Bathe, fairely-built, throughout the World is knowne For her most wholesome strength-repayring Springs, But she which hath so strange effects oft showne, With ill successe did lend her Founder wings: Poore worme-like creeping men she might restore, Ne'er make them borne to goe, like Birds to soare. Bristow, the Marchants Magazin, enclos'd Old Winchester, the auncient seate of Kings, Where worthy Wicchams children now mainetaine Oxford by Isis Crystall streames confin'd, As that true Ensigne of th' Almighties Loue, To wonder at such strange varietie : Rain-bow-resembling London, Englands Blisse, The Heau'ns great Mercy, and Earths Maruell is. TO THE READER. READER: Ir thy Patience be not too much discouraged, adventure on the little Commonweale of my poore thoughts. I euer rather admired then professed Poetry, the necessitie of my Studies, to which a higher direction then mine owne choyse hath appointed mee, forbidding the one, and that delight, which beyond ordinary content receiued in all sorts of Learning, hath beene presented to me in this, occasioning the other: yet haue I, as my leasure gaue me leaye, taken to myselfe in this idlenesse, that reliefe, which in other varietie most doe thinke they may justly vse. I know some whose credit hath challenged respect exceeding strong in preiudice against the composing and reading such trifles, yet the excellency of diuers in this kinde commended by others, whom I haue no warrant to distrust, makes my small experience thinke, that G some Muses, like Silke-wormes, spinne a fine threed for necessary vse, as many like Spiders curious webs for vnprofitable admiration. His censure who affirmed the reading of Amadis du Gaule as dangerous to youth, as of Macciauel pernitious to old men, was, as the Author, truly generous; yet I presume it extends not to all which without proclaiming title to wisdome and judgement, seeme rais'd or fashioned by imagination. There is, who hath vndertaken to illustrate by places of the Arcadia, all the points of the Art of speaking: I will adde (which is as much as Achilles his Father desired Chiron should teach his Sonne) hee is rude that cannot discerne, or exceeding austere that scornes to obserue therein, worthie behaviour and carriage both in priuate and common businesse: And one as vnderstanding in the Pollicie of Letters and Peace, as La Noue was experienced in the Discipline of Armes, and a troubled State, by exquisite vnfolding of some fabulous Stories, makes it plaine, that the Cesternes of these times, deriue the fulnes of their wisdome, by no other conueyance then such narrations, from the purer springs of all antiquitie. To whom he had yeelded his assent; who, imploying his faithfull labours in teaching |