The Wise and Ingenious Companion, French and English;: or, A Collection of the Wit of the Illustrious Persons, Both Ancient and Modern

A Prefatory INTRODUCTION; CONCERNING The Excellency, Nature and Use of wise Sayings witty Repartees, Jests, and pleasant Stories.

SEntences, witty Repartees and Jests, have ever been esteem’d by all civilized Nations: The ancient Greeks and Romans have shewn what account they made of them, by their care of Collecting and Quoting them. Julius Cesar made a Collection of the Jests of his Contemporaries; the famous Historian Plutarch is very exact in recording all those of the illustrious Men of whom he writes the Lives: Wherein he has been imitated by Diogenes Laertius, in his lives of the Philosophers; and among the Moderns, my Lord Bacon, Guichardin, and several others have enrich’d their Writings with them.

These Testimonies carry so much weight with them, that we cannot but join our Approbation with that of so many illustrious Persons: The only Question is how to make a good Choice, and not confound true Wit and Sense with abundance of low Thoughts, and dull, and vulgar Jests which are imposed upon the World; and this I have proposed to do in the following Collection.