The extract starts with a metaphor that compares the work of author to the work of master of an ordinary.

In narrator’s opinion, the author should explain what are his intentions to each volume. It would allow the reader to decide to read that book or not.

Moreover the narrator underlines that, even if all books analyse the human nature, it is important to notice the way they analyse such argument.

To conclude the narrator writes ”having premised thus much, we will now detain those who like our bill of fare no longer from their diet, and shall proceed directly to serve up the first course of our history for their entertainment”. So the extract is an introduction of the work and of the author’s point of view.