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To the Reader.
IT is a common Proverb, Dogs bark more for Cu∣stom, than Fierceness. And had I not assuredly known this Whelp, Lilly, to be one of that bawling Litter, I should not have suffered his perpetual snarl∣ing with that Patience and Temper I did; but before this, would have alighted from my Saddle, to hurle him one stone (at the least) to gnaw on. But, as he is now grown bolder, and blacker in the jaws, I must begin to have an Eye over him, and a care to keep him at a distance, lest he bite me till I bleed, and thereby I become maniaque, or Brain-sick like himself, and so be more desirous of his Liver than his Heart. I shall scorn to take notice of his former Grinnings; nor will I trouble my self, or the Reader, with any repetition of his by∣past Fooleries, frantick Expressions, and but a few, (if any) of his many Errors and Mistakes, so grosly committed, in every of his Lowzy-Pamphlets (for them (indeed) I have tyed and twitch'd up together in a Pack-thread, as thinking them fitter for his Quon∣dam Hell, than the meanest Shelf in my Study) but I will content my self only with that dainty bit, this sweet Brat of his own begetting, Merlini Anglici Ephe∣meris, the fourth (and perhaps the last) of that name: And examine I shall, and that strictly, of what metal it is compounded, or whether it be simple (like the Dad of it) and the truth you have freely, as followeth.