To the Reader
Courteous Reader,
This small Treatise which I here present unto thee is the fruit of some spare hours, that my cogitations, after they had been for a small time, between whiles, hovering to and fro in the Air, came fluttring down again, still pitching upon the subject of the Ten Pleasures of Marriage, in each of which I hope thou wilt find somthing worthy of thy acceptance, because I am sure ’tis matter of such nature as hath never before been extant, and especially in such a method; neither canst thou well expect it to be drest up in any thing of nice and neat words, as other subjects may be, but only to be clad in plain habit most fit for the humour of the Fancy. If I perceive that it please thee, and is not roughly or unkindly dealt withall; nor brain’d in the Nativity, to spoil its generation of a further product, it will incourage me to proceed upon a second part, some say of the same Tune, but I mean to the same Purpose, and apparelled very near the same dress: In the mean time, with hopes that thou wilt be kind to this, and give it a gentle reception, from him who is thine. Farewell.