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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419152" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>To The Reader</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The title page will show, if there thou look,<br>Who are the proper subjects of this book.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They're boys and girls of all sorts and degrees,<br>From those of age to children on the knees.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus comprehensive am I in my notions,<br>They tempt me to it by their childish motions.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We now have boys with beards, and girls that be<br>Big[8]as old women, wanting gravity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then do not blame me, 'cause I thus describe them.<br>Flatter I may not, lest thereby I bribe them</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To have a better judgment of themselves,<br>Than wise men have of babies on their shelves.[9]</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their antic tricks, fantastic modes, and way,<br>Show they, like very boys and girls, do play</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With all the frantic fopperies of this age,<br>And that in open view, as on a stage;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our bearded men do act like beardless boys;<br>Our women please themselves with childish toys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our ministers, long time, by word and pen,<br>Dealt with them, counting them not boys, but men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thunderbolts they shot at them and their toys,<br>But hit them not, 'cause they were girls and boys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The better charg'd, the wider still they shot,<br>Or else so high, these dwarfs they touched not.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Instead of men, they found them girls and boys,<br>Addict to nothing as to childish toys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wherefore, good reader, that I save them may,<br>I now with them the very dotterel[10] play;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And since at gravity they make a tush,<br>My very beard I cast behind a bush;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And like a fool stand fing'ring of their toys,<br>And all to show them they are girls and boys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor do I blush, although I think some may<br>Call me a baby, 'cause I with them play.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I do't to show them how each fingle-fangle<br>On which they doting are, their souls entangle,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As with a web, a trap, a gin, or snare;<br>And will destroy them, have they not a care.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Paul seemed to play the fool, that he might gain<br>Those that were fools indeed, if not in grain;[11]</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And did it by their things, that they might know<br>Their emptiness, and might be brought unto</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What would them save from sin and vanity,<br>A noble act, and full of honesty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet he nor I would like them be in vice,<br>While by their playthings I would them entice,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To mount their thoughts from what are childish toys,<br>To heaven, for that's prepared for girls and boys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor do I so confine myself to these,<br>As to shun graver things; I seek to please</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those more compos'd with better things than toys;<br>Though thus I would be catching girls and boys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wherefore, if men have now a mind to look,<br>Perhaps their graver fancies may be took</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With what is here, though but in homely rhymes:<br>But he who pleases all must rise betimes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some, I persuade me, will be finding fault,<br>Concluding, here I trip, and there I halt:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No doubt some could those grovelling notions raise<br>By fine-spun terms, that challenge might the bays.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But should all men be forc'd to lay aside<br>Their brains that cannot regulate the tide</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By this or that man's fancy, we should have<br>The wise unto the fool become a slave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What though my text seems mean, my morals be<br>Grave, as if fetch'd from a sublimer tree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And if some better handle[12] can a fly,<br>Than some a text, why should we then deny</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their making proof, or good experiment,<br>Of smallest things, great mischiefs to prevent?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wise Solomon did fools to piss-ants[13] send,<br>To learn true wisdom, and their lies to mend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, God by swallows, cuckoos, and the ass,[14]<br>Shows they are fools who let that season pass,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which he put in their hand, that to obtain<br>Which is both present and eternal gain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I think the wiser sort my rhymes may slight,<br>But what care I, the foolish will delight</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To read them, and the foolish God has chose,<br>And doth by foolish things their minds compose,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And settle upon that which is divine;<br>Great things, by little ones, are made to shine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I could, were I so pleas'd, use higher strains:<br>And for applause on tenters[15] stretch my brains.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But what needs that? the arrow, out of sight,<br>Does not the sleeper, nor the watchman fright;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To shoot too high doth but make children gaze,<br>'Tis that which hits the man doth him amaze.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And for the inconsiderableness<br>Of things, by which I do my mind express,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">May I by them bring some good thing to pass,<br>As Samson, with the jawbone of an ass;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or as brave Shamgar, with his ox's goad<br>(Both being things not manly, nor for war in mode),</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have my end, though I myself expose<br>To scorn; God will have glory in the close.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Bunyan">John Bunyan</a><div class=q>
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Who are the proper subjects of this book.

They're boys and girls of all sorts and degrees,
From those of age to children on the knees.

Thus comprehensive am I in my notions,
They tempt me to it by th..."></div>
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