Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/16

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The P R E F A C E.


them, the Book muſt Stand or Fall to it ſelf: But this I ſhall Adventure to Pronounce upon the whole Matter, that the Text is Engliſh, and the Morals, in ſome ſort, Accommodate to the Allegory; which could hardly be ſaid of All the Tranſlations, or Reflexions before-mention'd, which have ſerv'd, in truth (or at leaſt ſome of them) rather to teach us what we ſhould Not do, then what we ſhould. So that in the Publiſhing of theſe Papers, I have done my Beſt to Obviate a Common Inconvenience, or, to ſpeak Plainly, the Mortal Error of pretending to Erect a Building upon a Falſe Foundation: Leaving the whole World to take the ſame Freedom with Me, that I have done with Others: Provided that they do not Impute the Faults, and the Miſ-Pointings of the Preſs, to the Author, and that they Conſult the Errata for other Miſtakes.