I am not ignorant, ne unsure, that many there are, before whose sight this Book shall finde small grace, and lesse favour. So hard a thing it is to write or indite and matter, whatsoever it be, that should be able to sustaine and abide the variable judgement, and to obtaine or winne the constant love and allowance of every man, especially if it containe in it any novelty or unwonted strangenesse.—Raynald’s Woman’s Book.

Bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded gentleman.

—A fountain set round with a rim of old, mossy stones, and paved in its bed with a sort of mosaic work of variously-colored pebbles.

—A gatherer and a disposer of other men’s stuff.

A running banquet that hath much variety, but little of a sort.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

There’s no want of meat, sir; portly and curious viands are prepared to please all kinds of appetites.

A dinner of fragments is said often to be the best dinner. So are there few minds but might furnish some instruction and entertainment out of their scraps, their odds and ends of thought. They who cannot weave a uniform web may at least produce a piece of patchwork; which may be useful and not without a charm of its own.

—It is a regular omnibus; there is something in it to everybody’s taste. Those who like fat can have it; so can they who like lean; as well as those who prefer sugar, and those who choose pepper.

Read, and fear not thine own understanding: this book will create a clear one in thee; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou wilt call the price of it a charity to thyself.

In winter you may reade them ad ignem, by the fireside, and in summer ad umbram, under some shadie tree; and therewith passe away the tedious howres.