To prevent, therefore, all future misprisions, I
have compiled this true discourse. Envy hath taxed me to have writ
too much, and done too little; but that such should know how little,
I esteem them, I have writ this more for the satisfaction of my
friends, and all generous and well-disposed readers: To speak only of
myself were intolerable ingratitude: because, having had many
co-partners with me, I cannot make a Monument for myself, and leave
them unburied in the fields, whose lives begot me the title of
Soldier, for as they were companions with me in my dangers, so shall
they be partakers with me in this Tombe." In the same dedication he
spoke of his "Sea Grammar" caused to be printed by his worthy friend
Sir Samuel Saltonstall.
This volume, like all others Smith published, is accompanied by a
great number of swollen panegyrics in verse, showing that the writers
had been favored with the perusal of the volume before it was
published. Valor, piety, virtue, learning, wit, are by them ascribed
to the "great Smith," who is easily the wonder and paragon of his.
age. All of them are stuffed with the affected conceits fashionable
at the time.
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