You are a person of great
reading, yet I well know you never found the least trace thereof in any
author yet extant.
In composing, contriving, ordering, and framing thereof (viz. the first
part) a great part of that year was spent. I again perused all, or most,
authors I had, sometimes adding, at other times diminishing, until at
last I thought it worthy of the press. When I came to frame the second
part thereof, having formerly collected out of many manuscripts, and
exchanged rules with the most able professors I had acquaintance with,
in transcribing those papers for impression, I found, upon a strict
inquisition, those rules were, for the most part, defective; so that
once more I had now a difficult labour to correct their deficiency, to
new rectify them according to art; and lastly, considering the
multiplicity of daily questions propounded unto me, it was as hard a
labour as might be to transcribe the papers themselves with my own hand.
The desire I had to benefit posterity and my country, at last overcame
all difficulties; so that what I could not do in one year, I perfected
early the next year, 1647; and then in that year, viz.
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