ABSTRACT
IT is a Custom very agreeable with good Manners, and I believe no where more confirmed by frequent Practice than among yourselves, for Friends that meet together after a long Absence to embrace with a more ardent Affection, and address one another with a more liberal Conversation. In compliance with which Custom to Day, if Nature had bestowed, or Art procured for me but a moderate Faculty of speaking, I confess indeed very many Things might be pertinently urged. For I am pushed on with the truest Incentives of a most hearty Affection, and instructed with the most splendid as well as copious Argument of Speech, to return due Thanks for your singular Benevolence experienced upon myself, to set forth your diligent Study bestowed upon the liberal Sciences, and to applaud and congratulate your Patience such as is becoming Philosophers. But since both my own Disposition is very unmeet and averse to Oratory, as well as in some Measure the Reason of my Office; and since you yourselves, I imagine, do not come hither to have your Ears tickled with rhetorical Compliments, but to compose your Minds to the Severity of Philosophy; not so much desiring to hear Speeches made to you, as to have the Science of Things explained to you: I will therefore restrain my Tongue from breaking out into pathetical Excursions; and wholly omit every kind of Preface. Only give me leave, most courteous Auditors, officiously to embrace you with the Arms of Gratitude and Benevolence, heartily wishing you all Health, and praying that our meeting together again may be delightful and auspicious. And so, without more ado, I apply myself to the Work of my Office, proposing now to pursue what I left the last Term, and endeavour to finish what was then begun.
