DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

...a fixed motto, or an interjected symbol for a ruminating memory. For no stanza of the entire hymnody, if I am not mistaken, falls under the eye of the Reader which does not reveal—in the World, that is, the Emporium of Vanity—the highly deceptive strophes that are put up for sale at a high price, and sometimes at the risk of name and character; And, which is the unique scope of its institute and the present game, it teaches the wise to avoid, if not entirely to flee, the enticing machinations of snares.

And this is, moreover, the second motive for publishing the Vertumnus under the patronage of Your Paternity, as a prototype of the protected Youth, or certainly as an encomiast of Your virtues. For nothing was ever more important to You (and not only contemporaries, but also, if one may apply this phrase, fellow-sucklings of Religion, will not easily disapprove the testimony)—nothing, I say, was more important to You than to care most intensely, for the sake of the holy zeal of the Institute, for the benefits of both letters and more polished morals in Adolescents who are in any way subordinate to moderation: Lest, by enticing Vanity...