1. And so, if it please you, let this little book now come to an end, lest, drawn out beyond what is just, it should give offense not only by its own roughness, but also by its excessive length. This indeed I solemnly affirm and beseech of all who may chance to read these things: that whatever they find worthy of reproof in the matters themselves, which have been arranged as best they could be, they ascribe to the fault of my rusticity and graciously pardon me—who, while striving to fulfill the precept of the one commanding, presumed to undertake things even greater than my powers. But those things which they approve as said according to the catholic faith, let them attribute to God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach (James 1:5); and for all these things let them give thanks together with me. 2.
As for the rest, I do not trouble myself over a polished and laboriously refined style; nor am I ashamed if my discourse, which is perhaps approved in its substance, should offend by the roughness of its unadorned speech certain hunters after empty words: for what I have not learned from a teacher by study, that I have not been able to display in speaking. And yet, since a speech deliberately cultivated saps the vigor of the thoughts, and an elaborate brilliance drains away the whole force of what is said, who would not judge that I ought to have despised affectation of composition, even if I had been able to achieve it, like one skilled in speaking? Wherefore that composition seemed to me sufficiently adorned which sets forth the conceptions of the mind with a certain necessary clarity, not which panders to the enticements of the ears.
For that, unless I am mistaken, is judged to be good Latinity which, briefly and plainly—observing only the proper meaning of words in common use—sets forth the matters to be understood; not that which runs riot in the charm and pleasantness of a flowery eloquence and, to prudent men, is not pleasing when bedecked, but rather when forceful: since words were instituted not that things should exist for the sake of words, but words for the sake of expressing things.