Languages & literature > Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane > Volume 1

[ iii ]
THE
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION.
AS there are fome people who cannot read
without .making applications of the vicious
and ludicrous characters they meet with in
works of this kind, I declare to thefe mifchievous
readers that they will be to bjame, if they apply
any of the pidures drawn in this book. I pub¬
licly own, that my purpofe is to reprefent life as
we find it: but God forbid that I fliould under¬
take to delineate any man in particular! Let no
reader, therefore, aflame to himfelf that "which
properly belongs to others, left, as Phaedrus ob-
ferves, he make an unlucky difcovery of his own
charader. Stulte nudabU animi confcientiam.
There are phyficians in Caftile, as well as in
fr&ufce, whole pradice conflds in evacuating
their patients a little too much; and the fame
vices and peculiarities of difpofition are to be
feen every where. I confefs that 1 have not al¬
ways exadly obferved the manners ef the Spani¬
ards; and thofe w ho are acquainted wdth the dif-
orderly lives of the players at Madrid, may re-
T°l. I. a proach