To the Right Worshipful
SIR HENRY APPLETON, KNIGHT BARONET, ETC.
Noble Sir,
FOR many reasons I am induced to present this Poem to your favourable acceptance; and not the least of them that alternate love and those frequent courtesies which interchangeably passed betwixt yourself and that good old gentleman, mine uncle (Master Edmund Heywood), whom you pleased to grace by the title of father. I must confess I had altogether slept (my weakliness and bashfulness discouraging me) had they not been wakened and animated by that worthy gentleman your friend and my countryman, Sir William Elvish, whom (who for his unmerited love many ways extended towards me,) I much honour; neither, sir, need you to think it any undervaluing of your worth to undertake the patronage of a poem in this nature, since the like hath been done by Roman Lælius, Scipio, Mæcenas, and many other mighty princes and captains; nay, even by Augustus Cæsar himself, concerning whom Ovid is thus read (De Tristi, lib. 2):
Inspice ludorum sumptus, Auguste, tuorum:
Empta tibi magno talia multa leges.
Hæc tu spectasti, spectandaque sæpe dedisti.
Majestas adeo comis ubique tua est.
So highly were they respected in the most flourishing estate of the Roman Empire; and if they have been vilified of late by any separistical humorist (as in the now questioned Histrio-Mastix),[1] I hope by the next term (Minerva assistente) to give such satisfaction to the world, by vindicating many particulars in that work maliciously exploded and condemned, as that no gentleman of quality and judgment but shall therein receive a reasonable satisfaction. I am loth by tediousness to grow troublesome, therefore conclude with a grateful remembrance of my service, intermixed with myriads of zealous wishes for your health of body and peace of mind, with superabundance of earth’s blessings and Heaven’s graces, ever remaining,
Yours most observant,
THOMAS HEYWOOD.