Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble tend?

For so much as you, my good disciples, and some other jolly fools of ease

and leisure, reading the pleasant titles of some books of our invention, as

Gargantua, Pantagruel, Whippot (Fessepinte.), the Dignity of Codpieces, of

Pease and Bacon with a Commentary, &c., are too ready to judge that there

is nothing in them but jests, mockeries, lascivious discourse, and

recreative lies; because the outside (which is the title) is usually,

without any farther inquiry, entertained with scoffing and derision. But

truly it is very unbeseeming to make so slight account of the works of men,

seeing yourselves avouch that it is not the habit makes the monk, many

being monasterially accoutred, who inwardly are nothing less than monachal,

and that there are of those that wear Spanish capes, who have but little of

the valour of Spaniards in them. Therefore is it, that you must open the

book, and seriously consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall you

find that it containeth things of far higher value than the box did

promise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so foolish as by

the title at the first sight it would appear to be.

¶ 6:26 PM