Page:The Art of Distillation, 1651.djvu/10

 To the Reader. old at uch a high rate) I thought I could doe them no better ervice then to preent them with uch a treatie of that ubject, which hould contain in it the choiet preparations of the electet Authors both ancient, and which I have attained by my own long, and manuall experience, together with uch as I have by way of exchange purchaed out of the hands of private men, which they had monopolized as great ecrets. But on the other hand when I conidered what a multitude of Artits there are in this Nation, from many of which more and better things might be expected then from my elf, I was at a nonplus in my reolutions, fearing it might be accounted an unpardonable preumption in me to undertake that which might be better performed by others. But for the avoiding of this aperion, be pleaed to undertand that I preent not this to the world under any other notion then of a rough draught (which indeed is the worke of the more unskillfull, and therefore of my elfe, without exception) to be polihed by the more