GENTLEMEN of the Middle Temple, and to all other courteous Readers,
R.W. wisheth increase of all health, worship, and learning, with
the immortal glory of the graces adorning the same.

Ye may perceive (right Worshipful) in perusing the former epistle sent
to me, how sore I am beset with the importunities of my friends to
publish this pamphlet: truly I am and have been (if there be in me any
soundness of judgment) of this opinion, that whatsoever is committed to
the press is commended to eternity, and it shall stand a lively witness
with our conscience, to our comfort or confusion, in the reckoning of
that great day.

Advisedly, therefore, was that proverb used of our elder philosophers,
_Manum a tabula_: withhold thy hand from the paper, and thy papers from
the print or light of the world: for a lewd word escaped is irrevocable,
but a bad or base discourse published in print is intolerable.

Hereupon I have endured some conflicts between reason and judgment,
whether it were convenient for the commonwealth, with the _indecorum_ of
my calling (as some think it) that the memory of Tancred's tragedy
should be again by my means revived, which the oftener I read over, and
the more I considered thereon, the sooner I was won to consent
thereunto: calling to mind that neither the thrice reverend and learned
father, M. Beza, was ashamed in his younger years to send abroad, in his
own name, his tragedy of "Abraham,"[4] nor that rare Scot (the scholar
of our age) Buchanan, his most pathetical Jephtha.

Indeed I must willingly confess this work simple, and not worth
comparison to any of theirs: for the writers of them were grave men; of
this, young heads: in them is shown the perfection of their studies; in