The countrey-mans rudiments, or, An advice to the farmers in East-Lothian, how to labour and improve their ground

To the Reader.

CUstom hath decreed, that any Treatise, how small and trivial so ever, is not worth a Far∣thing, if it want a Preface and Dedication, tho' the Author should know nothing to say for himself, save to Deprecat the Readers Wrath, and beg his Mercy.

I fear this will not serve my turn, for these brave and gallant Sparks, to whom I have Dedicated this Shedule, will stop their Ears and Cry: They are the melancholy Fancies of some old Casheired Courtier: The present Court-Favorits will laugh at me, and think they know better things: The Soldier will car∣till me, and plunder me too, if he can: The Hus∣band man will Curse me for doubling their Labours: The Land-lords will maligne me for favouring, the Yeomanrie so much: The Lawyers will revile me as an ignorant enemie to their Imployment: The Gram∣merians will rail at me for breaking Prissians head so often: The Rhetoricians will redicule my homely Stile; And above all, the Poets will insult over me, for invading their Province with my barbarous paltry inconsistant Rhyme.

In short, there are many more whom I will not name, who will give me no thanks for my pains, and no doubt Phisiologists, Logicians and Sophisters will consult how to destroy all my arguing by their Sylogisti∣cal Sophismes.

But for the veracitie of the thing it self, and my integrity in the design, I give them all a fair Defi∣ance▪

for the seat of Truth is in the Heart▪ not in the Tongue-neither imports it how we tell Truth, since falshood only wants Eloquence.

Euripides cals Truth plain and simple, and Theo∣phrastus says▪ the most ignorant are very well able to speak before the most learned, when they say nothing but what is true and reasonable; Therefore to speak Jntelligibly not Rhetorically, to intend the truth of the Matter not the Ornament of the Language, is the duty of every plain, honest ingenuous man.

I know the Style and Rhyme, is indeed as rude and unpolite. as the most censuring can call it; but the subject Matteris Excellent, Profitable, and National.

A pretty man is nothing the worse of being cloa∣thed in a homely Dress, and I think the Plowman hath as good a Priviledge to coin words as the most learned Philosophers. and the one is as good and signi∣ficant as the other.

To conclude Tho. the Poesy take not with the more delicate & refined Spirits yet it will go very well down with the Shearers in a Harvest day, or with the whistling Plowman at his Plow, and I think it may answer well enough to the tune of Down the Burn Davie, with small reduplication. To the carping and Satyrical Critick, I only say,

Carpere vel noli mea vel ede tua. Qui Moevium non odit amet tua carmina Loeli.

Your humble Servitor, A, B, C,