And therefore it was truly that I thought there was no Person so fit as you, to be the Patron of this ensuing Treatise; wherein I have not only made common to the World the many and different ways of _Breeding_, _Feeding_, and _Fighting_ both of the great, or Game Cock (as we call them) and of the little Match-Cock also, with the several Diseases incident to them, and the most approved Medicines that are now made use of, both to prevent, and cure each Mallady, and that by the ablest Cock-masters at this Day in the known World.
I have also proved Cocking to be both Ancient and Honourable, and to the present Age (if rightly made use of) greatly profitable, and have plainly laid open the Malice and Ignorance of all such as endeavour to villify, and bespatter it, shewing the Weakness of their Arguments, and the true Motives that engage them to speak against Cocking.
And though some may think me too Copious in Etimologizing upon the right end, and use of this most Ancient and Honourable Exercise of Cocking, whilst others no less blame me for exposing to Plebeian view, those Misteries in Breeding, and Dieting, which commonly cost young Gamsters so dear, e’er they arrive at the true knowledge of.
But to pass by such as these, and give the World to understand that I have no other end in Publishing this ensuing Treatise, but meerly, and purely to promote the Noble and most Heroic Exercise of Cocking: And at the same time to acknowledge my self, most Worthy Sir, your Worship’s most Real, and most faithful Friend, and Fellow Cocker
_How happy were those Sons of Men, who in times past were reputed Persons indued with that noble Gift_, aut facere scribenda, aut scribere legenda, _that is, either to do such things as deserved to be writ, or to write that which was worth the reading: Now that this ensuing Treatise is worth the reading, and practising too, notwithstanding the little Esteem and Value, that the present Age affords it, I shall endeavour to prove both from the great Antiquity, and Usefulness of this noble Sport of Cocking: A thing esteem’d so Sacred, and held in such high Veneration amongst the Antients, that, as_ Diodorus Siculus _testifies, the Fighting-Cock was reckon’d one of the principal Gods worshiped by the_ Syrians.