DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

...Provost: Surely so that in You, always and everywhere, the Adolescents might have a Curator of their culture: just as Vanity would have a Promoter of its own destruction: Because from the administration of a repeated Office you have obtained the abundance to provide suitable instructors for the establishment of the same virtue, arts, and morals.

But I fear, nonetheless, that the pen, by pursuing such decorations further, might suffuse Your modesty with a blush; nor should anyone suspect that I am uncovering these same things with the touch of affectation, which my filial affection, the sincere interpreter of my soul, has dictated; although it brings forth nothing but what the Matter itself proclaims openly. I was trying, above all, to build faith that the Odarium Vanitatis Song of Vanity, as a pious matter and one prepared very similarly to a sacred thing for the greatest caution of youth, should have been inscribed to no one more conveniently than to You, a most pious Father: Lest I wander in vain outside, searching for a Defender, whom I shall easily find, in a certain way, within domestic walls. Especially when such a doubt beats against my thoughts; Whether, unless the Vertumnus were committed to Your protection...