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BE thou either Friend or Foe or indifferent, all's one, Read, Laugh, like or dislike all the care is taken: The chiefest cause why I wrote this, was on set purpose to please myselfe. Yet to shew thee the meaning of this little building, imagine the Epistle to be the doore, and if thou please come in and see what stuffe the wh•••••• Frame is made off. Bee it therefore knownne vnto all men that I, Iohn Taylor Waterman••
••••••agree with William Fennor, (who arrogantly and falsely entitles himselfe the Kings Mas•• ••••••Riming Poet) to answer me at a triall of Wit, on the seuenth of October last 1614 •••••• the Hope stage on the Bank-side, and the said Fennor receiued of mee ten shillings in •••••• of his comming to meet me, whereupon I caused 1000 bills to be Printed, and diuulg'd ••••••1000 wayes and more, giuing my Friends and diuers of my acquaintance notice of •••••• Bear-garden banquet of dainty Conceits; and when the day came that the Play should ••••••haue beene performed, the house being fill'd with a great Audience, who had all spent their mo∣•••••• extraordinarily: then this Companion for an Asse, ran away and left mee for a Foole, amongst thousands of criticall Censurers, where I was ill thought of by my friends, scorned by ••••••, and in conclusion, in a greater puzzell then the blinde Beare in the midst of all her ••••••broth. Besides the summe of twenty pounds in money, I lost my Reputation amongst ••••••, and gaind disgrace in stead of my better expectations. In Reuenge of which wrongs done •••••• me by the said Riming Rascall, I haue written this Inuectiue against him, chiefly be∣cause ill-looking Hound doth not confesse he hath intur'd mee, nor hath not so much honestly •••••• bring or send me my money that he tooke for earnest of me; but on the contrary parts •••••• and abuses mee with his calumnious tongue, and scandalizeth me in all Companies •••••• beares me nominated. But in a word, Reader, when thou hast read this that followes, I thinke thou wilt iudge me cleare of the many false Imputations that are laid vpon mee. So I ••••••thee to thy Considerations, and I proceed to my Exclamations.
Thine as thou art mine, IOHN TAYLOR.