Prussia, Samogitia, Curland, Liefland, Lituania, &c. also their decay and
finall ouerthrow, partly by the reuolt of diuers Townes and Castles vnder
their iurisdiction, and partly by the meanes of their next mightie
neighbour the King of Poland.

After all these, out of 2. branches of 2. ancient statutes, is partly
shewed our trade and the successe thereof with diuers forren Nations in the
time of K. Henry the sixth.

Then followeth the true processe of English policie, I meane that excellent
and pithy treatise de politia conseruatiua maris: which I cannot to any
thing more fitly compare, then to the Emperour of Russia his palace called
the golden Castle, and described by Richard Chanceller page 264. [Footnote:
_Ibidem_.] of this volume: whereof albeit the outward apparance was
but homely and no whit correspondent to the name, yet was it within so
beautified and adorned with the Emperour his maiesticall presence, with the
honourable and great assembly of his rich-attired Peers and Senatours, with
an inualuable and huge masse of gold and siluer plate, & with other
princely magnificence; that well might the eyes of the beholders be
dazeled, and their cogitations astonished thereat. For indeed the exteriour
habit of this our English politician, to wit, the harsh and vnaffected
stile of his substantiall verses and the olde dialect of his wordes is
such; as the first may seeme to haue bene whistled of Pans oaten pipe, and
the second to haue proceeded from the mother of Euander; but take you off
his vtmost weed, and beholde the comelinesse, beautie, and riches which lie
hid within his inward sense and sentence, and you shall finde (I wisse) so
much true and sound policy, so much delightfull and pertinent history, so
many liuely descriptions of the shipping and wares in his time of all the
nations almost in Christendome, and such a subtile discouery of outlandish
merchants fraud, and of the sophistication of their wares, that needes you