xciv TO THE READER 



a Work worthy of Immortality} had long since given Hostages 

 to Fortune, and so put my self out of a Capacity of shewing 

 my Affection to a 'Design so glorious ; I would not only 

 most chearfully have contributed towards the freeing it from 

 the Straits it has so long struggl'd under ; but sacrificed all 

 my Secular Interests in their Service : But, as I said, this is 

 reserv'd for that Gallant Hero (whoe'er it be) that truly 

 weighing the noble and universal Consequence of so high an 

 Enterprize, shall at last free it of these T^eproaches ; and either 

 set it above the reach of Envy , or convert it to Emulation. 

 This were indeed to consult an honest Fame, and to embalm 

 the Memory of a Greater 3\(ame than any has yet appear' d 

 amongst all the "Benefactors of the 'Disputing Sects : Let it 

 suffice to affirm, that next the Propagation of our most Holy 

 Faith, and its Appendants, (nor can His Majesty or the Ration 

 build their Fame on a more lasting,^ more Glorious Monument ;) 

 The Propagation of Learning, and useful Arts, having always 

 surviv'd the Triumphs of the proudest Conquerors, and Spillers 

 of humane 'Blood ;) Princes have been more Renown d for 

 their Civility to Arts and Letters, than to all their Sanguinary 

 Victories, subduing Provinces, and making those brutish 

 'Desolations in the World, to feed a salvage and vile Ambition. 

 Witness you Great Alexander, and you the Ptolemees, Caesars, 

 Charemain, Francis the First ; the Cosimo's, Frederic s, Alphon- 

 sus's, and the rest of Learned Princes : Since when all the 

 Pomp and Noise is ended ; They are those little things in 

 black (whom now in scorn they term Philosophers and Fopps] 

 to whom they must be oblig'd, for making their Barnes out- 

 last the Pyramids whose Founders are as unknown as the 

 Heads of O^ile ; because they either deserv'd no Memory for 

 their Vertues, or had none to transmit them, or their Actions 

 to Posterity. 



Is not our R. Founder already Panegyrizd by all the 

 Universities, Academists, Learned Persons, divers Princes Am- 



