RECOMMENDATORY

PREFACE.

IN

N an age of uncommon diffipation and levity, and in which every expedient is invented, that can vitiate the mind, and corrupt the heart; the REAL CHRISTIAN and TRUE PATRIOT fhould lofe no opportunity to make an humble and bold attempt to stop the current of vice, which must be attended with the most fatal effects. " Rari quippe "boni:" the good are fcarce and few: but however, it ill becomes them to be idle in the beft caufe; while thofe of an oppofite character are fo refolute, industrious, and perfevering, in the worst.

THE pious education of youth is an object of the utmost importance to the fafety, the peace, and profperity of the commonwealth. One of the ftatutes. of Henry IV. of France begins thus: "The hap"piness of kingdoms and people, and efpecially of "a christian state, depends upon the good educa-"tion of youth: whereby the minds of the crude

and unfkilful are civilized and fashioned; and "fuch as would otherwise be useless, and of no va❝lue, are qualified to discharge the feveral offices of "the ftate with ability and fuccefs: by that they

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"are taught their inviolable duties to God, their parents, and their country, with the respect and "obedience which they owe to kings and magif"trates."

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WHATEVER can tend to produce fuch happy effects as these, and to correct that strong inclination to ill which is fo deeply rooted in young people, and which will never want the fanction of example, comes a public good, and ought to meet with public encouragement. So fays unfeigned zeal for religion, and genuine love for our country.

UPON this prefumption, it is hoped that QUARLES'S EMBLEMS will meet with that reception which the merit and utility of fuch an original work demands: and which is not only calculated to convey the most important leffons of inftruction into youthful minds, but to convey them in the most pleasant and entertaining manner; by hieroglyphics, or figurative figns and fymbols of divine, facred, and supernatural things by which mode of communicating knowledge, the fancy is charmed, the invention is exercifed, the mind informed, and the heart improved. "Labor ipfe voluptas.”

THE peculiar excellency of this publication, which is now become fo fcarce as with difficulty to be purchased at all; a fair and elegant copy of which is promised us by the editor at a vaft expence; is, that it contains a fort of wisdom in which young and old, learned and unlearned, are equally concerned; and without which, the greatest philofopher

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is an arrant fool. For, however highly we may esteem human arts and sciences in their proper place, it will ever be true, that "the wifdom of this "world is foolishness with God."

VARIOUS and elaborate means are pursued, in order to furnish the minds of our youth with fabulous knowledge, and to fill them with the frivolous tales of heathenish fcience; the very perfection of which deferves but little, if any praife. And it is, no doubt, a fad proof of univerfal degeneracy, that the Metamorphofes of an Ovid are preferred, in our schools, to the facred Realities of Mofes and the Prophets; and a young perfon is taught to be as much affected with the recital of the dismal fate of Phaëton's fifters, as by that of Ifaac, or of a greater than Ifaac, when offered up a facrifice to the God of heaven.

LET us, however, hope for better times and better things when every human fcience fhall be made fubfervient to divine; when the invaluable knowledge of the facred writings" fhall have its due place and due honor; and when QUARLES'S EMBLEMS fhall, at least, be preferred to the comparative nonfenfe of the Pantheon and Oyid's Epiftles.

Lower Grofvenor Place.

C. DE COETLOGON.

To my much honoured, and no less truly beloved Friend,

EDWARD BENLOWES, ESQ

My dear Friend,

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OU have put the theorbo into my hand, and I have played: you gave the musician the first encouragement; the mufic returneth to you for patronage. Had it been a light air, no doubt but it had taken the most, and, among them, the worst, but being a grave ftrain, my hopes are, that it will please the best, and, among them, you. Toyifh airs please trivial ears; they kifs the fancy, and betray it. They cry Hail, first; and after, Crucify let daws delight to immerd themselves in dung, whilft eagles fcorn fo poor a game as flies. Sir, you have art and candour; let the one judge, let the other excufe

Your most affectionate Friend,

FRA. QUARLES

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