Page:Petty 1660 Reflections.djvu/24

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nothing can be more miserable: So that I have been, by medling with the first publick business, like that unhappy Bird, which, setting one foot upon the Lime-twig, inviscates the other, by vain endeavour to get the first clear, and then it's Wings, Beak, &c. till at length it have no means left to free it self at all.

These Præliminaries thus dispatcht, and my Charge being concerning the Cozenages of Mony, Land, and Records, you will now ask me first, how I came by the mony I am rumored to have; viz.

horum Irritamenta malorum.

I will tell you: 1. By doing a Work in one year, thought by Ephesian Demetrius himself the work of seven.

2. By doing it a rate not half so great as was immediately before given.

3. According to a Contract four moneths in forging and filing by all that would please to busie themselves about it, and secured (as to its performance) more than ever any was before.

4. By doing the undertaken Work so well, as that no conviction of Error hath been made by all the envious querulous eyes that have since reviewed it, nor