The dedication to the Bakers, Smiths, Millers, and other Readers.
You are presented here with a Choice Banquet of delightful Tales, pleasant Stories, witty Jests, and merry Songs to divert the young Men and Maids when they come to the Bake-house, Forge or Mill; and by these you may encrease your Trade and call Customers to you: for be sure the Merry Lasses will go where they can be furnished with Tales, Stories and Jests; therefore these are as necessary for you as a fair Wife for a fine Tavern, a young Hostess for an old Inn, or a Gazet for a Coffee-House. It is fitted for all manner of Persons, therefore I hope you will all furnish your selves with it; for it will be a rare Companion for Old and Young upon many Occasions; especially at Christmas, Easter, VVhitsontide, or long winter Evenings over a Cup of Nut-brown-Ale and Lambs-wool. In a word, you will find it as comfortable as Matrimony, or as sweet as a Maiden-head at midnight, or Sack-Posset at the end of a Fire, what would you have more, the young Men and Maids may laugh till their Lungs ake, and the old and melancholy, will find Dr. Merryman the best Physitian. Farewel.
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