Gentlemen, look not here to find any sprigs of Pallas’ bay tree, nor to hear the humor of any amorous laureate, nor the pleasing vein of any eloquent orator:  Nolo altum sapere, they be matters above my capacity:  the cobbler’s check shall never light on my head, Ne sutor ultra crepidam; I will go no further than the latchet, and then all is well.  Here you may perhaps find some leaves of Venus’ myrtle, but hewn down by a soldier with his curtal-axe, not bought with the allurement of a filed tongue.  To be brief, gentlemen, room for a soldier and a sailor, that gives you the fruits of his labors that he wrote in the ocean, when every line was wet with a surge, and every humorous passion counterchecked with a storm.  If you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favor.  But if Momus or any squint-eyed ass, that hath mighty ears to conceive with Midas, and yet little reason to judge; if he come aboard our bark to find fault with the tackling, when he knows not the shrouds, I’ll down into the hold, and fetch out a rusty pole-axe, that saw no sun this seven year, and either well baste him, or heave the coxcomb overboard to feed cods.  But courteous gentlemen, that favor most, backbite none, and pardon what is overslipped, let such come and welcome; I’ll into the steward’s room, and fetch them a can of our best beverage.  Well, gentlemen, you have Euphues’ Legacy.  I fetched it as far as the island of Terceras, and therefore read it; censure with favor, and farewell

Yours, T.L.

ROSALYNDE

There dwelled adjoining to the city of Bordeaux a knight of most honorable parentage, whom fortune had graced with many favors, and nature honored with sundry exquisite qualities, so beautified with the excellence of both, as it was a question whether fortune or nature were more prodigal in deciphering the riches of their bounties.  Wise he was, as holding in his head a supreme conceit of policy, reaching with Nestor into the depth of all civil government; and to make his wisdom more gracious, he had that salem ingenii and pleasant eloquence that was so highly commended in Ulysses:  his valor was no less than his wit, nor the stroke of his lance no less forcible than the sweetness of his tongue was persuasive; for he was for his courage chosen the principal of all the Knights of Malta.  This hardy knight, thus enriched with virtue and honor, surnamed Sir John of Bordeaux, having passed the prime of his youth in sundry battles against the Turks, at last (as the date of time hath his course) grew aged.  His hairs were silver-hued, and the map of age was figured on his forehead:  honor sat in the furrows of his face, and many years were portrayed in his wrinkled lineaments, that all men might perceive his glass was run, and that nature of necessity challenged her due.  Sir John, that with the Phoenix knew the term of his life was now expired, and could, with the swan, discover his end