A World of Wonders  

"Nota if any mo'lest mind shall (haply) take offence at some of his (Henri Estiene's) broad speechen, or shall thin ce thai they might haue bin better spared.· I shall desire hiin to consider that it is not so easie a matter to find modest words to expresse immodest things : as himself e sait h Chap, 34. § 2. (quoted on my title page) that he hath but laid forth the Hues of Popish Prelates, as Suetonius is said to haue written the Hues of the Emperours, Eadem libértate qua ipsi vixerunt : and that there is no reason that some should commit their villany with impunity ; and that no man may speake against it with modesty : or that writers should be counted baudy Bales (that is, knaues) for publishing it, they honest men who practise it. As for those wit' foundred and letter-stricken students, 1 mean those cloudy spirits that are so wedded to the Muses, that they become enemies to the Graces, and can relish no discourse except it be full fraught and farced with Ob. and Sol. Videtur quod sic : probatur quod non, &c. Let them (a Gods name) enioy their Dunses and Dorbels, their Banes and Bambres, their Royards and blind bayards : so they measure vs not by their owne meat wand (making their minds the modell for all men) but giue vs leaue to vse our liberty, and to imitate the practise of prudent Physitians, who apply the medicine to the malady, with particular respect of the patients temper ,· not giuing the same potion to a queasie and a Steele stomach. For euery plummet is not for euery sound, nor euery line for euery leuel. All meats are not for euery mans mouth : nor all liquors for euery mans liking. The ignorant multitude and profound Clarks are not to be perswaded with the same arguments. For popular perswanon the learned prise not : and deepe demonstration the simple pierce not. They must also remember what Saint Augustine saith, Vtile est plures libros a pluribus fieri, diuerso stylo, non diuersa fide, etiam de quæstionibus ijsdem, vt ad plurimos res ipsa perueniat, ad alios sic, ad alios autem sic. (De Trink, lib. ï. cap. 3). That is, It is good that many bookes should be written by many men, & that of the same argument, in a different style, but not of a different faith : that so the same truth may be conueyed to many : to some after this manner, to some after that."--cited in Centuria Librorum Absconditorum