Stile of their Writings: And I hope those Considerations may atone for
several Faults, which might be found in my Share of this Work.
But I desire not to be misunderstood, as if (whilst I am craving Favour
for my self) I were making any Apology for such a Number of
mercenary Scribblers, Animadverters, and Translators, as pester us in
this Age; who generally spoil the good Books which fall into their
Hands, and hinder others from obliging the Publick, who otherwise
would do it to greater Advantage.
I take this Author to be one of those few, that has had the good Luck to
escape them; and I make use of this Occasion to declare, that the chief

Motive which induces me to send abroad this small Treatise, is a
sincere desire of instructing the only Possessors of true Liberty in the
World, what Right and Title that have to that Liberty; of what a great
Value it is; what Misery follows the Loss of it; how easily, if Care be
taken in time, it may be preserv'd: And if this either opens the Eyes, or
confirms the honourable Resolutions of any of my worthy Countrymen,
I have gained a glorious End; and done that in my Study, which I
shou'd have promoted any other way, had I been called to it. I hope to
die with the Comfort of believing, that Old England will continue to be
a free Country, and know itself to be such; that my Friends, Relations
and Children, with their Posterity, will inherit their Share of this
inestimable Blessing, and that I have contributed my Part to it.
But there is one very great Discouragement under which both I, and all
other Writers and Translators of Books tending to the acquiring or
preserving the publick Liberty, do lie; and that is, the heavy Calumny
thrown upon us, that we are all Commonwealth's-Men: Which (in the
ordinary Meaning of the Word) amounts to Haters of Kingly
Government; now without broad, malicious Insinuations, that we are no
great Friends of the present.
Indeed were the Laity of our Nation (as too many of our Clergy
unhappily are) to be guided by the Sense of one of our Universities,
solemnly and publickly declared by the burning of Twenty seven
Propositions (some of them deserving that Censure, but others being
the very Foundation of all our Civil Rights;) I, and many like me,
would appear to be very much in the wrong. But since the Revolution in
Eighty-eight, that we stand upon another and a better Bottom, tho no
other than our own old one, 'tis time that our Notions should be suited
to our Constitution. And truly, as Matters stand, I have often wondred,
either how so many of our Gentlemen, educated under such Prejudices,
shou'd retain any Sense at all of Liberty, for _the hardest Lesson is to
unlearn_; [Footnote: St. Chrysostom] or how an Education so
diametrically opposite to our Bill of Rights, shou'd be so long
encouraged.
Methinks a Civil Test might be contrived, and prove very convenient to

distinguish those that own the Revolution Principles, from such as
Tooth and Nail oppose them; and at the same time do fatally propagate
Doctrines, which lay too heavy a Load upon Christianity it self, and
make us prove our own Executioners.
The Names of Whig and Tory will, I am afraid, last as long among us,
as those of Guelf and Ghibelline did in Italy. I am sorry for it: but to
some they become necessary for Distinction Sake; not so much for the
Principles formerly adapted to each Name, as for particular and worse
Reasons. For there has been such chopping and changing both of
Names and Principles, that we scarce know who is who. I think it
therefore necessary, in order to